Charles S. Jackson

ENGLAND EXPECTS

1. Darkening Skies

RAF No. 610 (County of Chester) Squadron

Sussex, England

Saturday

June 29, 1940

Alec Trumbull’s father still called him ‘young man’ whenever he visited, and in truth even he had to admit he didn’t really look a great deal older than he appeared in the pictures his parents kept of his last years at Eton. Trumbull was tall and bordering on ‘too thin’ (according to his mother, at least), although he was relatively fit for all that. His dark, curly hair, if not well groomed and kept regulation-short as it was, would tend to find a style of its own making — a style that might’ve been considered ‘foppish’ by some. At just twenty-six he was also relatively young for a squadron leader.

Trumbull would’ve liked to believe the situation had come about purely as a result of his own endeavour, innate talent and rapier wit. Unfortunately, try as he might, he was forced to admit that other factors had indeed played a greater hand: factors of a far less pleasant or light-hearted nature. As he sat in a folding deck chair outside the entrance flap to the large, army-green tent that served as the squadron briefing room, he cast his eyes around the area in general and gave a snort of derision that held more apprehension than real humour.

Not all that much of a ‘squadron’ though, old chap, he thought to himself with more than a little tired resignation. The open field before him, the closest the RAF could come to anything resembling a forward airfield these days, was the makeshift home for what Trumbull considered an incredibly motley collection of assorted aircraft.

Number 610 was an RAF Auxiliary Squadron originally been formed as a bomber unit at Hooton Park in February of 1936, flying Hawker Harts. The squadron converted to fighters in April of 1938 flying Hawker Hind biplanes, and had received Hurricanes (Britain’s first monoplane fighter in service) prior to the outbreak of war. Squadron 610 was also the first Auxiliary fighter unit to re-equip with the superlative Supermarine Spitfire Mark I, moving to Wittering in October of ’39 flying coastal patrols.

In May of 1940, as the Battle for France raged and the disaster of Dunkirk loomed, the squadron had moved south to Biggin Hill to relieve embattled RAF units of Eleven Group, already in the fray against the Luftwaffe over Britain and in France. France had subsequently fallen, the seemingly-invincible Germans had arrived at the eastern shores of the Channel and the Battle of Britain had begun. The savage intensity of Luftwaffe attacks from the outset against major airfields and sector stations across southern England quickly made Biggin Hill and many others untenable as a permanent bases of operations, and 610Sqn moved to Tangmere for a while. There, much like at Biggin Hill, there’d been billets and messes and full maintenance facilities and, more to the point, a full complement of state-of-the-art fighter aircraft to complement the rest of it. Trumbull had been a relatively inexperienced flight lieutenant then, and that had only been a month or six weeks ago.

The twelve aircraft carefully dispersed at the perimeter of the open fields around him — many of them positioned under or close to tree cover where it was more difficult for a raider to catch them on the ground — did nothing to instil confidence in the young man. The squadron had once flown only the mighty Spitfire — arguably the best single-engined fighter the world had at that point seen.

…And what do we have now…? There were just three ‘Spits’ left — including his own — along with four Hurricanes, three obsolescent Gladiator biplanes and two new ‘prototypes’ from Hawker Aviation, the experimental Typhoons run hurriedly off the production lines and pressed into service due to the severity of the situation at hand. The heavy hitting power of the six machine guns in each of the Typhoon’s wings was more than counterbalanced by some serious design flaws there hadn’t as yet been time to iron out, most notorious of which was an infamously weak tail empennage. As this had an occasional tendency under stress to cause the tail to come completely off, it was needless to say a less than a popular aircraft with most pilots.

The airfield seemed deserted that afternoon, but Trumbull knew that was merely a façade. Should the alarm be raised to a scramble — something that was far from unlikely — pilots and ground crew would appear instantly, pouring out of the multitude of personal and group tents that were scattered about behind the briefing area. They could be in the air within a few moments, and if an attack was inbound and Fighter Command could give them enough warning, that’d be fast enough. But there was a very big ‘if’ in that situation that’d been seen to be less than reliable in the recent past. They’d been hit a number of times already with insufficient warning, and one of those raids had ended up with him receiving his ‘promotion’ to squadron leader. He could still remember the sight of his then commander and good friend literally disintegrating along with his Spitfire as a German bomb struck the taxiing aircraft a direct hit. Only six had managed to get into the air that day, and Squadron Leader Alec Trumbull could think of better ways to gain rank in the Royal Air Force, all things considered.

The sound of a vehicle approaching broke through his introspection for a moment and he turned his head to catch sight of an RAF supply lorry beyond the tent ‘town’, bouncing its way toward him along the dirt road that led back to Westhampnett, the green Bedford ambling along at what couldn’t have been more than five miles an hour in the pilot’s estimation. He recognised Fullarton, one of the base Quartermaster’s staff at the wheel, crouched behind his little windscreen and squinting out through spectacles with small, circular lenses that probably had thicker glass.

The 15cwt truck was standard War Department issue, with a canvas-covered cargo area and a pair of small, individual windscreens and canvas ‘doors’ for the driver and front passenger that had earned the hardy and useful vehicle the nickname of ‘pneumonia wagon’ among the troops. Trumbull checked his watch as others in their tents and around the airfield also heard the Bedford and seemingly appeared out of thin air. He realised it was actually later in the day than he’d originally believed and that the truck was arriving with the afternoon mail run along with other supplies, stores and such.

Many members of the unit were eager to see if there were any letters from home, family and/or loved ones, and Trumbull was no different: still single, Alec was nevertheless concerned for his parents. His father had remained in London, his work in the War Cabinet requiring his presence there, while his mother had moved back out to their family estate in Leicester with his younger brother and sister. Plans were already in the wind for a full-scale relocation to Australia for the duration of the current crisis, although his father would most likely remain in London until the last possible moment should a feared invasion materialise and look likely of being successful.

He knew his lot was no worse than that of any other man under arms or otherwise in Britain at that point: squaring up against the might of the Luftwaffe across the Channel was something that couldn’t be taken lightly even at the best of times.

And one couldn’t call these the best of times, to be certain, he thought darkly to himself as he rose awkwardly from his chair and began to join the small but growing crowd of men making their way to the nearing vehicle. England was in serious danger and it didn’t take any great intelligence to know that. Two or three months ago, the story had been different. The RAF had at that time still possessed the forces necessary to take to the sky against the Luftwaffe with something resembling parity.

“Only four to one…” he remembered Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding say once on a visit to his unit, then at Biggin Hill, and for a while they had risen to the call, meeting and exceeding those ratios in enemy aircraft shot down. But that’d been some time ago, now. As he walked toward that truck, a cold and biting wind cutting through the grey overcoat he wore over his fight suit, Tangmere lay in ruins and most of the airfields they’d used since were no better. Relentless, almost daily attacks by the Luftwaffe had continued without respite and the subsequent strain on men and materiel was quickly becoming more than the RAF could endure for much longer.

Strategic bombing against British industry was also taking a heavy toll, not just on the Royal Air Force but on the nation as a whole. The Royal Arsenal at Enfield Lock was in ruins and the production lines for the all-important Spitfire and its Rolls Royce powerplant had also taken a beating. Although secret new factories were being established elsewhere in areas further away from the might of the Luftwaffe, it was a slow process that left Britain suffering as a result. Heavy industry generally was taking a pounding, and the Germans had also taken to hitting transport centres over the last month or so. Anything resembling a medium to major railhead anywhere in the southern half of the country had been battered to the point that coherent travel by rail was now almost impossible. Add to that such fiascos as the BEF’s shattering defeat in France, culminating in the mass surrender at Dunkirk at the end of May, and there was no way to avoid some damnably unpleasant conclusions.

“Coming up for mail call, sir?” An unexpected voice snatched his attention back to the real world and he turned to find a pilot officer at his left shoulder, matching his stride. The young man was a recent addition to the unit — a replacement for one of their many casualties — and it was a moment or so before Trumbull remembered his name.

“Thought I’d ‘try my luck’, yes…Stiles…” he added finally with a half-forced smile.

“Hoping to hear from my mother, sir,” Stiles offered with the kind of broad, beaming expression only inexperienced youth could produce. “Family’s moved up to York with my cousins for a bit…just ‘til this is over.”

“Can’t say much for the weather up there,” Trumbull shrugged, trying to be amiable, “but I’ll warrant it’s friendlier than around London at the moment…” or here, for that matter, he admitted silently.

“Your mother and family have moved out to the Midlands haven’t they, sir?” Stiles inquired, catching the officer by surprise. For the life of him, Trumbull couldn’t remember speaking to the young man of his family before, but it was difficult to know for certain. Days tended to blur into one now and much as Trumbull wouldn’t wish to be unkind, the new pilot wasn’t a particularly memorable chap. Smallish and slight of build, with a bland face and lifeless, brown hair, he might well have acquired some type of moderately hurtful nickname by now among the older pilots had this been a year ago.

No time for nicknames now, though, he thought sadly as they continued walking and he simply smiled and nodded in reply. There were too many people with nicknames whose real names were now nothing more than lines on a casualty list, and it was easier not to think of a ‘Johnson’, ‘Rogers’ or ‘Harris’ who was no longer there than it was to remember ‘Stinky’ or ‘Dodger’ or ‘Cubby’. The human mind learnt to adapt quick enough — don’t get too close to the men you work with and it won’t hurt as much when they don’t come back. That was the theory, at least…Trumbull had discovered it was impossible in practice. Many drowned their sorrows and numbed their crises in alcohol, but he was a squadron leader now and even if he had felt the urge to drink to excess, which he didn’t — at least, not yet — he’d have had to resist. His men needed him to be able to command them, now more than ever.

The pair were within twenty metres of the slowing mail truck when the alien, ear-piercing wail of the dreaded air-raid siren wound up and split the air about them. The reaction was instantaneous: the gathering group of men couldn’t have broken apart faster if a bomb had exploded in their midst. Pilots began racing straight for their aircraft, ground crew close behind as appropriate equipment appeared suddenly in their hands as if by magic. All fliers were on constant standby in case of attack and all wore flying suits and parachutes and such like in readiness for just such a situation.

As Trumbull reached his Spitfire, parked off to one side of the airfield beneath the overhanging branches of a clump of tall oaks, he could already hear engines starting elsewhere, but as he clambered up the side of the aircraft and into the cockpit he could also suddenly hear other engines — different engines. The sound chilled him as ground staff began to turn his Spit’s Merlin over: he’d heard those engines before, and their presence had never been good. He strapped himself in properly and carried out a quick instrument check as the Rolls Royce V-12 caught, spluttered then roared into life, momentarily pumping clouds of oily smoke back past his open cockpit.

The aircraft began rolling the moment wheel chocks were pulled away, turning out from the cover of the trees and into the open expanses of the field 610Sqn used as a runway. Although it appeared flat as a snooker table to the untrained eye, the Spitfire bumped and trundled over a grass surface that was noticeably uneven beneath his wheels. Trumbull had to be careful — the fighter’s narrow undercarriage made the aircraft relatively easy to tip or to lose control of during taxiing should manoeuvres be too sudden or sharp.

The surface of the field began to even up as he moved further out into the open and Trumbull gunned the Merlin to build speed. He found it difficult not to hurry more than he should; it was a matter of urgency, but take things too quickly and he’d ruin his ‘crate’ and maybe injure himself into the bargain. Of course, take too long in the current situation, and…well, that really just didn’t bare thinking about…

Almost as if timing themselves to his thoughts, a battery of 40mm Bofors guns at the very far end of the open fields began hammering away to the south, the smoke of their muzzle blasts indistinct although the streaks of pink tracer across the horizon were unmistakable. Then, finally, he saw them coming in low over the far off trees at high speed: a flight of eight Junkers fast bombers in two tight, ‘finger-four’ formations that looked to have the airfield fairly well bracketed. They were no more than a mile away now by Trumbull’s reckoning, and he threw the throttles wide open at the sight of them.

Caution be damned, he thought to himself with a rush of adrenalin, if I don’t get off the ground immediately, I’m jolly-well for it! “Tally ho, chaps!” He added verbally over his radio throat mike. “No time for dilly-dallying! Let’s get up there and have at them!”

The Spitfire threw itself forward at his urging like a racehorse at the starting gun, the angry, uneven clatter of the cold Rolls-Royce engine transforming into the deafening, pedigree roar of full power as it started to gain desperate acceleration. It seemed like an age passed before the tail and then, finally, the main undercarriage lifted from the grassy ground. In truth, it was really just a matter of less than a minute before the Spit was clawing its way skyward, now a scant five hundred yards or so separating his fighter from the closest of the oncoming bombers.

“Close enough, you filthy swine!” Trumbull snarled as one of the twin-engined Junkers crossed his gunsight for a bare split-second and he punched his thumb at his gun triggers out of sheer bloody-mindedness. The short burst of fire from the eight machine guns in his wings didn’t hit the bomber but it was close enough to give the startled pilot pause and take his mind off what he was doing. As tracer from Trumbull’s guns sizzled past his cockpit and wing to starboard, he banked away out of pure reflex, ruining his bombardier’s run on other aircraft below that were yet to take off.

Trumbull kept his throttle jammed fully open and pushed his nose skyward as his wheels retracted and locked with a clunk. At sea level his Spit could climb at eight or nine hundred metres per minute at full power, but he wouldn’t need that kind of altitude. An almost evil grin spread across his face as any thoughts of the world outside air combat disappeared and he came into his own once more as a fighter pilot, pure and simple. He was no longer a vulnerable human being bound to Mother Earth, at the mercy of enemies and the elements. Now he was the master of his environment, flying one of the finest fighter aircraft in the world, and as so often happened in modern warfare, the hunters of just seconds before now became the hunted.

The easternmost of the two flights of Ju-88s roared past a bare hundred metres above his cockpit, rear gunners from two of the closest quartet belatedly sending streams of machine gun slugs his way. The tracer passed uselessly beneath him as he turned his climb into a wide, banking turn that sacrificed little speed and brought him onto a good approach to the bombers’ rear, slightly above them and at an oblique angle. All in all, he couldn’t have asked for a much better line of attack under the circumstances. As he began to accelerate out of the turn, his fighter started to inexorably haul back the distance between himself and the enemy aircraft, which had blown out to almost a thousand metres.

Dark, deadly shapes began to drop from the Junkers’ bomb bays, wobbling downward in their semi-ballistic arcs as each aircraft loosed a ‘stick’ of six large bombs and powered away, seeking safety in altitude. There’d been no chance of stopping the bombers before they’d attacked — there’d been too little warning — and although many had managed to get into the air, there were at least four of the newer and, more to the point, slower pilots still on the ground either taxiing or almost at the point of ‘rotation’. There were also quite a few ground staff caught in the open, not having had enough time to get to slit trenches after valiantly helping their more ‘glamorous’ charges into the air. With the lethal, black rain falling from a height of just five or six hundred metres there was little these men could do and there was absolutely nowhere to hide. The 250kg high-explosive bombs landed in rows as their parent aircraft hauled away above them, each detonation throwing massive clouds of earth and smoke into the air and raining it down all about.

Trumbull and those others who’d made it into the air could only watch grimly as their earthbound comrades were literally torn to pieces in the maelstrom. Taxiing aircraft were shattered by the explosions and disintegrated before Trumbull’s very eyes. The tent ‘city’ was all but obliterated, along with Fullarton and his mail truck, the man caught close but not close enough to nearby trees toward which he’d been driving at full speed in search of cover. What had once been a broad, flat, open field good enough to play cricket upon — which they’d indeed done on more than one occasion — was now something of a moonscape. In the space of a few seconds, destruction had been meted out and devastated what was left of an entire squadron.

Trumbull’s features hardened as if set in stone and he picked out the first subject of his rising, vengeful fury: he mightn’t have been able to stop the attack but he was certain he’d make the perpetrators pay. In order to maintain a better chance of surprise, the raiders had come in unescorted, and now they didn’t stand a chance of escape. They began to turn away to the south-east at full throttle, but there was no way the twin-engined bombers could outrun a Spitfire at any altitude.

“Form up on me, Red Flight,” he commanded over the radio to those men who’d managed to get airborne. “They’re ours now! Make then know it! Tally ho!”

Trumbull caught the first of the Junkers within a few moments, easing his throttle back just a little to ensure he didn’t overshoot too quickly. His guns were zeroed at a little less than four hundred metres and he waited until he was very close before sending a long, lethal burst into the 88’s fuselage and starboard wing. Smoke immediately began pouring from that wing’s engine nacelle in greys wisps and the bomber travelled just a few more seconds before pulling upward sharply and away to Trumbull’s left, seemingly under only partial control.

The German bombers broke formation as the squadron leader banked sharply and slewed the fighter around to bring his guns to bear on a second Junkers. The 88s began to carry out some fairly radical evasive manoeuvres in order to throw off their pursuers’ aim, jinking this way and that and bobbing about the sky as much as their relatively low altitude permitted. It was optimistic at best to hope these improvised aerobatics would prevent being hit by RAF gunfire, however it certainly prevented their rear gunners from coming even close to drawing a bead on their foes. It also ultimately served to save the British fighters a bit of time and a few hundred rounds of .303 ammunition as two of the fleeing German bombers unwittingly collided in mid air, the hopelessly entwined wreckage that remained spiralling downward into the ground and spraying pieces all about.

The pair of fast new Typhoons howled past Trumbull’s port wing, hammering away at two 88s with their twelve Browning machine guns apiece. Neither bomber lasted long under such withering fire: one climbed away much like Trumbull’s, save that it was also streaming fire from one wing, while the other went into an uncontrollable spin and smashed itself against the fields a few seconds later. The squadron leader had meanwhile lined up on another bomber and raked a long burst right across the rear of the cockpit and its ‘back’ from nacelle to nacelle. The spray of slugs tore across and through the fabric and metal surfaces of the wings and fuselage, doing untold damage to the machinery, control surfaces and human flesh beneath.

The aircraft began to lose altitude almost immediately, not smoking at all but nevertheless quite clearly no longer under competent human control. It entered into a gentle, almost gliding descent that ended only after barely clearing a line of trees bordering a narrow, country lane. The 88 then bellied itself and bounced twice in the field beyond, as if attempting to ditch, before smashing full tilt into the trees at the far end and virtually disintegrating an instant later in the explosion of its remaining fuel and ammunition.

As he turned through ninety degrees to starboard, his bloodlust fairly up, Trumbull caught sight of one of his pilots — with some evil satisfaction he realised it was Stiles in one of the Gladiators — cutting across the periphery of his vision to the south-east. The old biplanes weren’t fast enough to catch a Ju-88 in level flight, but the other, faster fighters had hit them and broken up the enemy formation with those few now remaining scattered all about the sky. He had to commend the young man on his ingenuity — the two other remaining biplane pilots had followed him and were ready to intercept any stragglers. The fleeing bombers would, in the end, have to come past Stiles and the other Gladiators at some stage if they wanted to get back to the safety of the Channel and beyond.

At least we won this one… Trumbull thought in silence, smiling grimly at two more kills he could add to a tally that already made him an ace several times over. Few and far between these days, but at least we one this one…! But his heart knew how pyrrhic a victory it had been…

On the road below, a column of camouflaged armoured vehicles ‘at the halt’ watched nervously as Trumbull’s second kill howled past low overhead, its props slashing through the treetops on the opposite side of the lane as it carried on regardless. From his position half out of the commander’s hatch, Sergeant Jimmy Davids let loose at the crashing bomber as it passed over him with a long burst from the Lewis gun mounted above his hatch, the act probably useless but making him feel better all the same. The twenty-year old machine gun the crew had ‘scrounged up’ from somewhere or other was fussy, prone to jams, and in Davids’ opinion a royal pain in the arse to keep in anything close to reliable condition, but he wasn’t complaining: reports of what Luftwaffe air superiority had done to his colleagues in the BEF on the other side of the Channel were damning indeed, and anything that could be done to improve a tank’s anti-aircraft capability — even if only marginally — was well worth it in the opinion of he and his crew, for morale value if nothing else.

“That’s ’im fooked,” Lance-Corporal Angus Connolly observed with evil glee from his position forward. Although the man’s disembodied voice had come through over the intercom from somewhere below the line of the tank’s turret, Davids knew the foul-minded, oft-drunk Scotsman (with a mastery of the bleeding obvious) would be watching from the vantage point of his open driver’s hatch in the middle of the Matilda’s thick glacis plate.

“That’s one load of Jerry buggers they can send home in boxes,” Davids agreed in his lilting, Welsh accent with little sympathy for their enemies’ plight.

“Goin’ ’ome in fuckin’ matchboxes by the sound of it!” Corporal Gerald Gawler, the tank’s gunner and resident, bad-tempered Yorkshireman chimed in from somewhere below Davids in the turret as the Junkers hit the treeline across the field and finally exploded. Neither he nor Hodges, the cockney loader, could see anything from their stations within the turret, but the sound of the explosion was loud enough to give a good idea of what had happened.

“…Squareheaded bastards!” The gunner added as a venomous afterthought, as if there was anyone left in the world who’d ever been within earshot of the man who didn’t already know how much Gerald Gawler hated Germans. With most people in Britain, hatred of Germans was an accepted norm in the present climate…with the gunner of Grosvenor, Squadron A, 7th Royal Tank Regiment, 1st Army Tank Brigade, British Home Forces it was a passion of pathological proportions. That salient fact made the irony of his first name’s colloquial form even greater, and the rest of the unit took great glee in addressing him only as ‘Jerry’ as a result. If there was anyone in the entire squadron — save for perhaps the CO and 2IC — who hadn’t been sworn at profusely by Jerry Gawler on a regular basis because of it, Davids wasn’t aware of their existence.

Davids, the tank’s commander, shuddered a little at the sight of that fiery wreckage that’d once been a state-of-the-art fighting machine. It was far enough away to be a spectacle of interest rather than something directly dangerous but it was a sobering sight nonetheless. Had those 88’s gone looking for game other than the RAF fighters they’d obviously found and (to Davids’ mind) unnecessarily annoyed, there might well have been Luftwaffe bombs crashing down on their armoured column rather than crashing Luftwaffe bombers.

The sergeant had no illusions as to how well his Matilda might withstand a direct hit from one of those lethal ‘eggs’…the answer of course being ‘not at all’… Grosvenor was heavily armoured for its era, and experience in France had shown that Matilda II infantry tanks could stand up to enemy panzers quite well, but air attack was something else entirely. There was little enough room in that cramped turret with three men in it jammed in behind the breeches of the 2-pounder main gun and coaxial Vickers machine gun, and what space there was they were forced to share with volumes of ammunition, radio equipment and other bits and pieces that filled up every available nook and cranny. The stocky, young Welsh sergeant didn’t even want to think about how they’d all fair if they caught a direct bomb hit or the vehicle caught fire. His hatch was barely big enough to let him through in a hurry and there’d be little time in an emergency to get the rest of the crew out.

That was one of the reasons the convoy had stopped upon detection of the approaching aircraft, the line of eight Matilda tanks halting its leisurely progress along the lane the moment they’d identified a danger of attack. Although still apprehensive, feelings of fear and tension had subsided somewhat upon realisation the RAF seemed to have the matter in hand and that an air battle was already in progress. Normally the whole unit would’ve been transported by rail, but with the state of the railways in southern England, that would’ve taken far too long and would’ve been far more dangerous. Trains were a juicy target for enemy aircraft and were a lot harder to camouflage or hide than tanks under their own power.

With the encirclement and subsequent surrender of the BEF at Dunkirk a month before, Squadron A (Gallant, Griffin, Goodfellow, Grosvenor, Growler, Gunfighter, Gracious and Giant) were now no less than half of the entire strength of what was left of 7RTR. Indeed, that newly-reformed unit and its even less-experienced sister, Squadron B, were the only heavy tank units in the whole of the British Isles, although 1st Armoured Division could also field something like thirty-odd Cruiser tanks of various marks to supplement their heavier colleagues. What was left of the Hussar and Dragoon regiments probably had as many of the obsolescent Mark-VI light tanks, but in truth 7RTR was the only real opposition to German armour that Home Forces possessed, and it wasn’t just Davids who knew it.

The Hussar and Dragoon regiments could be discounted outright for any use other than scouting, and the way things were developing in modern armoured warfare, not even all that much use at that. Like the Matilda Mark-I his tank had replaced, most British light tanks were only armed with heavy machine guns that’d been shown in France to be worse than useless against modern opposition. The armour on the British Mark-VI light tank was at best only 13mm thick, and even the 30mm cannon of the enemy’s P-1 panzers could easily penetrate at ranges far greater than that at which the Mark-IV could inflict damage in return — if at all — with its .50-calibre Vickers machine gun.

The medium Cruiser tanks were a little better as a fighting proposition, if still not really up to scratch. Although better armoured than the older Mark-VI, they were still quite vulnerable to the standard issue Wehrmacht tank and anti-tank guns. They did however at least have the same armament as the Matilda II — the ubiquitous Royal Ordnance 2-pounder gun. While the weapon lacked the ability to fire anything but solid, armour-piercing shot, it was quite accurate and had at least proven its capability in penetrating the armour of German tanks at closer ranges while in France. Although vastly superior numbers and the constant threat of encirclement had forced withdrawal after withdrawal back to the Channel, there’d been one or two encounters with the oncoming panzers — most notably at Arras — where the Matildas and Cruisers had given good account of themselves. This was particularly the case with the Matilda, whose frontal armour had proven impervious to the 30mm shells of Wehrmacht’s P-1 light tanks. Even the 75mm cannon fitted to the heavier P-2 and P-3 tanks had found the Matilda difficult to penetrate at longer ranges (although not impossible) and it was thus that the real weight of the mobile side of the land defence of the UK now rested mostly with 7RTR.

If they come, we’ll give ‘em what for…! Davids told himself, more out of reassurance than certainty. The Matilda had been christened ‘Queen of the Battlefield’ after the combat experiences in France, and it’d proven highly resistant to frontal attack from German tank guns at longer ranges, which was of some comfort to be certain…but the ‘if they come’ in Davids’ thoughts was quickly becoming more of a ‘when’ as time passed and they headed into late summer…and the Wehrmacht had hundreds of tanks to throw at them — perhaps thousands — if only they could get them onto English soil.

“Madam to Harlots — show’s over — time to be off, chaps!” Captain Carroll’s voice over the radio broke Jimmy Davids from his thoughts and brought him back to the real world once again. Up at the head of the column, Gallant revved her twin diesels and began to pull away once more down the lane. The rest followed her in turn, oily clouds of exhaust billowing into the air around them as the eight tanks got back up to speed, a brace of trucks and tracked Bren carriers following on behind. Davids lowered himself a bit further down into the turret, his backside finding his commander’s seat in its raised position. Just his head now poked out of the hatch, but that was enough to provide an excellent view. He pulled up the goggles that hung about his neck and seated them properly over his eyes. Much as he preferred the relatively fresh air outside to the interior of the tank, diesel fumes and dust and such like were things he preferred to keep out of his eyes.

‘Queen of the Battlefield’, the infantry and armoured corps called the Matilda, and it hadn’t taken long for the men of Squadron A to warm to their CO’s slightly ribald idea of coining their radio call signs as ‘Madam’ (his command tank) and his attendant ‘Harlots’ (numbers –2 through –7). Much fun was made of it on- and off duty and it helped raise morale a great deal. Anything that helped morale was important in the current climate.

The vehicles rumbled on at a little less than 20 kilometres per hour, their tracks tearing up the dry earth of the lane and sending dust clouds about that would’ve alerted every enemy pilot in the area had there been any more about. It was a fine, clear day and the tanks had already acquired a fine layer of tan-coloured dust over their hulls and turrets that all but obscured the khaki and dark green diagonal stripes of the camouflage scheme they sported as standard. The unit was headed east to join up with the First London Division stationed in Kent, the area deemed to be the most likely place for invasion should the Germans decide to cross the Channel and therefore where a credible armoured presence was most needed.

At least we’ll be on the defensive, if they do come, Davids thought to himself as the column cruised on. Always easier on the defenders if they’ve prepared positions. Just how much easier, or whether it’d be enough, was a question that Davids couldn’t answer. He doubted, in all honesty, whether the War Cabinet could answer it either.

Luftwaffe airfield at St. Omer

Northern France

As Trumbull tried to find somewhere to land his Spitfire and Davids contemplated the dangers of being a tanker, Lieutenant-Colonel Carl Ritter eased back on his twin throttles, lowered his flaps and banked his Zerstörer smoothly to starboard. He felt the increased drag immediately as airflow adjusted around altered control surfaces, generating extra lift, and the flick of a large, red-knobbed lever by his thigh lowered the aircraft’s landing gear. The subsequent mechanical whirring and thud as it locking into place was as reassuring as the green status light on his instrument panel.

Although a relatively large aircraft by the standards of the day, the Messerschmitt J-110 was a breeze to fly in comparison to some of the others Ritter had encountered during his career in the Luftwaffe. Guiding his J-110C with casual ease, he watched the markers at the near end of the grass airstrip slip beneath his nose as the needle of his altimeter wound down below 200 metres. His main wheels touched down a second or two later without even a single bounce, a deft, perfectly-timed flick of his wrist on his stick and a twist of the rudder pedals enough to ensure a last-minute arrest to the speed of his descent.

Once again, as he often did of late, he made a point of reminding himself of his aircraft’s revised military designation. A few months earlier, a new system of classification had been handed down by the OKL in the interest of standardisation and simplification. From that point on, all fighter-type aircraft would be referred to officially by their RLM model number, prefixed by the letter ‘J’ for ‘jäger’ or fighter (literally ‘hunter’). Under the new designation system, his heavy-fighter — which he still generally referred to by its old title of ‘Messerschmitt bf110’ — had officially become a J-110 Zerstörer, that model in particular being a J-110C. Ritter smiled as he considered the situation. He’d recognised as soon as he heard of the changes that the whole thing made a great deal of sense. Previously, aircraft manufacturers had allotted their own designations and model numbers, variations and paperwork proliferated as a result, and requisitioning of parts and records keeping generally was a constant nightmare. Now there would just be a single letter prefix, the letter determined by the type of aircraft in question, followed by what would become a sequential numbering system for subsequent new aircraft. It would certainly make things much simpler for all concerned in the long run, but Ritter also knew that old habits died hard in any military organisation. It’d be some time before anyone in the Luftwaffe really thought of their old aircraft by their new designations.

“You’re going to misjudge that one of these days, Carl…” his wingman and XO, Captain Wilhelm (‘Willi’) Meier, observed over the radio. Ritter shot a quick glance back over his left shoulder and smiled with vague cockiness as he returned his eyes forward once more, hauling his throttles back even further and turning his landing run into a taxi toward the main buildings at the far end of the strip. His executive officer was a capable pilot and a good friend, easily experienced enough to command his own fighter wing, and had held the position as Ritter’s XO for the last six months. The pair had developed something of a symbiotic relationship in the air during that time, the closeness of which had saved both men more than once. As Ritter was taxiing, Meier was still airborne and carrying out a much slower, more cautious and, moreover, a more orthodox landing approach several hundred metres behind.

“I think Herr Meier is jealous, sir…” Corporal Kohl observed over the intercom from his gunner’s position at the rear end of the long, ‘glasshouse’ canopy “…if the captain had been a little quicker, it might’ve been he who picked up that Spitfire!”

“You may well be right there, Wolff,” Ritter agreed with a light chuckle. It’d truly been a good afternoon’s flying and he was in a fantastic mood. While on routine patrol over the Channel, Fliegerkorps ground controllers had vectored them onto an interception off the Pas de Calais. Upon arrival, the pair of Zerstörer heavy-fighters had found and pounced upon a half-dozen RAF Blenheims in the process of making life difficult for a flotilla of Kriegsmarine E-boats. The pair of 110s had blasted two of the light bombers out of the sky within seconds, the concentrated fire of their nose-mounted cannon and machine guns devastating indeed.

As the remaining bombers had taken off in all directions and the Luftwaffe heavy-fighters circled in preparation to picking them off individually, Kohl had been the first to spot the lone Spitfire. It had come in low from the west and at high speed — a much higher speed than the twin-engined Zerstörer was capable of at sea level. Meier instantly threw his aircraft into a power climb at full throttle, relatively secure in the knowledge that while there wasn’t a twin-engined fighter built that could take on a Hurricane or Spitfire one for one and expect a fair fight, the 110 could outclimb any RAF fighter at any altitude.

Ritter, on the other hand, acted purely through instinct. The attacking Spitfire was much closer to his aircraft than Meier’s and held a significant speed advantage. Instead of climbing, he momentarily pulled back on his throttles, lowered partial flaps, and jerked the Zerstörer into an upward, ‘Split-S’ manoeuvre as the Spitfire began to open fire at 200 metres. In the middle of that textbook evasive tactic, Ritter jammed the throttles fully forward once more, retracted his flaps, and nosed the aircraft downward again as the momentarily-baffled and less-experienced RAF pilot hurtled past beneath him, caught completely unawares.

The Spitfire was only in his gunsight for the barest of moments but it was enough. A short burst from his cannon and machine guns raked across the smaller aircraft’s port wing and rear fuselage, severing vital control lines and blasting great chunks out of the upper wing and tail. The Spitfire instantly entered into a wild, terminal spin that only ceased as it slammed into the surface of the Channel a few seconds later. Although Meier subsequently managed to finish off three of the remaining four bombers as they vainly sought the relative safety of the English coast, Ritter knew his XO would be more than a little envious. For a Messerschmitt 110 — or any twin-engined fighter, for that matter — victory over a smaller and far more agile opponent such as a Spitfire spoke either of good luck or better flying…or both.

It took just a few moments for Ritter to taxi his aircraft up to the main hangars and workshops at the far end of the grass strip. Divided equally on either side of the ‘runway’, another seventy-two J-110C waited in silent rows, all sporting similar ‘ink-spot’ green/black-green mottled camouflage patterns over a lighter, blue-grey background. Including the pair of aircraft that had just landed, they comprised the entirety of Zerstörergeschwader 26 ‘Horst Wessel’ — the heavy-fighter wing Ritter commanded.

ZG26 was organised in much the same manner as all major Luftwaffe combat units. Staffeln (squadrons) — the smallest official basic unit — were collected into threes to form gruppen (groups). These were further grouped into threes to form larger units — the geschwader or air-wing (often with another two or three aircraft as part of the CO’s staff flight). In this way, standard Luftwaffe designation might denote an aircraft of the Eighth Staffel, Third Gruppe of Ritter’s unit as 8.III/ZG26. Although actual numbers in a squadron varied between combat wings (ranging in most cases from six to twelve), the structure of the system remained basically static across the board. ZG26 at that time carried eight aircraft per squadron, plus a staff flight, thus making for a total of 74 Messerschmitt heavy-fighters.

In the hour or so after landing, Carl Ritter debriefed quickly, ate, showered and changed into a clean, well-pressed uniform. Deciding to take the rest of the afternoon off as there were no pressing matters that required attention, he soon found himself wandering out near one of the manned checkpoints at the far end of the airfield. A rough, unsurfaced road ran along outside the fence and skirted the base on two sides, leading off to the east and the town of St. Omer, just a few kilometres away. Across the other side of the road, the ground dropped away and ran down to an expanse of open fields, farmhouses and such like.

Ritter stopped at the small gate and guard shelter, watching for a moment as a kette — a three-ship formation — of J-110s roared past along the grass strip, lifting slowly into the air and then banking away to the north. The CO smiled, watching one of the passing pilots wave and grin broadly as the aircraft’s wheels left the ground. Ritter waved back then stared on for a few more minutes as the aircraft cruised away at low level, quickly becoming difficult to see against the cloud-spattered blue sky.

Beyond the grass runway, masses of construction workers and equipment battled on in the relative heat as they had every day since the unit had arrived some weeks before. Engineers were slowly but surely installing a second, wider runway of hardened concrete running parallel to the grass one currently in use. The situation was of more than vague interest to Ritter as CO and as a flier generally, and on more than one occasion he’d wondered to himself what kind of aircraft the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe had in mind when it decided it needed to build concrete runways that were all of three kilometres long.

Passing a salute to the guards as they snapped crisply to attention, Ritter sauntered through the gate and crossed the narrow road, walking along the opposite side for a few dozen metres before stepping onto the grassy slope leading down to the fields beyond. The scene before him was of idyllic French countryside that had been fortunate enough to have been spared the ravages of recent battles. Small numbers of dairy cattle grazed here and there, along with a few goats and sheep, and off in the far distance he could see a farmer on horseback working between the rows of his vineyard, although the distance prevented the pilot from working out exactly what was going on.

He sat himself down on the grass near a small clump of low, thorny bushes and watched a pair of children playing some distance away down in the fields. From his raised vantage point he could clearly hear the squeals of delight as a light but constant breeze kept their small, brightly coloured kite aloft, swinging this way and that. The kite soared and dived about as they half ran with it to keep it airborne, towing it along behind them against the direction of the wind.

The children — a boy and a girl of no more than seventeen years combined — lived on the nearest of the small farms thereabouts, their home just a few hundred metres away across the fields. In the weeks since ZG26 had commenced operations at St. Omer, Ritter had become accustomed to spending an hour of two of his free time on that rise by the road, often watching those children — and others — play. The sight of them enjoying the summer sun brought back memories of his own childhood, to him now sometimes seeming to be so long ago.

Memories often filled his mind of times spent running and playing with his father among the fields and woods of their small country estate on the banks of the Rhine. The house was many years gone now and his father, a decorated army officer, had lost his life at Verdun…just one more casualty among so many millions during the Great War. The crippling economic depression of the Twenties and Thirties, exacerbated by the vacillating incompetence of the Weimar Republic, had cost his widowed mother all she had just to keep her and her only son alive following that so-called ‘War To End All Wars’.

Carl Werner Ritter, the only child of Werner and Lili, was born on their estate just north of Koblenz in the Rhine Valley in the first month of 1905. He was a bright, eager child who’d learned quickly and took readily to formal education. Although the outbreak and subsequent four years of the First World War didn’t affect the young Carl directly, the loss of his father had a huge impact.

Quite close to both his parents, this had been particularly so with his father. Werner Ritter and his son had often gone walking and hunting on their land and in nearby forests and spent a great deal of time together — as much, at least, as his father’s military career had allowed. His father’s death in 1916 struck the boy a massive blow — one that neither he nor his mother every entirely overcame. The financial difficulties brought on by the loss of her husband and the subsequent loss of their fortunes during the depression had been bitter blows indeed and had been an incredible strain upon a young widow trying to raise her teenage son alone.

His parents had been completely in love, although at the time Carl could never have understood the ramifications of the emotional loss his mother must’ve suffered. It was certainly something he’d given little thought to as an adult. His mother passed away of illness at a relatively young 43 years of age while he’d been fighting in the Spanish War, and whatever pain she’d endured since his father’s death had certainly ended right then and there. Ritter had borne his own feelings of loss and pain silently throughout his teenage years and early twenties, a situation that’d caused him to generally remain aloof from his peers and concentrate on his studies. By 1928 he’d completed degrees with honours in science and modern history at the University of Cologne where he’d also met Maria Planck, the young woman who would later become his wife.

The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 had then heralded the beginning of the Great Depression and a slump in national economies around the globe. Germany was hit harder than many, the collapse of the Weimar economy in no small part due to the crippling war reparations enforced upon the country by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With inflation and unemployment on a meteoric rise across the nation, a jobless young Carl Ritter looked elsewhere for a solution to providing for his wife and the family they’d hoped to start.

Early in 1930, Ritter signed on to a Civil Aviation Training school and was sent off with many other recruits to an airfield near Lipetsk on the banks of the Voronezh River, 440km southeast of Moscow. With military aviation banned by Versailles, a secret agreement with the Soviet Union allowed for the creation of the German Aviation School. Ostensibly set up to train civil pilots for the national airline Lufthansa, the unit was in fact intended to prepare prospective pilots for combat flight training far away from the watchful eyes of France and Great Britain.

Almost by accident, the young Carl Ritter finally found the career direction for which he’d unconsciously been searching. He proved to be a natural flyer and excelled in his training, and it took little time for the well educated and capable new pilot to display his talents and potential for leadership. Upon the official reinstatement of the Luftwaffe in 1935, Ritter was immediately offered a commission as a junior officer with a fighter squadron.

The experiences he subsequently gained with the Luftwaffe contingent in the Spanish Civil War, albeit against vastly inferior opposition, brought to the fore some of his obvious abilities. Upon his return to Germany at the end of that conflict he’d attained the rank of captain and was already one on whom those in high places were keeping a watchful eye as a potential career officer, destined to go a long way. On the rare occasions that he contemplated it in a deeper sense, Ritter could see the irony in it all. It was more than obvious that the ‘military’ was in his blood, but to find his true calling in the service of his country — the same thing that had taken his father from him — was something that had pricked at his conscience on more than one occasion.

Ritter glanced up suddenly at the sound of the kite above him, now quite close and caught by a shift in the breeze that caused it to twist and falter. It bobbed, jinked, then turned into a wide, sweeping arc downward that brought it crashing to earth among a clump of thorny bushes a few metres from where he sat. As the children ran toward him, he rose to his feet and stepped across to where it had fallen.

Carefully placing a polished boot in among the bushes to provide stability as he reached for it, Ritter extracted the kite. He examined it quickly and was impressed by the standard of construction: a few small tears here and there would require mending, but otherwise it appeared a quite sound and sturdy design.

“S’il vous plait, m’sieur…” The girl’s voice rose hesitantly from behind him. He turned to find her staring at him from the discreet distance of a few metres, seeming at the same time both nervous and intense. Far younger than his sister, the boy looked on open-mouthed from behind her, his face a mask of awe. Ritter was a tall man and although not overly broad, was solidly-built nevertheless. To a small child he must’ve seemed quite intimidating in his grey uniform and peaked cap.

“Donnez le moi, s’il vous plait…” the girl repeated the request, this time stepping forward a little. She was apprehensive, but not so frightened as her brother. Ritter estimated her age to be somewhere around twelve or thirteen. With long, flowing locks of auburn hair, she was tall for her age and slim of build, and the light dress she wore also showed the faint curves that suggested she was on the cusp of beginning the metamorphosis of child to young woman.

“I think that it will require some mending before it flies again, my dear,” Ritter replied in fluent French, a language he’d learned at a very early age courtesy of the French side of his mother’s family. “These holes may tear completely in the wind…”

“I can fix it…!” She spoke proudly as she snatched the kite from Ritter’s open hands.

“I don’t doubt that for a moment,” he replied with a smile, impressed by her courage and confidence. “That’s a very good kite. Did you make it?”

“Are you a German?” The girl countered in the way of all children: changing the subject without warning. “My mother says all Germans are Nazis and they kill people!” As she spoke, the smile on Ritter’s face tightened and lost its humour. His expression turned to vague sadness and he dropped to his haunches, lowering himself to the children’s level.

“What’s your name?”

“Michelle…”

“And yours…?” He turned to the boy, who immediately clutched at his sister’s arm and pushed himself a little further behind her. He peered around beside left shoulder.

“…Antoine…” he answered softly after a long pause.

Well, Michelle and Antoine…” Ritter began with a kindly voice “…let me tell you both something important that I hope you’ll try to remember…” He placed his hands on his thighs for support. “Yes, I am a German, but I’m not a Nazi. Most Germans — even the soldiers — are not Nazis…”

“You’re a soldier: do you kill people?” At no more than five years old, the boy’s awe-struck question stung him more than he’d have cared to admit. Ritter had forty kills to his credit, each recorded as a ‘kill bar’ on the rudders of his J-110, and some — more than a few of them — had been Frenchmen — these children’s countrymen. Some of the pilots of those ‘kills’ had managed to bail out…many had not. Young children sometimes had the innate ability to force people to come to face who they truly were in ways that weren’t always pleasant.

“I’m a pilot, not a soldier…” he answered with a wry grin, dodging the question altogether. “…I fly aeroplanes.” He assumed the girl must have been old enough to know what a fighter pilot was, but if Michelle saw the lie hidden in Ritter’s answer, she showed nothing of it.

“What’s that?” Antoine asked, to Ritter’s great relief changing the subject once more and gaining enough courage to step forward to his sister’s side and point at the neck of the pilot’s tunic. He glanced down in reflex and then touched a hand to his throat.

“This…?” His fingers touched at the hint of coloured ribbon hidden there amid the folds of the white silk scarf he wore tucked into his collar; a ribbon comprising three narrow bars of red, white and black. He lifted it out from his collar and over his head, the ribbon dragging with it a hefty little medal that’d been hanging hidden against his chest. The sight of the dark medal drew gasps of surprise and delight from both children.

“This is called a Knight’s Cross,” Ritter continued. “Want to hold it?” He held the decoration out for the little boy, and Antoine extended both hands, cupped together and trembling as if the medal were so fragile it might disintegrate at his slightest touch. He turned the silver-edged, iron cross over in his hands as his sister stared on, captivated.

“What’s it for?” He asked eventually.

“You’re given it when people think you’ve done something brave,” the pilot replied, trying not to sound as overtly proud of the award as he truly felt: a Knight’s Cross wasn’t something handed out to just anyone, even if by chance that someone carried the same surname as the Ritterkreuz itself.

“What did you do?”

“Antoine, a little while ago a friend of mine was in a plane crash and was badly hurt. I landed my plane to pick him up and brought him back safely home again.”

The detail of the story was not quite so simple. While still a captain and fighting in Poland during the early stages of the war, Ritter had seen his commanding officer and good friend shot down behind enemy lines. The stricken Zerstörer had crash-landed in a large field, quite close to a troop of Polish cavalry, but Ritter could see that his CO was still at that stage alive and able to drag himself from the wreckage. Without a second thought, Ritter had turned his own aircraft back and expended what little ammunition he had left on the enemy horsemen, driving them off before landing under withering machine gun fire and picking up his injured commander.

His own aircraft was raked by fire several times and damaged while taking off, Ritter himself wounded during the action, but he managed to get them both back to base and make a passable wheels-up landing. Upon discharge from a field hospital two months later he found a promotion to major and the Knight’s Cross awaiting him.

“Antoine! Michelle!” The faint cry broke the spell of the moment and the boy dropping the medal back into Ritter’s hands as his mother’s voice drifted across the fields from the farmhouse. “Oû êtes-vous, mes petits?”

“We have to go,” Michelle muttered, a little unhappy at the prospect of leaving their new-found friend so soon. “Mama needs help with the firewood.”

“What about your father?” Ritter asked, sixth sense making him sorry he’d asked the instant the question had slipped out.

“He’s dead,” the girl blurted suddenly, the statement emotionless and dry as if it held no meaning. “The Nazis killed him.” Ritter was taken aback by the answer and the tone of it, and also by the unexpected waves of guilt that washed over him.

“I — I’m sorry…” he stammered lamely.

“Michelle! Antoine! Oû êtes-vous maintenant?” The call was much more insistent now.

“Au revoir, m’sieur,” Michelle said quickly, taking her brother by the hand and turning.

“…Goodbye…” Ritter began, but the children were already gone, running headlong away across the fields with their kite, its tail and line dragging out behind them across the grass.

Their mother met them close to the far edge of the field, on the same side as the farmhouse, and although she sent them scampering on toward the buildings behind her she didn’t immediately turn and follow. For a moment she stood and regarded Ritter with a curious gaze. Although there was the better part of a hundred metres between them, the pilot was somehow convinced there was no malice or mistrust in her expression…just curiosity.

He raised his hand by way of a silent greeting, self-consciously particular in that moment to not make any gesture that might be misconstrued as a ‘Heil Hitler’. There was a moment’s pause before she acknowledged it with a simple nod and what seemed to be the impression of a smile, something that in a small way assuaged Ritter’s sudden and unexpected feelings of guilt over his being an invader in her country.

She was young, probably no more than thirty, and seemed — at that distance at least — to be quite pretty despite the poor standard of peasants’ clothing she wore. He thought of his own wife momentarily as the woman turned finally to follow her children, considering with no pleasure at all how Maria might feel were it her husband who were dead or posted as missing in action.

As he sat back down on the grass once more, he drew from his breast pocket a small booklet bound in black leather — his personal diary — along with an almost-new ball-point pen. As in many professional armed forces during wartime, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht strictly forbade the keeping of diaries for security reasons. As with many professional soldiers in those same armed forces, Ritter kept one all the same. ZG26 was just reaching the end of a solid, gruelling month of combat operations, and it had been some time since Ritter had found a moment to think a little and write something…

Saturday

June 29, 1940

This will be the first entry I’ve made this week. Finally, the unit is being stood down from full combat operations. We’ll run the occasional routine patrol as Fliegerkorps instructs and carry out training and testing flights as necessary, but we’ll no longer be required for operations at gruppe or geschwader strength. This will be a welcome relief as we’re all tired after the fighting here and could do with some rest and a chance to maintain and overhaul our aircraft. In any case, the simple fact is that there’s no more real fighting to be done for the moment anyway. Not enough, at least, to require all the zerstörergeschwadern.

Paris is an open city now and I can’t blame the Frogs for doing that. I visited there eighteen months ago with Maria and it’s a truly beautiful place. It’d be insane for the French to make us fight for it in a war they can’t possibly win. The Tommis are almost finished too, I think. A few ragtag units remain here and there, but they’re slowly being mopped up and sent off to the stalags. They fought as well as could be expected considering the superiority of our leadership, our numbers and our firepower.

I wonder now, as many of us do, whether the Führer will really set his sights on our English ‘cousins’. Already, the rumours are spreading of the impending destruction of the RAF, something Herr Göring (and we) must first do if we’re to invade.

Should the Wehrmacht land in Great Britain, there can be no doubt the English will be beaten. They can’t have anything left after Dunkerque. The reports of the numbers of prisoners taken exceed three hundred thousand men…perhaps more than the stalag system can cope with at present when added to the prisoners we’ve already taken during the campaigns in Poland, France and the Low Countries.

I don’t know when Churchill’s so-called ‘Battle of Britain’ will begin in earnest, but there’s no doubt the Wehrmacht will be triumphant. Beside the loss of manpower, Britain had lost what the Abwehr tells us must amount to practically all her tanks, vehicles and guns…all captured on French beaches. Although they’d deny it now, there were many Wehrmacht generals who didn’t believe Germany was capable of conquering France. The Führer has proven them wrong.

He sighed sadly and ceased writing momentarily as he thought of what Michelle had said, returning the Knight’s Cross to its resting place about his neck and reseating his cap. Suddenly, even though he knew it would seem unpatriotic to an unexpected reader, he continued to write with a renewed vigour.

Today I met the children who live in the farmhouse across the fields. Their father is dead — I quote — “the Nazis killed him.” As I think of this I’m reminded of things that perhaps I should record in these pages. These are things that should be remembered for others, should men like myself fall in combat…or by other means.

There are rumours spreading of ‘massacres’ by some of the more fanatical units of the SS. I’ve not witnessed anything of these myself, but I’ve spoken to army officers at a number of messes, particularly recently, who claim they have. One told of a group of British prisoners murdered near Wormhoudt in Belgium, a month ago.

I’m an oberstleutnant of the Luftwaffe. I’m the commanding officer of a geschwader. At the fliegerschülen we were taught that there were certain laws and ideals that were inviolate. As an officer of the Wehrmacht it’s essential to obey the orders of a superior to the utmost: this is the essence of military discipline. Of equal importance however is honour. If the orders given are just then the two concepts shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

As much as any German soldier, I’m product of Versailles and our humiliation at the hands of that enemy alliance and their ‘stab in the back’. It’s not my place to question the orders of my superiors. Still, could there be something awry here, for are there not ‘codes’ of war that must be followed?

I love and respect our Führer as greatly as any man in the service of The Reich. This one, great man has brought us out of the despondency of Weimar and into a new age of prosperity. Grossdeutschland will become a nation envied by its peers. Yet I don’t understand what the Führer means by this idea of lebensraum. What is the value of this ‘living space’ for these ‘Aryan’ peoples? What is its value if these rumours are true?

Ritter closed the booklet and glanced up as a Junkers tri-motor transport spluttered past overhead, turning on to a landing approach. He silently pondered the words that he’d written, the ramifications and complexity of it all a little more than he could come to terms with through simple military logic and thinking. These rumours — and others — were things that didn’t bear thinking of…

Could these things be true…?

2. A Gathering of Eagles

Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ

Amiens, Northern France

Saturday

June 29, 1940

A mansion that had been a home for French royalty during the 18th century lay among the trees and sweeping lawns of a country estate a few kilometres west of the town of Amiens. Following the Revolution it had lain empty and in disrepair for some years to be subsequently acquired by a wealthy developer and landowner during the 1850s and restored to its original splendour. A young industrialist purchased it as a home for his new family following the Great Depression, only to be sent fleeing across the Channel eight years later as the Wehrmacht steamrolled across the French countryside, smashing all before it.

In this fashion, the mansion came under the control of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, which deemed it a perfect place for the establishment of a headquarters for their campaigns in the west. Although technically it was close enough — at roughly 80 kilometres or so from the French coast — to still be under threat of enemy air attack by the RAF, the truth of the matter was that Luftwaffe air superiority over mainland Europe was such there was really no creditable danger whatsoever.

The property on which the huge, two-storey home was situated covered dozens of hectares of rolling fields and forest untouched by the rigours of war, although a series of large tank battles had occurred the month before at nearby Arras. The main building itself was a massive affair of stone and brick with towering marble pillars and expansive bay windows on both floors. Flowing red banners adorned with the ubiquitous swastika hung from the tall pillars bracketing the main entrance, while a multitude of ‘Christmas tree’ arrays of communications antennae rose from the rooftops. The building was still being fitted out for operations, and construction workers and equipment were in abundance as modifications and additions were made daily.

Outbuildings that had once housed a legion of servants now provided reasonable comfort to a company of panzer grenadiers while a pair of medium panzers and a trio of armoured cars stood guard both at the front and rear of the house in the unlikely event of an attack. Similarly, a battery of 88mm flak guns was positioned in the fields about the house and outbuildings, each cluster of weapons complemented by a Wirbelwind self-propelled AA gun mounting a quartet of powerful 23mm cannon. Half a kilometre away, the large, bulky shape of a specially-fitted Arado T-1A Gigant transport aircraft lay dormant in the middle of a long, level field at the front of the house awaiting any errand.

The main briefing and conference area had once been a ballroom, and its ornate chandeliers and beautifully polished floors stood mute witness to its former glory. Swastikas were paraded about in various forms, as were Nazi eagle statuettes and a large portrait of The Führer against the rear wall. Seating for a dozen in the centre of the room surrounded a large, rectangular table, and a second smaller, ovoid table held a variety of maps and reports at the far end of the room opposite a pair of large double doors that were its only entrance, accompanied by a large projector screen mounted to the nearest wall.

Sitting alone at that table was Kurt Reuters, Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht. A professional career soldier, he’d served the various armed forces of Germany for sixty of his eighty-two years. Fit and strong for his age, he was a tall man who wore his grey hair cropped short, usually beneath an officer’s peaked cap that at that moment rested on the table beside him. He’d served that particular German Army — the Wehrmacht — for six years and had been the Commander-in-Chief of the OKW (ultimately under the command of the Führer, of course) for the last two.

It’d been his invasion plans that had taken the German war machine sweeping through Poland. It’d also been his plans that had so quickly and devastatingly blasted aside the Allied forces in France and the Low Countries and had neutralised Norway as a potential threat (not to mention the ‘incidental’ benefit of captured Norwegian air and naval bases and securing vital Scandinavian raw materials). Just four weeks earlier, General Lord Gort had surrendered the remains of the British Expeditionary Force on the beaches at Dunkirk, to all intents and purposes signalling the end of the Battle of France (although some pockets of local resistance had fought on for a week or more). So pleased was the Führer that he’d created a special new rank for this able and talented man — the rank of Reichsmarschall.

As such, Reuters’ position was now officially higher than that of any other member of the German Armed Forces. As far as actual command went, Adolf Hitler had also placed the tactical command of the front-line combat units of the Waffen-SS under his control, although administratively they were still attached to the Schutzstaffeln and therefore under the oversight of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. As OdW (Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht) Reuters was answerable only to Adolf Hitler himself and was the relative equal (although never in their eyes) of Deputy Führer Hess and Martin Bormann, the Nazi Party Secretary.

The reports he poured over that evening were to do with armaments production, forwarded personally to him at his request by Armaments Minister Albert Speer. It wasn’t technically an area the Reichsmarschall had jurisdiction over but the pair had developed a close working relationship over the last few years. Speer — originally Hitler’s architect — had replaced Fritz Todt as Minister for Armaments at Reuters’ specific request and the man had proven himself an unorthodox ‘natural’ at the post. Armaments were something in which Reuters was keenly interested: the historical lessons of the failures in Germany’s production base — learned in hindsight — were clear and vitally important in the man’s mind.

Germany was a nation that had never fully geared up for war until it was far too late. Chaotic lack of standardisation and a lack of unity in general between the army, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and Waffen-SS, along with the attendant political infighting, power squabbles and back-biting, had contributed significantly to Germany losing a world war. As a direct result of that, his homeland had suffered devastation and deprivation at the hands of brutal and uncaring enemies and there was no way Reuters would allow that to happen again. He and his personal staff had worked for years to ensure the technical and numerical superiority of the Wehrmacht, and with the power at Reuters’ command he was able to make sure many potential problems were nipped in the bud before they could take root and flourish.

This time, he thought darkly as he considered the issue, the fate of Grossdeutschland will be very different!

There was a knock at the door, followed quickly by the entry of his personal assistant and close personal friend, Generalleutnant Albert Schiller. Possessed of a keen eye, sharp wit and a fine, analytical mind, the forty-five year old had worked by Reuters’ side for more than twenty years.

“Good evening, Albert…” Reuters acknowledged genially, looking up with a smile as the other man approached “…just back from Berlin?”

“Touched down about an hour ago,” Schiller replied with a faint smirk. “Decided to pick up something to eat at the mess before I came to see you — didn’t want my glorious leader to think I was wasting away…”

“As long as you’re bitching about something, I’ll know you’re fine,” Reuters countered with a grin, taking the humour in the manner it was meant. “That bloody goulash and black bread again?” He winced honestly as his friend nodded in grim confirmation. “I think it’s about time we had a word to the catering corps about getting some decent chefs in here!” It was always the little things, Reuters added silently as Schiller nodded again, this time fervently, and drew up a high-backed wooden chair to sit opposite his commander,…always the little things that took the longest to organise.

“How’s production going?” Schiller inquired, noting the reports Reuters was studying. “…Speer getting everything up to speed?”

“Well enough, under the circumstances,” Reuters answered with a shrug that was mostly non-committal. “…Far better than Todt ever managed, to be certain, but when can a soldier ever be happy about how many weapons his factories give him?” He gave an ironic smile as he considered the massive changes moving to a full war footing had wrought upon German industry. “At least we’re seeing some real war production in the factories for a change…enough to see us starting to run short on some raw materials like nickel and tungsten now, although we’ve enough of a stockpile to see us through our plans in the West.” He paused and sighed softly, more concern showing on his face now as he considered exactly how short they actually were on some of those strategic materials, adding, mostly to himself… “It’d better be enough…!” He roused himself once more and coaxed a more optimistic expression back to his features. “…The first of our Panther divisions should be fully equipped and trained up by the middle of next month — the 3rd SS will have that honour in deference to keeping the esteemed Reichsführer happy - and sturmgewehr production is twenty percent above predictions, which is excellent. There should be enough new rifles and machine pistols to equip the whole theatre by the end of July — so long as they can get enough of the new bloody rifle ammunition out, we’ll be fine…”

“The Graf Zeppelin…?”

“Going through final sea trials now, and Raeder assures me she’ll be ready for combat duty by the end of August. The attack squadrons are already operational and there’s just the helicopter groups still to go through carrier conversion training. Seydlitz, Hindenburg and ‘Strasser are also ahead of schedule and should be operational by mid-September, which would be an added bonus. The battleships Rheinland and Westfalen are also nearing completion, and Von der Tann and Derrflinger should be finishing sea trials and joining Bismarck and Tirpitz in service shortly.”

He sifted through some of the loose papers before him on the table. “There are also another three ‘Type-Tens’ coming off the slipways at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven this month, making twenty-two launched to date and fourteen actually in service. Not anywhere near as many as I or Dönitz would like, but we may not need the U-boat service all that desperately now, and we must have our capital ships if we want to project any power into the Atlantic…”

Reuters raised a finger as a thought occurred to him. “Oh, and as a matter of interest I’ve kicked your recommendation for Kohl’s Ritterkreuz ‘upstairs’…” meaning he’d forwarded the application for a decoration to the Führer for approval.

“U-1004 wasn’t it — the ‘boat that torpedoed Rodney?” Schiller nodded in agreement. “…Why not, indeed…? Prien got one for sinking Royal Oak, so why not hand one out for any Tommi battleship?” The younger man paused for a moment, his eyes suddenly alight with a rare intensity as the reality of it all momentarily took his breath away. “We’re really going to do it, aren’t we, Kurt! No matter how many times I tell myself, it’s still just so incredible!” Normally a pessimistic and cynical man beneath the façade of his caustic wit, Albert Schiller couldn’t help but be caught up by the older man’s zeal and drive when in the presence of a commander he looked up to almost as a father figure for more than two decades.

“I spoke with the Führer personally again today on that subject…” Reuters informed softly, nodding at Schiller’s remarks. “He’s going to officially issue ‘Directive-17’ this week. Although he’s still loathe to invade Britain, I’ve convinced him ‘Sealion’ is vital: the Reich must be secure in the west and there’ll be no backing away from that this time!”

“‘We shall fight them on the beaches…’!” Schiller almost laughed at the thought. “I can’t believe the old bastard still made that bloody speech after the thrashing we gave them at Dunkirk! The whole of the BEF stranded and encircled by Guderian’s panzers, and we sent Furious and two cruisers to the bottom of the Channel as well!”

“We shan’t need to worry about the Royal Air Force this time, either,” Reuters murmured, his eyes glazing slightly as he cast his mind back over his own life. Five years of pre-planning and another seven years of preparation in the field were now coming to fruition, and with that would come the erasure of decades of national humiliation — humiliation that would now not only be redressed: it would in fact never have existed. “With the surprises and the overwhelming numbers we’ll be meeting the RAF with over the next few months, they won’t know what’s hit them!”

“I assume Herr Göring will keep his kampfgruppen hitting factories and airfields…”

“…Oh, you can be certain of that!” Reuters answered, his voice becoming ice-cold at the mention of the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe. “I’ve already had to have a few words ‘upstairs’ about our ‘friend’, Hermann. He’s been a little too obviously unwilling to ‘play’ lately and I’ve had to ask the Führer to ‘lay down the law’.

“The new tactical bombers are already coming into service with the kampfgruppen as planned and the strategic heavies are almost ready too, but Göring and his cronies are screwing us about too bloody much on the fighters and the attack aircraft. The new Shrikes and Lions would’ve been coming out in unit strength weeks ago if it weren’t for he and Milch bickering endlessly over factory modifications and experimental variants that are a waste of bloody time! Müller and Udet have had a shit of a job getting anything done. The carriers have their full complements allocated at least, but we’re finding it an uphill battle to equip even enough for one land-based geschwader of each. Thank Christ at least the instructional squadrons are ready to take on conversion training — I just hope we have some planes to give the pilots when they’re trained!”

“I should think the Tommis will crap themselves when they come across the new Focke-Wulfs…” Schiller chuckled with an evil glee “…not to mention our Skyraiders– !” He caught himself quickly in mid-sentence and repeated with correction “…not to mention our ‘Löwe’ attack aircraft, I should say.”

“We could’ve done it with the old equipment, though…” Reuters shrugged, “we’ve always known that. It was only Göring’s decision to switch attacks from the airfields to British cities and begin The Blitz that took the pressure off the RAF…” Reuters relented somewhat and grudgingly added “…at the Führer’s ‘request’ as it was… The RAF was never beaten and ‘Sealion’ was subsequently cancelled…we won’t make that mistake this time!” He smiled thinly. “How d’you think the Americans would fare trying to land on the Normandy beaches if they had to bring an invasion force across a five thousand kilometres of Atlantic Ocean?” Reuters’ eyes were truly alight now as his personal demons rose and drove his thoughts. “…No, my friend…that won’t happen this time. We’ll not have the damned Americans and their endless streams of bombers to ruin us this time. No humiliation! No destruction of our homeland! No fucking Bolsheviks to tear the heart out of our country!”

The Reichsmarschall almost bellowed the last sentence as every fibre of his being raged against childhood memories of growing up in the ruins of a shattered and divided nation under the ever-present and deadly threat of nuclear war. He checked himself and regained his composure in a moment, remembering where and when he was. “No, my friend…they’ll not get the same opportunities they were given the first time around…” he repeated softly, his chest heaving faintly as if he were out of breath from all the adrenaline coursing through his system. He smiled grimly again as a fine irony occurred to him; “…and as for Churchill; let the man make all the speeches he wants. They’ll ‘fight us on the beaches’ all right, and in the fields and towns and cities as well — and all too soon he’ll be making another speech…one that ends with ‘too many, too much, and too few!”

No. 610 (County of Chester) Squadron, RAF

Sussex, England

Fighter Command had managed to provide early warning against the oncoming air raid on this occasion, and Trumbull and his seven remaining subordinates had an almost leisurely time of strapping themselves into their fighters and warming their engines. They’d moved a few kilometres south to another suitable makeshift location and had almost been ready to call it a night when the alert had come through.

It was unusual for the Luftwaffe to mount a raid so close to dusk as it’d probably mean returning fighters and bombers would be forced to land in the dark — something no pilot would be particularly pleased about. Unusual it may have been, but unfortunately not completely out of the question, and radar — what little was operable — had picked up a fairly large group of what appeared to be bombers, probably heading for Ventnor radar station itself on the Isle of Wight.

So Fighter Command sends my sorry lot back up again… Trumbull mused silently, watching his instruments and awaiting the radio call from headquarters to scramble. ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…’ He quoted to himself from Shakespeare. Of course, Henry V was in France at the time, he observed. Wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t England that was in danger…longbows at Agincourt wouldn’t be too bad by comparison.

He turned his head to starboard to catch sight of the signals NCO rising to jog across from a radio table that had been hastily set up under some trees.

“About bloody time, I should say,” Trumbull muttered, a little peeved. “Bloody engine’ll be cooked if we keep this up much longer.” He leaned out of the open cockpit as the sergeant approached as an aid to hearing, something that was difficult at best with the racket of aircraft engines all around. “Got the ‘green light’, Bates?” Trumbull called out with more cheer than he honestly felt.

“Yes sir…” the non-com replied “…but also special orders from Fighter Command. You’re to stand down as CO and head back to headquarters immediately. They’ve instructed Flight-Lieutenant James is to take command while you’re gone. They also said that you weren’t to take part in any more flight operations…they were quite particular about that bit.”

“What…?” Trumbull almost roared, seriously in danger of losing his temper. “What the bloody hell are they playing at? Can’t they see there’s a war on? If I’m out of it, that only leaves us seven aircraft! What the hell use are seven bloody fighters going to be?” His angry mind ignored the obvious point that eight aircraft, under the circumstances, weren’t likely to accomplish much more.

“They were very specific, sir…” Sergeant Bates observed, recognising his commander’s rage was a release of pent up frustration and not directed at him personally, “…but you know what radio transmissions can be like…” Trumbull understood what the man was getting at immediately.

“Sergeant, please inform Fighter Command on my behalf that I was airborne already when you received that transmission and that I’m therefore unable to comply due to the imminent threat of air combat!”

“Yes sir!” Bates agreed with a conspiratorial smile, turning and running back toward his radio and generator as Trumbull waved his hand above his head outside the cockpit, signalling to his pilots to follow his lead. The flight of eight ragtag fighters was airborne within minutes and heading south toward an as yet invisible enemy.

North East of Scotland

North Atlantic

The air was thin and short on oxygen at an altitude of fifteen thousand metres. No birds winged their way past that high above the surface of the earth, and even on a warm summer day with not a cloud in the sky, it was terribly, bitterly cold. In July of 1940 there were only a handful of aircraft in the world that might reach close to that altitude and at that moment not one of them was within hundreds of kilometres. There was therefore not a living soul present who might’ve witnessed the cause of the ‘flash’. One moment the sky was empty and the next there was a shattering report like a huge thunderclap. For a moment a dazzling burst of light eclipsed even the sun’s brilliance — a huge flare so bright it was noted momentarily by several units of the Royal Observer Corps on the Scottish mainland a good sixty or so kilometres away.

It took a few moments before Max Thorne was able to think clearly again. They’d warned him there’d probably be some disorientation following displacement, but actually experiencing it proved — as he’d feared — to be another matter entirely. As he took a few moments to orient his mind and body and make sure he wasn’t going to throw up, the automatic pilot held him on a steady course due west into the setting sun, oblivious to the difficulties its human commander was experiencing.

A little groggy, he shook his head to clear his thoughts and raised the tinted visor of his flight helmet to rub at his eyes. As he opened them fully he winced in discomfort, direct sunlight painfully bright so far from surface the earth. Lines showed about the man’s eyes to compliment the peppering of grey through his hair beneath the helmet. He lowered the helmet’s tinted faceplate once more and took serious note for the first time of the information flashing in pale green across his vision, projected onto special lenses behind the visor of his Helmet Mounted Display System (HDMS): airspeed and altitude were steady, as was the preset heading on his navigational systems.

“Sensors: passive scan…” he spoke clearly into the microphone set into his oxygen mask, his Australian accent still sharp and clear despite fifteen years of living in England.

“No threats detected,” a computerised but clearly feminine voice replied through his headset as the aircraft’s systems performed the requested checks immediately. He resisted a natural impulse to carry out an active sweep of the area with his APG-81 radar, not willing to risk the possibility of his emissions being detected, as unlikely as that might’ve actually been.

Instead he glanced down at the cockpit before him, ignoring the single, ‘widescreen’ panoramic cockpit display screen that dominated the scene and instead turning his eyes to one side. Mounted to the actual canopy frame itself (there’d literally been no space available on the instrument panel itself), a spherical object approximately the size of a softball was fixed to a small, makeshift hinged mount.

The unit itself was a dull grey overall, with broad, angular serrations that ran longitudinally around its entire circumference. The top and bottom were flattened, and a set of small push-button controls and LED readouts were recessed into its upper face. A single black ‘figure-8’ electrical cable ran along the canopy frame from somewhere ahead of the main cockpit binnacle and ended in a gold-plated, 6.4mm jack that plugged directly into the centre of the object’s base.

Pulling the unit out toward him, away from the canopy frame, Thorne tilted it slightly to get a clear view of the LED readouts. Both were simple black characters set against a grey background, but were backlit by a faint illumination to aid viewing. The larger of the two simply read — 16:45 — while the smaller but longer readout below it showed — 07:29:1940 –. Both displays were bracketed by tiny black rocker switches that were barely large enough for a set of gloved fingers to manipulate, should the need arise, and both currently displayed a faint greenish tinge in their backlighting to match the colour of the large, blinking square pushbutton that was the only other variation on the otherwise dull grey face of the unit.

After another second or two the unit gave out a long, high-pitched beep that was too soft for Thorne to hear over the sound of the aircraft, although he was expecting it nevertheless. The pair of LED readouts flashed three times as the tone sounded, went blank for a second, then reappeared with both simply showing all zeros across the screens: all time and date information had been erased.

“None of this would’ve been necessary if you little fuckers had a better memory,” he growled softly, glaring at the little device for a few seconds before deciding that issues of ‘spilt milk’ were best put behind him under the circumstances. Thorne took a deep breath to clear his mind and returned his thoughts to the matter at hand.

“Okay…” he pleaded softly to no one in particular, pushing the unit back against the side of the canopy frame on its mounting and placing his hands firmly on the aircraft’s controls for the first time. “Please be there, mate…please be there…” he breathed softly, desperation sneaking into his tone for a moment before he steadied his voice and issued another voice command to his flight systems: “Comms: radio preset Zero-Zero-One.”

As the radio automatically adjusted to the appropriate frequency, he keyed the transmit button on his stick-mounted controls and fervently hoped there’d be someone out there who could hear him.

“Icebreaker, this is Harbinger: do you read? I repeat — Icebreaker, this is Harbinger: do you read? Over…” There was a moment’s silence that was almost an eternity before a loud reply burst in his ears through the emptiness of soft static.

“Harbinger, this is Icebreaker receiving you loud and clear. Destination is as planned. Please come to preset bearings and execute flight plan ‘Alpha’. Over…”

“Thank Christ!” Thorne breathed, more than a little relieved to say the least. He keyed his transmitter once more. “Thank you, Icebreaker: you don’t know how glad I am to hear your voice! Executing flight plan ‘Alpha’ now: I should see you in about fifteen minutes. Over and out…” Releasing the transmit button, he added for the aircraft’s benefit: “Navigation: preset flight plan Alpha.”

His flight computer retrieved the appropriate information in an instant, and Thorne watched the directional caret on his HDMS visor screen alter to indicate the correct heading. With a single positive movement on the joystick, he took full manual control, pushed his throttle forward and pulled the aircraft into a tight bank to starboard that took him almost 180 degrees around to a heading of east-north-east.

The Lockheed Martin F-35E Lighting II strike fighter lurched and dove headlong for the ocean, almost breaking the sound barrier as it levelled out just two hundred metres above the surface of the Atlantic. Holding the aircraft steady, Thorne reset the automatic pilot and kept his eyes scanning the view ahead for any potential threat as he hurtled past above the darkening Atlantic at high subsonic speed.

They were at 5,000 metres, heading south toward the Channel coast, as Alec Trumbull held the Spitfire at an uncomfortably lower-than-normal cruising speed that was the fastest the Gladiators could manage. It wasn’t safe to fly that way — dangerous to be caught at such a speed disadvantage by an enemy — but leaving the b on their own would’ve been fatal…there was simply nothing to be done about it.

There were fifteen of them now — 610 Sqn had met and formed up with 601 Sqn a few kilometres back, the seven aircraft of that unit as much of a mixed bunch as his own. Fighter Command controllers had informed them that at least three times their number of aircraft were approaching in what was suspected to be an attack on Ventnor radar station. Trumbull ignored the estimate as it mattered little: no matter what number of enemy they came up against, they were the only opposition in the area the RAF could field. All they could do was get on with it and try to shoot down as many as they could.

“Keep your eyes open, Chaps…” Trumbull, the senior officer present, warned over the radio. “The bombers out there ahead of us won’t be alone!”

With the English coast to port, Major Adolf Galland held his J-109E fighter barely above the surface of the Channel as he had for the whole of the trip from France in an effort to avoid British radar. His gruppe of escorting fighters had broken away from the main group and circled west of the bomber formations under direction by Fliegerkorps. Advanced German radar installations at Calais and Cherbourg could pick out RAF aircraft with greater clarity than could the more primitive British systems in return at any distance, aided substantially by the fact that the French coast wasn’t under constant air attack.

Their mottled green and blue-grey camouflage made them difficult to pick out against the dark water of the Channel in the failing light, the only variation in their colour schemes being their distinctive yellow-painted noses that declared they were part of fighter wing JG26 ‘Schlageter’, one of the more accomplished and decorated Luftwaffe combat units of the war so far. Streamlined 300-litre auxiliary fuel tanks hung from their bellies: the J-109E, for all its abilities as a fighter, wasn’t a long range aircraft and the pilots needed every extra litre of fuel they could carry if they were to carry out effective combat operations against the RAF over England.

They could easily see the RAF formation in the light of the setting sun, illuminated clearly against the darkening blue of the sky above them. Just a few kilometres away now, the British fighters were unwittingly flying straight across I/JG26’s path. With one word of attack over the radio, Galland pushed his fighter into a power climb, throttle wide open. The rest of his group — twenty-four fighters in all –climbed as one to intercept, engines howling in fury as their belly-mounted drop tanks fell away.

“Bandits! Bandits! Yellow-Nosed Bastards: three o’clock low!” The call came suddenly over everyone’s headsets from Stiles in his Gladiator on the western edge of the formation. The sighting had been late and from a completely unexpected direction, and the Messerschmitts were among the RAF fighters and firing even as their surprised prey began to separate in an attempt to split the attack. Stiles, the closest, was the first to fall and died almost instantly as machine gun and cannon fire tore his Gladiator to pieces, the burning wreckage spiralling downward and trailing terrible clouds of black smoke. Three other aircraft — two Hurricanes and a Spitfire — fell to that initial pass, one of those also plummeting earthward in flames while the other two pilots at least managed to bail out.

Instantly going to full-throttle and cursing the speed at which they’d been forced to fly in formation, Trumbull threw his Spit into a power dive seeking desperate acceleration. He felt his aircraft shudder as a half-dozen machine gun bullets peppered his rear fuselage to no great effect save for giving him a serious fright and a sobering taste of things to come. An absolutely terrifying cascade of cannon tracer from a different attacker cut a deadly arc across his nose in red streaks a split second later, one of the shells striking his engine cowling a glancing blow and tearing away a jagged section that left a gaping hole over his Merlin’s right cylinder bank. Shrapnel and debris spattered and bounced off his bullet-proof windscreen and fell away behind as wisps of grey smoke began to trail from the hole in the cowling before him. He could feel the engine falter almost instantly and he was left in no doubt the impact had done some kind of damage to his powerplant that might well prove ultimately fatal.

He continued the dive in fear the attacking enemy might follow to finish him off, still accelerating despite his power loss thanks to the benefits of gravity. He couldn’t know that a second after firing, the J-109E had collided in mid-air with one of his own Hawker Typhoons, the British aircraft’s notorious rear empennage having shaken loose under heavy manoeuvres and sending it into an uncontrollable, tailless spin across the Messerschmitt’s flight path to the detriment of both. The tangled mass of wreckage whirled off at an oblique angle, neither pilot surviving the catastrophic impact.

Trumbull managed to level the Spitfire out at just five hundred metres, speed dropping off sharply as he came out of the dive. Even at full power, the clattering Merlin V-12 was struggling to keep the aircraft flying at much better than half its normal top speed at sea level. There was no way he’d be able to play any further part in the air battle above: in truth he’d be lucky to make land again once he’d detoured around it, but twilight was less than forty minutes away and there was at least a chance that he might avoid detection by any other enemy in the area if he stayed low and minded his own business.

Trumbull called in his situation to the others in his squadron before advising Fighter Command of his predicament and that his XO, Flight Lieutenant James was now in command of the flight.

Assuming, of course, that he’s still alive… he added mentally, the thought a singularly unpleasant one. There was nothing more he could do now but keep flying and pray for his engine to hold out.

Max Thorne was a dozen kilometres south-west of the Orkney Islands as his radio unexpectedly came to life.

“Harbinger, this is Icebreaker — we have a bit of a problem here… Over.”

“Reading you, Icebreaker…” Thorne responded quickly, instantly alert and concerned. “What’s up?”

“We’ve received an urgent message from the Prime Minister’s office direct. It seems that Alec Trumbull has got into a bit of bother off the south coast and is in need of assistance. Over…”

“He was supposed to be grounded today!” Thorne growled in reply, ignoring normal R/T procedure in reaction to the unexpected situation. “That was a precondition of Laurence’s assistance!”

“Yes, Harbinger — sorry about that. The message from Fighter Command apparently arrived at his squadron too late — he’d already scrambled. Seems he has engine trouble and there’s a bit of a stoush going on down that way as we speak. The request did come from the Prime Minister himself…”

“Actually, I did hear that the first time, Icebreaker,” Thorne pointed out sourly in return and gave the new information a few seconds of thought as the ocean rushed past 200 metres below him at an incredible rate. He’d refuelled just before displacement, but the aircraft didn’t have external tanks mounted and a high-speed run down the length of Britain and back would use a substantial amount of his fuel… he’d be cutting things very fine if he ran into anything other than local opposition or was forced to loiter in the area for any reason.

“Anything other than the ‘usual’ stuff about, Icebreaker…?” He inquired, still thinking.

“Nothing as far as we’re aware, Harbinger — all seems to be contemporary.”

“Fuck it…” Thorne muttered to himself finally, the decision made. He keyed the transmitter once more. “Get me a bearing on that, Icebreaker and I’ll go and have a look for you.”

The new co-ordinates had been entered into his flight computer just a moment later in preparation for the impromptu trip south and the aircraft’s autopilot took over, instantly bringing the F-35E into a tight, high-G turn that brought it back onto a southerly heading. His afterburner kicked in for a few moments, forcing him back in his seat as the jet accelerated and climbed at the same time, levelling out as it passed through 10,000 metres.

“Comms: music — play Iron Maiden.”

The F-35E model (pre-production model EF-1) was a one-off, two-seat prototype developed from the original single-seat F-35B STOVL variant. Originally intended as a demonstrator and test aircraft for the viability of a two-seat cockpit due to pressure from some of Lockheed’s prospective international customers, aircraft EF-1 had been commandeered by the US Government and supplied on open-ended ‘loan’ to Thorne’s special unit as it was the only aircraft available that was able to fill a quite specific set of required mission parameters.

Thorne, who’d become the primary pilot, had spend several months in simulator and real flight training with the F-35E as a result and had almost become part of the development team himself as the last of its initial bugs and idiosyncrasies were ironed out. As he’d provided a great deal of input during the final stages of its operational status and had also been required to personally program the cockpit’s speech-recognition command system to attune it to his voice, he’d also had some of his own requests factored into the aircraft’s features.

One of them had included the provision of a non-standard socket interface mounted just ahead of the throttle control, into which was currently inserted a small 16GB iPod Nano. The Apple music player was filled with a personal collection of Thorne’s favourite music in MPEG audio format and could be piped through his headset on request. The quality of the sound reproduction wasn’t fantastic but it was better than nothing in Thorne’s estimation.

As the distinctive opening guitar riffs of Iron Maiden’s song The Trooper blasted in his ears, Thorne settled into his seat and tried to remain calm as he contemplated the potential dangers ahead and the F-35E hurtled through the cold, darkening sky southward at close to the speed of sound.

High above the English Channel north of Guernsey, Leutnant Keller and his wingman cruised along effortlessly in their new Focke-Wulf J-4A fighters. Flying in standard Luftwaffe paired formation (known as a ‘rotte’) they belonged to 8 Staffel of III/LG2 based at Cherbourg. As an instructional unit, Lehrgeschwader-2 was preparing for the commencement of the conversion of front-line Luftwaffe fighter wings to the new fighter aircraft they were now testing.

Although they’d now had those two particular examples of the new J-4A flying for a few weeks, the aircraft’s capabilities still impressed them. Larger in all respects than the J-109 ‘Emil’ it was about to replace, the Würger — or ‘Shrike’ — was packed with improvements and innovations. The aircraft was heavier than its predecessor, but the larger Junkers V-12 engine that powered it was still able to give the aircraft a top speed substantially greater than the fastest Spitfire either at sea level or at altitude.

The rear fuselage was cut down and a sliding, ‘tear-drop’ canopy was provided, both factors resulting in greatly superior all-round visibility for the pilot. There was also the added benefit of the ability to leave the canopy hood open, something that was impossible with the side-opening design on the J-109. It was a luxury both pilots were making the most of at that moment.

“Herr Leutnant!” The call came over the radio from Keller’s wingman. “Aircraft off to port…!” The lieutenant craned his neck to the left, and dipping that wing slightly he caught sight — barely — of the aircraft in question. It was travelling at far lower altitude — no more than 2,000 metres above the Channel — and was at least ten kilometres away. Save for the last vestiges of full sunlight glinting off its wings and upper surfaces, it might well have passed unseen.

“Well spotted, Hans,” Keller acknowledged “A flying boat, I think. Shall we take a closer look?” He threw his Shrike onto its port wing and increased throttle, banking sharply westward as he armed his guns.

Smoke poured from the port, inboard engine of Short Sunderland ‘G-for-Grace’ of Royal Australian Air Force Number 10 Squadron as Flight-Lieutenant Edward Whittaker watched from the pilot’s seat with more than a little apprehension. Its starboard counterpart already lay dormant off the right side of the cockpit, the three-bladed propeller feathered and spinning lazily as the flying boat struggled to maintain a constant airspeed. Five hours earlier they’d run across a Focke-Wulf P-200C Condor over the Bay of Biscay and unlike most Condor pilots, this one had decided to attack in spite of the large German patrol aircraft’s generally fragile nature.

The Sunderland — an aircraft the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine respectfully referred to as ‘der Fliegende Stachelschwein’ (‘the Flying Porcupine’) — had beaten off the repeated attacks, and in all probability they’d dealt the enemy patrol bomber a beating from which it wouldn’t recover as it finally fled east once more trailing smoke. The P-200C’s heavy machine guns and 20mm cannon had given them a severe pummelling in return nevertheless: only two of their four engines were now functioning properly and their damaged, leaking fuel tanks meant they’d be lucky to make home base at Plymouth, or a Coastal Command safe haven anywhere else for that matter. Their compass was shattered and he suspected they were well off-course and a lot closer to German-controlled airspace than they’d have liked, but Whittaker kept fighting with his controls and refused to give up hope all the same.

Whittaker was twenty-eight years of age and had studied architecture at university prior to enlisting with the RAAF as a flying officer in 1936. Born and bred in Perth, Western Australia, the young man had grown up strong and fit as a teenager working on his father’s sheep farm. Tall and lean, with fair hair and a pair of sharp, blue eyes, a love of amateur boxing had kept him in shape through his university years and left him in good stead for his military career as a pilot.

The pilot was an original member of 10 Sqn, having been with the unit since its formation at RAAF Base Point Cook in July of 1939, and had left Australia later that same month to train in England on their newly-delivered Sunderland flying boats. The outbreak of war had prevented their return to Australia, and instead the unit had remained in Europe, basing out of RAF Mount Batten in Plymouth and taking the war directly to enemy U-boats operating in the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay.

Coming in hard from the west, the setting sun making them invisible until practically the last moment, Keller’s J-4A thundered in toward the tail of the Sunderland at full speed with his wingman at his port rear quarter. The leutnant smiled as he closed to within cannon range, the flying boat’s tail gunner spotting them far too late. As the man screamed a warning over the intercom and Whittaker threw the aircraft into an evasive corkscrew to port, the fighter’s wing cannon and nose machine guns opened up and four deadly streams of tracer poured into the Sunderland’s rear fuselage. The wing cannon of the J-4A fired at much higher velocity and rate of fire than any before fitted to a Luftwaffe aircraft; all of which meaning it was a deadly weapon in the hands of a good pilot, and Keller was as good as any.

The sparkle of shell detonations flickered across the rear of the flying boat, its tail gunner dying before he was able to return fire. Keller’s fighter roared past in a tight circle, immediately coming around to begin a second attack run as their prey banked away in the opposite direction trailing smoke, that single pass inflicting severe damage on the already-failing Sunderland. Inside the cockpit, Whittaker’s heart sank further as the ailing port inboard engine chose to give up the ghost completely at that moment, right in the middle of his evasive manoeuvre. The Pegasus radial died in a shower of lurid sparks and clouds of smoke, and at that point the pilot realised there was no hope left whatsoever of keeping his aircraft intact: he gave the order to bail out.

Keller opened fire a second time just eight hundred metres astern of his target, centring his Revi gunsight on the flying boat’s port wing root. The radio operator died under the barrage, vainly calling out across the airwaves for assistance that would never come. Whittaker’s co-pilot slumped forward under that same attack, his back a sea of crimson and half his head blown away as glass and instruments shattered all around them.

Whittaker became the last of just five of the aircraft’s ten crewmen to get clear, bailing out just moments before the enemy fighters raked the Sunderland with fire for a third time. The starboard wing became engulfed in flame as what remained of the fuel within it ignited. It tore completely away from the stricken aircraft and the two shattered, burning remnants of flying boat spiralled away trailing dense clouds of smoke and fire. Keller radioed back to base with instructions to alert units on Guernsey of the attack as the pair turned away. Within minutes, an E-boat or rescue aircraft would be on its way to pick up any survivors.

By that stage the German fighters were just eighty kilometres south of the English coast and for the second time that day, Keller’s wingman spotted an enemy aircraft in the failing light: this time a lone Spitfire heading north-west at very low altitude. Faint trails of silvery smoke trailed behind it, a good indication it was already in trouble, and the pair of Shrikes turned in to attack once more.

Trumbull caught the flash of sunlight off canopy glass in his rear-view mirror just seconds before Keller opened fire. He threw the Spit into a hard, banking turn to port as the tracer sizzled past him, fire from just one of the enemies’ cannon chewing at his starboard wingtip and leaving it a ragged mess. Their superior speed was so great that both Focke-Wulf fighters overshot their target quickly, banked high to starboard as they circled back around. Trumbull desperately fought to gain some altitude with which to manoeuvre — the coast was tantalisingly close but still too far away under the present dire circumstances. Turning back to the north, he began a slow, agonising climb as his exhaust stacks chugged grey smoke in protest.

From a distance of 600 metres, Keller’s cannon sent a deadly burst of fire past Trumbull’s cockpit just thirty seconds later. The British pilot tried a ‘Split-S’ manoeuvre but didn’t have enough speed to make it effective and he felt the Spitfire reel as 13mm machine gun slugs ripped through her. One struck the back of his armoured seat a glancing blow, not penetrating but denting it to the point that he could feel it intruding into his back.

He almost lost control for a second or two, the thought of how close the slug had come to killing him shaking his frayed nerves almost as much as the impact had physically jarred his body. A 20mm cannon shell smashed straight through the top of his canopy above his head at a shallow angle, showering him with glass fragments before punching right through the centre of his windshield. It finally detonated itself against his already-damaged engine cowling, tearing another hole in it at the very front near the propeller. Coolant fluid spewed across what was left of his windscreen and his face also through the huge, ragged hole left in the glass.

As he frantically tried to wipe the foul liquid from his goggles in an attempt to clear his vision, he imagined the fleeting image of a huge, dark shape streaking past him in the opposite direction at incredible speed followed closely by a sound much like the howl of a cyclone. The rear-view mirror was miraculously still intact above his ruined canopy frame, and through it he rather unexpectedly saw one of the pursuing enemy fighters explode in a fiery ball a moment later.

With no time to truly be intrigued by what had just happened, Trumbull concentrated on maintaining level flight and waited for the other fighter to blow him apart. He was absolutely astounded to suddenly catch sight of the second enemy fighter in his peripheral vision, and he turned his head to find it was racing away to the west at what had to be full throttle, all the while dodging and weaving for all it was worth.

“Bloody hell…!” Trumbull remarked in astonishment, for the moment he caught sight of what was pursuing it he understood why it was running. What he saw was like nothing he’d ever encountered before: a huge grey machine the size of a medium bomber, it had no propellers he could see. Instead, a pair of gaping, angular ‘radiator vents’ of some kind were fitted on either side of the fuselage below and to the rear of a long, two-seat cockpit.

Trumbull couldn’t pick out any national insignia on the aircraft as it roared past, although its overall mid-grey paint scheme appeared to sport some kind of unit crest on its twin tails and several pieces of printed lettering along its fuselage and wings that were unintelligible at that distance and speed. There was just one flash of variation however that he could see — a thin strip of multiple colours along the fuselage from just aft of the large ‘vent’ on one side running back to the point where the leading edge of the large, swept wing blended seamlessly into the body of the aircraft. Trumbull was somewhat relieved as he realised the one thing he could make out from that ‘bar’ of colours was the distinctive pattern of a small Union Jack, and that at least suggested the newcomer was a ‘friendly’.

Beneath the belly of the aircraft, a large, angular pod of similar colouring was suspended from a thick pylon, and Trumbull realised that this housed what must’ve been a large an quite powerful cannon as it opened fire on the second fleeing Messerschmitt at what had to be a range of at least half a mile in his estimation. A huge muzzle flash flared ahead of the pod as it fired and a torrent of streaking, pink tracer literally tore the J-4A to pieces.

Trumbull was suddenly forced to take his mind and eyes away from the other strange aircraft as a minor explosion reverberated through his Spitfire and he immediately began to lose power once more. The smoke that poured from his exhaust turned from grey to black, and he could now see sparks carried with it. As he struggled on he prayed fervently that he’d have enough time and altitude to reach dry land.

At the commencement of his attack run on the hapless J-4A fighters, Thorne had ‘lit up’ his main radar systems to obtain a target range for his fire control computer. Its emissions had instantly been detected by a Luftwaffe surveillance aircraft flying high over the French coast, a hundred kilometres north-east. Word of the detection was then passed on quickly through various channels to the OKW Western HQ near Amiens, and as that news reached the hands of Albert Schiller, all hell had broken loose. Within seconds he was bursting through the doors to the briefing room as Reichsmarschall Reuters looked up from that same table, still pouring over production reports and figures.

“Kurt, Sentry just picked up a temporal violation west of the Channel…!” The words struck Reuters almost physically, leaving him momentarily unable to speak as his mind assimilated the unthinkable information. Another moment and he was all business once more, the initial shock dissipating as training and adrenalin took over and the Reichsmarschall leaped from his chair, reaching for a phone at the far end of the table.

“Details…! What are we talking about…?”

“They don’t know yet…emissions were erratic and of an unidentified type…”

“How is that possible?” Reuters demanded with a sharp stare. “We had Sentry’s database upgraded with the signatures of every known operational military aircraft on record prior to our departure!”

“Sentry’s Chief Intel Officer can’t explain it, other than to say that other than the radar emissions, they could detect no sign of the aircraft itself on their main search radars, and at an estimated range of a hundred klicks there was no way any normal aircraft could’ve stayed hidden. The bloody radar signal simply ‘appeared out of nowhere seconds before the bastard ‘bounced’ a pair of J-4As south of Swanage, sprayed them all over the Channel in less than two minutes and then bloody-well disappeared again off their scopes…” Schiller grimaced, recognising the enormity of what he was about to add “…whatever it was, the nature of the emissions suggested a phased array transmitter and that it must have been stealthy to have evaded detection at that range.”

“They detected just one aircraft?”

“Only one aircraft detected…” Schiller conceded, then added “…but who’s to say how many might’ve been out there that weren’t using active radar?”

“Guess there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there,” Reuters snarled and finally turned his attention to the operator at the other end of the phone who’d answered the moment he’d picked it up. “This is Reichsmarschall Reuters! Get me Wuppertal Air Base immediately!” As the NCO at the other end took note of the tone in his Commander-in-Chief’s voice and hurriedly complied with the request, Reuters turned momentarily back to Schiller.

“Get back to Sentry: tell them to head east and stay well out of the way of the sneaky bastard…they mightn’t be able to see him, but he’ll damned sure see them and I don’t want them inadvertently finding themselves at the wrong end of a heat-seeker as a result! Make sure they keep their eyes open: even if they play it safe and move back into German airspace, they’ll still be able to pick up his emissions if this fellow ‘lights up’ again, and I want to know about it the moment that happens! I want to know what the bastard is up to and I damn sure want to know where’s he’s going! Make sure they stay high and stay alert — I’ll have a pair of escorts up shortly to look after them!”

“Wuppertal Air Base for you, Herr Reichsmarschall…” the operator announced quickly. There was a crackle of static, followed by a new voice on the line as Schiller bolted from the room without waiting to be dismissed.

“This is Oberst Ernst Pohl, Herr Reichsmarschall… Is there a problem?”

“You’re damned right there’s a bloody problem!” Reuters snarled, in no mood for pleasantries. “Get all four of the Flankers fired up and into the air now! I want two of those fucking planes as a protective escort for Sentry and the other two heading for the English coast in five minutes or I’ll have someone’s skull as a pisspot!”

“May I inquire as to the mission of the second two jets, Mein Herr…?”…came the return query in a tone decidedly unnerved by the mental imagery that last statement had created.

“Never mind that all that shit…they can report in directly with Sentry and the area controller once they’re up! Just get those bloody planes flying!” He slammed the receiver down and stormed off in pursuit of Schiller.

Near the outskirts of the city of Wuppertal in the German Ruhr Valley, two pairs of jet aircraft thundered into the sky exactly four minutes later, their wing and fuselage pylons loaded with fuel tanks and air-to-air missiles. The aircraft, once known as Sukhoi Su-30MK multi-role fighters, were each the length of a Heinkel bomber and twice the weight. Often still referred to by the outdated NATO nickname ‘Flanker-C’, the four sleek, shark-like craft climbed easily to altitude and roared away westward toward the French frontier. None carried any unit markings, and the only variation to their completely black fuselages and wings were a white-bordered swastika on each of their twin tails beneath which was a single red number — the aircraft numbered ‘1’ through ‘4’ respectively.

“Hawk-One, this is Sentry: do you read…over?” The call from the area controller was picked up immediately even though the high-flying Sentry aircraft was more than 200 kilometres away.

“We read you, Sentry — this is Hawk-One…over….” the response was instantaneous.

“Hawk-One, we’ve detected a temporal violation over the western end of the English Channel, approximately thirty kilometres south of Bournemouth…over…”

“Identity…?” The pilot frowned deeply at the unpleasant news.

“Unknown, but potentially stealthy: it appeared approximately eight minutes ago, immediately attacking and destroying a pair of J-4A fighters that were in pursuit of a damaged British fighter at the time, then disappeared again from our screens. We suspect it’s acting alone but have no confirmation on that…over…”

“A ‘stealthy’ aircraft…?” Hawk-1’s weapons officer was apprehensive. Although both German, he’d participated in exercises against the USAF and had gained first hand experience of the dangers of coming up against stealthy aircraft in combat. “We were given guarantees there’d be no ‘contemporary’ opposition!”

“Shut up a moment!” The pilot snapped from the forward cockpit, trying to think. “Hawk-Three and –Four: mission is to protect Sentry at all costs. Hawk-Two and I will investigate the unidentified aircraft: give us a bearing, Sentry — we’ll intercept…over…”

“Escort detail: come about to three-zero-four for rendezvous heading. Hawk-One: initial bearing to unidentified target is two-seven-zero…over….”

“No problem, Sentry — two-seven-zero it is…Hawks out.” He switched frequencies. “Hawk-Two, the heading is two-seven-zero…let’s take it to ten thousand and go to reheat.”

As Hawk-Three and –Four peeled out of formation and turned onto a northerly heading, intending to meet up with the Sentry they were tasked to protect, the remaining pair of jets banked as one and turned due west toward the dark horizon. Raw jet fuel pumped into their exhausts as their afterburners kicked in and in moments both were at 10,000 metres and cruising effortlessly at nearly twice the speed of sound.

The impact tore the bottom out of the Spitfire and threw Trumbull hard against his harness, but the fuselage remained in one piece as the ruined fighter came finally to rest just short of the beach in a metre of water. As he climbed from the cockpit, shaken and disoriented but otherwise unharmed, he stepped gingerly onto the shattered engine cowling and took stock of his surroundings in the dying twilight. He’d come down off the Dorset coast somewhere west of Weymouth, and having some knowledge of the area through family holidays as a child, he suspected the section of beach he was looking at was most likely somewhere between Abbotsbury and Swyre.

The beach, which might’ve appeared inviting were it not for the lateness of the day and the icy wind that gusted about him, ran about forty metres up from the water to a narrow, asphalt road and dark, open fields beyond. Trumbull once again heard the roaring of that strange aircraft’s engine and turned to his right to catch sight of the jet as it banked slowly in across the coast from behind him, settling in above the lane bordering the beach at what seemed to be an impossibly low speed. Navigation lights blinked from its body and wingtips, but it was otherwise very difficult to see anything in great detail in the failing light.

Hatches drew back above and below the fuselage, directly behind the cockpit, and a powerful jet of ducted air suddenly blasted downward from the opening, matching the rear exhaust nozzle which at the same time rotated quickly through ninety degrees and added its thrust to the maelstrom beneath the aircraft.

Trumbull continued to watch, dumbstruck as the machine incredibly came to a complete halt and hovered over a small section of the road. Landing gear lowered from beneath its nose and belly and the beach was suddenly awash with stark, white illumination as landing lights came on from somewhere beneath it. The aircraft finally settled itself onto the surface of the road after a slow and somewhat awkward descent as debris, sand and vegetable matter sprayed up all around. As it finally came to rest, the deafening howl of the engine began to fall away to something that was merely painful and the landing lights flicked off again, just the red and green blinking of its wingtip navigation strobes remaining and allowing Trumbull to at least able to stare directly at the aircraft without almost being blinded.

Ignoring the coldness of the water as he jumped in to the depth of his thighs, Trumbull drew the Webley revolver at his belt and strode purposefully toward the new arrival, determined to find out what was going on. He trudged awkwardly across the beach and found himself quite out of breath by the time he’d reached the road, a few metres ahead of the aircraft’s nose. Even from that distance, he could feel the faint pull of suction from the gaping intakes behind the cockpit, and he didn’t want to think about what fate might befall anything unfortunate enough to be sucked inside.

The intensity of the rushing air abated somewhat as the main powerplant spooled down completely and left just a soft whining sound emanating from somewhere within the airframe, a small auxiliary turbine continuing to supply power to the jet and allow it to remain prepared for an engine restart. The bubble-like canopy tilted upward and forward on a large, hydraulic hinge and Trumbull noted that the two-seat cockpit held just one man in the forward seat. The pilot inside wore a large, bulky black helmet with a dark, reflective visor that appeared to cover his entire face above a small oxygen mask. As he rose in his seat, hands holding the left edge of the cockpit for support, the pilot flipped up the visor of the helmet and leaned his head out through the opening created by the raised canopy.

“G’day, mate…!” He yelled in a cheery Australian drawl over the dying howl of the engine. “Squadron Leader Trumbull, I presume?” The attempted lightness of the tone belied the adrenalin-laced nervousness behind it.

“And just who the bloody hell are you?” Trumbull demanded angrily in return, frustrated and feeling completely out of his depth as he waved the revolver loosely at the jet in a rather cavalier fashion. “…And what the bloody hell is this bloody monstrosity?”

“Squadron Leader, there are a hell of a lot of things you won’t understand at this point…” Max Thorne yelled back, never losing his good humour but letting an authoritative tone creep into his voice all the same. “When we’ve more time I’ll be happy to explain everything to you, but right now time is something that we really don’t have.” Thorne turned and reached around behind his seat before throwing down a narrow rope ladder that hooked onto the side of the cockpit. “If you’ll just get yourself up here, we have to be going.”

“There is not a chance in Hades I’m getting in to that contraption!” Trumbull snapped back nervously, not getting any happier about the situation and more than a little bit unsettled by the idea.

“Mate…” Thorne began, the quickly changing tone suggesting the RAF pilot was anything but. “In no time at all, some really nasty pricks are probably going to come sniffing around looking for me and I’d much prefer not to be around when they turn up. I sure as shit don’t want to be stuck on the bloody ground when they turn up! Now I can take off with you or without you, but I am taking off again in about thirty bloody seconds.” His patience eroded by stress and the need for haste, Thorne decided that the genial approach wasn’t working. “…You can either get your Pommy arse up here with me and get a lift to somewhere warm and safe or you can bloody-well freeze it off right here: either way, I’m leaving! Your choice, mate…the clock’s ticking!”

Completely unused to being spoken to in such a manner, particularly by a colonial, Trumbull’s initial reaction was to return the full broadside of his temper, but something in the intensity of the glare Thorne gave him changed his mind. There was a darkness behind those eyes that suggested there were far bigger things afoot than Trumbull’s current situation or displeasure, and instinct suddenly told him it’d be in his best interests to bite back on his anger and comply. With a single, sour nod and not a word, Trumbull holstered his Webley and jogged quickly to the dangling ladder. With a gulp of swallowed nerves, he put one foot on the lowest ‘rung’ and accepted Thorne’s reaching hand of assistance as he hauled himself up.

Hawk-1 and -2 skimmed the English coast south of Dorset, thunderous sonic booms trailing in their wake as the surface of The Channel hurtled past just 200 metres below them. Their own radars had found nothing of the ‘phantom’ jet Sentry had detected, but they had picked up the RAF fighter it had saved momentarily before the stricken Spitfire had disappeared into ground clutter a few kilometres west of Weymouth. Sentry’s more powerful systems however had been easily able to pick out the point where it had crash landed and was able to vector the two German jets onto an interception course.

Sentry’s controllers were working on the assumption that whatever the unidentified jet might be, there was at least a slim possibility that it was still in the area of the downed Spitfire it had appeared out of nowhere to save. As they were unable to detect the jet itself and had no other information to go on, it seemed the only logical course of action that might possibly have a chance of interception, and thus the pair of black Flankers flew on, carefully avoiding any conventional warplanes still in the area as Churchill’s so-called Battle of Britain drew to a close for another day. With their colour schemes and speed they were all but invisible in the dying twilight save for the sound of their passing and the flare of their twin exhausts on afterburner.

“We’re within fifty nautical miles of the landing site,” Hawk-1’s pilot observed as his eyes watched his displays for any sign of their enemy. “Ease it back to five hundred knots.” He killed his afterburner and dropped the aircraft below the speed of sound, his wingman following suit.

“We’re probably on a wild goose chase,” the commander continued, speaking to his colleagues in the other jet, “but keep your eyes peeled and stay ‘black’: radar will be useless if this bastard is stealthy and it’ll only serve to warn him if he’s lurking about. With any luck we’ll catch him on the hop and put a couple of Archers up his arse before he knows what’s going on.” Although with no fucking radar and the coastline ahead in complete darkness, I don’t know what hope we have of finding him even if he is there… he added in sour silence, deciding it perhaps better to keep that thought to himself.

He activated his air combat systems and armed a pair of R-73 short-range missiles beneath his wings. A luminous green diamond instantly appeared on his HUD, tracking aimlessly about the screen before him as it vainly searched for a suitable heat source to lock onto. The Vympel R-73, known colloquially in NATO circles as the AA-11 Archer, was an advanced short-range, heat-seeking missile that was extremely manoeuvrable and highly sensitive to the heat of a jet’s exhaust. Two of the missiles were mounted at wing-tip launcher rails on each of the aircraft, while another pair were slung beneath each jet’s wings outboard of a pair of huge fuel tanks.

Mounted on the upper nose directly ahead of the windscreen of each aircraft was a small pod housing a powerful Infra-Red Search and Tracking module — often referred to simply as an IRST. In perfect conditions it could detect heat sources from enemy aircraft from a distance of up to eighty kilometres or more. Although these weren’t likely to be optimum circumstances, the men inside the pair of Su-30s could at least hope their sensors would give them a reasonable amount of advanced warning.

“Be ready to turn onto three-six-zero on my mark,” he added. “If we do see him and he tries to run, herd him west and out to sea if you can — I don’t want to catch any bloody flak over England if I can avoid it!”

“What the hell is this thing?” Trumbull asked finally, unable to keep quiet as his curiosity got the better of his poor temper. As he strapped himself into the rear seat he was stymied by the myriad of strange instruments and fittings surrounding him.

“Put this on!” Thorne shouted, handing him a helmet much like the one he wore. As the RAF pilot removed his own headgear, the Australian leaned over the top of his own seat’s headrest to help him. As Trumbull slid the strange equipment over his head, Thorne plugged the helmet’s communications jacks into the correct sockets and Trumbull could suddenly hear the man quite clearly. He was speaking into a microphone set into the inside of the oxygen mask clipped beneath his own helmet — the mask now covering his entire face. The squadron leader copied the set-up and clipped up the mask he found by his own seat, instantly finding fresh air for his lungs to breathe once more and taking a deep breath as he repeated the question.

Thorne paused for a moment, deciding it simpler to acknowledge the aircraft’s original ancestry rather than go into a range of details the man was in any case unlikely to understand. “It’s called a F-35 Lightning, squadron leader: she’s a new prototype from the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in the United States.” Although a massive understatement, that was at least the truth in a very basic form. As it was, Trumbull’s family connections and personal knowledge of current fighter development was sufficient for him to pick out some immediate problems with Thorne’s initial statement.

“I’ve seen pictures of Lockheed’s P-38 Lightning,” he shot back with a vaguely accusatory tone. “The RAF’s in discussions at the moment to purchase hundreds of them from the Yanks…and this thing looks nothing like it…”

“Okay…okay…I’ll remember never to talk ‘down’ to you again,” Thorne chuckled, amused that he’d unexpectedly been caught out. “You’re right: this isn’t a P-38 Lightning. The full name of the aircraft you’re currently sitting in is a Lockheed Martin F-35E Lightning Two, and it’s a more advanced development of the Gloster E.28/39 turbojet design.” Another simplification and a gross understatement, but again basically the truth. It didn’t occur to Thorne, speaking from the standpoint of history as he was, that Frank Whittle’s jet fighter test aircraft might still be a classified experiment.

“That turbine powered thing?” Trumbull was vaguely aware of the work Gloster had been carrying out with embryonic jet engines. The fact that his father was a very close friend of the Prime Minister meant he often picked up snippets of information often classed as ‘Top Secret’. “This is no Whittle design,” he stated with certainty. No fool, the man was well aware of what modern science could — and could not — do. “This aircraft obviously exists, but I find it hard to believe the technology to build it is possessed by Lockheed or anyone else, for that matter.”

“You’re actually quite right, old chap…” Thorne muttered to himself, his thoughts mostly taken up with his instruments as he prepared for a hurried take off. “Not yet, anyway…” he continued under his breath before adding loudly: “Systems: engine restart…”

The background humming of the jet’s APU increased instantly but was quickly overpowered by a deep, almost infrasonic rumble that built to a deafening howl as the main engine began to spool up once more in preparation for take off.

“I’m Max Thorne, by the way, squadron leader, and I know it’s probably painfully obvious at the moment that something really unusual is going on here. This isn’t the time to discuss it however. For a start, there isn’t the slightest chance you’ll believe me; secondly, it’s almost certain that enemy fighters are vectoring in on us at this very moment, as I’ve already said. The most important thing to do right now is get to safety…” as an afterthought, Thorne then added, rather unhelpfully in Trumbull’s opinion, “…assuming of course the road I’ve just landed on here is flat enough and solid enough for me to make a take off run without ploughing the friggin’ nose into the ground…”

The cockpit canopy lowered around them as Trumbull finished strapping himself in, and as he tilted his head to one side he could — barely — get a glimpse of what Thorne was doing with his controls. His left hand jammed a sliding lever forward that the RAF pilot could only assume was the throttle, based on the dramatic rise in engine thrust and noise that accompanied it. The entire airframe began to shudder under the increased power as Thorne deftly adjusted a smaller sliding control mounted to the left of some kind of small, flat TV screen set at the top of his instrument panel.

Powerful landing lights flicked on once more, illuminating the lane for hundreds of metres ahead, while behind the aircraft its exhaust nozzle altered direction from its current 90º angle to instead point almost directly rearward as it would in normal flight.

“What on earth could possibly threaten this thing?” Trumbull mused in delayed response to the other man’s earlier statement and considered what he’d seen as the F-35E had quickly despatched his two pursuers earlier.

Hawk-1’s IRST pod picked up the F-35’s heat signature the moment they turned onto a northerly heading and powered in toward the English coastline. It was faint — incredibly faint for a combat aircraft in the pilot’s opinion — and seemed to be completely stationary, which didn’t make sense at all. At a range of little more than four kilometres it was clear enough though to gain a lock on, and the green diamond on his HUD immediately snapped across to the right edge of the screen and turned a bright red as it picked out the target. A growling sound in his headset advised him the seeker heads of his four armed R-73 missiles had all also found the target and were ready for launch.

In that moment, the section of beach around the locked target suddenly became a bright beacon of light against the otherwise black coastline, and it instantly became apparent to the crew of Hawk-1 why the enemy appeared to be stationary: it had landed and was now preparing to take off once more.

“I see him! I see him!” Hawk-2’s pilot howled over the radio excitedly as they hurtled along just five hundred metres above the surface of the Channel. “Landing lights up the beach to starboard, bearing zero-one-eight!”

“Thank you for the ‘heads up’, Hawk-Two,” Hawk-1’s pilot snapped back with caustic sarcasm, “…but my IRST has got him already: with those landing lights I suspect any bastard within ten bloody kilometres can probably see him as well!” Returning to complete professionalism, he added: “Keep on my wing…I’m turning into attack now.” There was another pause as a new thought occurred to him. “He’s on the ground, so missiles will be out: switching to cannon. He’ll be heading west on his take off run, so watch for him and be ready to break if he makes it into the air.”

As Hawk-2 dropped slightly behind and eased around onto his rear port quarter, Hawk-1’s pilot banked his own fighter gently around to the east to bring his cannon to bear on the landed enemy. Capable as it was, even the R-73 Archer had its limitations, and one of those was a minimum engagement altitude of no less than 300 metres. With the target on the ground there was nothing for it but to instead arm the 30mm cannon mounted in its starboard wing root, and as he switched his weapons systems over to ground attack mode, the red diamond of the missile lock disappeared, replaced instead with a small ‘dot-in-a-circle’ targeting marker known colloquially as a ‘pipper’.

At the same time, the Sukhoi’s gun ranging radar activated out of the sheer necessity to provide the pilot with an accurate idea of his position in relation to the ground and, as a result, his cannon’s expected point of impact. The green pipper bobbed and wavered slightly as the jets cut through a minor buffet of low-level turbulence before steadying directly over the bright landing lights of their earth-bound target.

Considering that the activation of the ranging radar had effectively given the game away and announced their presence to the world, the flight commander saw no point in remaining ‘black’ any longer and lit up his main targeting and search radars. The action confirmed what Sentry had already expected: that their target was indeed a stealth aircraft of some type, and even with gear down in a landed configuration, the radar return was insignificant to the point of almost being electronically invisible.

“Oh shit!” Thorne observed, half-scared and half-excited as a warbling tone suddenly rose in both men’s helmets that even to the uninitiated was instantly recognisable as an alarm, and the pilot drew a sharp breath as he stared at information flickering across that wide, main LCD screen before him. There was a similar screen in front of Trumbull but he could make neither hide nor hair of what was displayed on it.

“You asked what could threaten us…?” Thorne asked a second later in a dry, rhetoric tone. “Well we’re about to find out: EW just picked up radar emissions from two bogies coming in fast from the south, right on our hammer! Hang on, Sunshine — this is likely to get pretty bloody hairy!”

Wheel brakes were released and the jet instantly began to trundle along the lane, quickly building speed for take off. Trumbull’s stomach lurched as Thorne jammed the throttle fully forward and the Lightning accelerated across the asphalt at an incredible rate. Within just a hundred metres or perhaps less, the aircraft leaped into the air ahead of a pillar of exhaust and flying debris and continued to accelerate as Thorne returned the controls completely to level flight and engaged the afterburner. That action produced a second, more powerful increase in thrust as they fought to gain valuable altitude and Trumbull scanned the dark horizon for their unseen attackers.

The approaching Sukhois might’ve been invisible to the naked eye but they appeared clear as day on the Lightning’s EW systems and as both men stared off to the south, two small red squares appeared on the projection screens inside their helmet visors to indicate the exact position of the approaching jets. Tiny red subtitles beneath the target boxes listed the identity of the aircraft based on the type of radar emissions being received, each showing simply as “SU-30” with a range reading of ‘02135’ with kilometres displayed in the larger font and metres in the smaller.

“My God…! There they are!” Trumbull breathed, terrified despite having only a pair of red target ‘boxes’ to go by and not actually being able to see what it was that was coming to attack them.

“Hold on then, pal, ‘cause here we go!” The F-35E continued to accelerate and gain altitude as Thorne turned to port, the fingers of his right hand flicking about the buttons and switches mounted on his joystick so quickly it was almost a reflex action. Even as he armed his own weapons, the streaking pink flares of tracer reached out for them from the darkness and a single stream of cannon shells passed far too close astern for comfort.

With a single, plaintive and indignant utterance of “Fuck…!”, Thorne hauled back on his stick to increase his rate of turn and climb, banking tightly to port toward the enemy as the flick of another switch released a cascade of bright, hissing decoy flares that spewed from dispensers hidden in the rear fuselage. Intended to make any prospective attempt to obtain an infra-red lock more difficult, they lit up the entire area around the climbing aircraft and fell away to the ground where several immediately ignited small grassfires in the fields below.

Hawk-1 banked sharply to port, trying to ‘walk’ his cannon fire into the rising enemy, but the collective closing speed was far too high and Thorne’s turn in toward them made the angle that much tighter. The tracer fell away behind as both Su-30s thundered past the F-35E just two hundred metres astern, their exhausts flaring as afterburners kicked in and the pair split to port and starboard in an attempt to confuse their enemy.

“Reuters’ fuckin’ Flankers…!” Thorne growled sourly to himself as he snapped his head from one side to the other and tried to keep both aircraft in sight, oblivious to the fact that Trumbull — devoid of the benefit of a G-suit — was too busy fighting unconsciousness and the desire to vomit to really take notice. “Talk about the ‘Red Carpet’ treatment!”

The moment the pair passed behind him, he immediately reversed his course and switched back onto a tight turn to starboard as the F-35 passed through 1,000 metres. The Lightning’s nose was still pointing away from the turning jets at an angle of greater than ninety degrees, however the missiles he carried inside his weapons bays were a generation ahead of those of his opponents.

The moment he was able to look over his right shoulder and see the nearest of the Sukhois, the targeting systems slaved to his HDMS picked up its heat source and ‘locked on’. The growling tone in his ear told him as much and he loosed a pair of his own heat seekers, both of the internal weapons bays in his lower fuselage opening just long enough to each eject one missile into the slipstream. The pair of AIM-9X Sidewinder AAMs dropped out of the openings and hissed away directly ahead for just a few metres before snapping sharply upward and away at an oblique angle to the north, immediately darting off in the direction of their target and locking onto the heat of its jet exhaust.

The reaction within the cockpits of the two Flankers was immediate: within a second of their rearward threat receivers detecting the missiles, each pilot threw his jet into a series of wild manoeuvres, decoy flares now spraying from their tails in an attempt to escape.

“Fuck! Watch your arse, Hawk-Two!” The flight commander called, catching sight of his wingman banking away to the west with the pair of Sidewinders in pursuit, his own decoy flares spewing from its tail in desperation. Although one of the deadly little missiles veered away at the last moment, distracted by a decoy flare, the other homed unerringly and hurtled on toward its target. As the Sidewinder drew to within a few dozen metres of the jet’s tail, Hawk-2’s pilot dumped another torrent of decoy flares and in a last, desperate attempt to break missile lock stood the aircraft on its tail and entered into a poststall manoeuvre instantly recognisable to all watching (save for Trumbull) as a ‘Cobra’.

The manoeuvre was so named because as the pilot pulls back sharply on the stick, the performing aircraft almost immediately flips upward into an angle of attack of between 90-120 degrees accompanied by an almost complete loss of airspeed that causes the plane to appear as if it is standing motionless on its tail. Drag on the rear of the aircraft then creates torque that pitches the nose forward once more, at which time a return to full power allows the aircraft to return to normal flight. The pattern of the movements through all of this broadly simulates the head of a cobra while striking its prey, hence the nickname.

Of limited real use in actual combat, the instinctive reaction by the Su-30’s pilot was in the vain hope that the combination of flares, the sudden change of angle and dramatic loss of speed might possibly either break the missiles targeting or at least cause it to overshoot. Unfortunately neither eventuated and the deadly little missile ploughed into the rear of the Sukhoi at two and a half times the speed of sound, its warhead detonating a microsecond later.

Everything aft of the wings disintegrated into a thick cloud of smoke and fire in that moment as the stricken jet reached the apex of its climb and found itself suddenly and totally devoid of thrust. It hung for a moment, nose pointing toward the heavens, before stalling completely and slowly turning over into a final dive earthward.

“Pugachev can kiss my ass!” Thorne muttered in soft elation as he watched the destruction of Hawk-2, the remark in reference to Chief Pilot Designer of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, Victor Pugachev, after whom the manoeuvre was often named. He then turned his attention to the second target and activated the cannon in the pod below the F-35’s belly.

“Get out! Get out!” Hawk-1’s pilot pleaded softly, alternating his gaze frantically between his wingman’s ruined aircraft and a search for the enemy he’d suddenly lost sight of in the confusion. Finally, as he executed a bank to port he hoped would bring the enemy in sight once more, he saw Hawk-2’s canopy fragment and fly away. The remainder of the wreck was shattered and torn apart as the pilot and weapons officer were fired from the cockpit in sequence by the rocket motors of their ejection seats.

“Hawk-One to Sentry… Hawk-One to Sentry… target sighted and engaged.” In those desperate seconds, an instinctive part of the commander’s subconscious recognised it was vital he report what was happening back to HQ. “Bogie identified as Lockheed Martin Foxtrot-Three-Five-Bee model.” The fleeting glimpse he’d caught so far hadn’t been clear enough to pick out the F-35E’s non-standard twin-cockpit and the pilot therefore identified the aircraft from its short take off and vectoring nozzles, incorrectly thinking it to be the single-seat ‘-B’ model. “Repeat — currently engaged in combat with F-35B Joint Strike Fighter.”

Hawk-1’s pilot wasn’t long searching for the Lightning, although it was far too late to do anything by the time it was located. Threat warning systems blared in his ears as enemy radar systems easily obtained lock on his own jet. A little more than a thousand metres away and now a similar distance higher in altitude, Thorne pushed the nose of his own jet down into a shallow dive and brought his gunsight to bear as the rotary cannon mounted in a stealthy pod beneath the F-35E’s belly let loose with a stream of 25mm tracer.

Bright detonations rippled across the fuselage and rear of the Sukhoi as its pilot realised far too late what was happening. Thorne ceased firing and dragged his stick back, climbing up and away and loath to get any closer as some of those impacts penetrated the skin of the aircraft’s forward fuselage fuel tank. Though mostly filled only with vapour, the subsequent explosion was still powerful enough to tear the aircraft completely in two just behind the cockpit. There was a second, much larger explosion a split-second later as the remaining fuel in its other tanks went up and the Flanker — what was left of it — disintegrated, wreckage and debris flying in all directions. No one had time to eject, and Sentry’s desperate radio replies went unheard.

Thorne quickly put some distance between the Lightning and the battle area as he climbed to 8,000 metres. He completed two wide 360-degree circuits with his radar in search mode and determined that there were no aircraft approaching he need be concerned about before shutting down his active systems once more and leaving them off. For a second time, the fleeting burst of emissions was detected by Sentry, now flying high over Germany, before disappearing into stealthy oblivion once more. Nevertheless, it left the Luftwaffe controllers in no doubt as to the outcome of the engagement.

“That was amazing…!” Trumbull breathed softly as he recovered himself and his voice. “Absolutely incredible…!” His sharp but confused mind had suddenly realised the whole of that wild aerial engagement, from first sighting to the destruction of the second Sukhoi, had probably taken less than thirty seconds of actual time.

“Fuckin’ lucky…!” Thorne observed honestly, adrenalin still coursing through his system and making him feel excitement and elation. “If we’d been in the air when they showed up, their missiles would’ve blown us to buggery!” Despite thousands of hours of training and flying fighter aircraft in earlier years, those two jets had been his first real combat kills.

“Can this aircraft fly as fast as those… things?”

“Not quite,” Thorne shook his head, smiling at the thought. “Most this can manage on a good day is about a thousand miles an hour. Those bastards — ‘Flanker’ is their nickname — are good for another four hundred or so more at altitude.”

Fourteen hundred miles an hour, Trumbull thought silently, and there was a pause as the squadron leader chewed that piece of information over in his mind.

“Comms: music — play AC/DC…!” Within a second of Thorne uttering that unintelligible command, the raucous, screeching riffs of an electric guitar issued from the headphones within Trumbull’s helmet. It was a sound he’d never heard the like of in his entire life and could say unequivocally in that moment that he didn’t care for it either, although at the very least the volume was low enough for it to not be completely unbearable. His curiosity regarding the nature of the aircraft he was sitting in and the pilot controlling it wasn’t in any way assuaged as the opening bars of AC/DC’s Back in Black were joined by Brian Johnson’s unmistakeable vocals.

“I think I can hardly wait for this ‘explanation’…” he muttered, wincing, and Thorne wasn’t altogether certain Trumbull had intended him to hear over the music playing.

No shit! He thought dryly with a wry, unseen grin at the truth of that statement, although Trumbull could never have seen the irony of it.

3. Seeds of Doubt

Near the airfield at St. Omer

Northern France

Saturday

June 29, 1940

At the same time that discussion continuing in the skies above England, Antoine and Michelle were sleeping soundly in their beds in the farmhouse across the fields opposite the airstrip near St. Omer. Both slept together soundly in a large feather bed while their youngest sibling, a baby boy of no more than eight months, slept in a crib by the empty bed in the next room.

In the kitchen, their mother, a waif-like woman in her late thirties with long blond hair and narrow features opened the back door to a tall, brooding man of similar age whose thinning dark hair was already greying at the temples. The man was Charles, her brother-in-law.

“You’re late,” she scolded gently, concern on her face.

“The children…?” The man quickly moved inside, taking a bottle of brandy and two glasses from a kitchen cupboard as she locked the door behind him.

“Asleep, of course,” she replied. “Did you make contact?”

“Hercule got a look inside Ritter’s office…” he said as he sat at the kitchen table and poured them both a drink, shaking his head in displeasure over the situation rather than as any kind of answer to that specific question. “He was almost caught…the guards are really tightening up security. They’ve received orders from Fliegerkorps that the unit’s to stand down — they’re to be transferred through one of the training groups for conversion to a new type of aircraft.”

“Another new aircraft…?” The appearance of new aircraft types with the Luftwaffe was becoming almost commonplace over the last few months.

“A new fighter-bomber of some kind; a Messerschmitt ‘Lion’, they’re calling it. It’s nothing we’ve heard of before: Control will want to know about it…we’ll have to radio this one in.”

“What about the ‘Journalist’…?” She queried softly. “He’s due in within the hour — can it not wait until after he’s gone?”

“Not for this one, sister dear…too important…if we miss the time window we’ll have to wait until tomorrow night.”

“There it is again!” The SS corporal observed, one hand resting on the earpiece of his headset. He activated the radio unit’s external speaker and all in the vehicle were suddenly able to hear the erratic bleating of Morse code. “It’s that same coded signal we heard Wednesday night.”

“Can you lock it down this time?” The ranking NCO inquired intently, leaning over the man’s shoulder and watching the dials on the radio direction-finding equipment.

“Let’s see about that shall we, sergeant?” The man began rotating a cogwheel by the RDF unit. This in turn altered the axis of a directional antenna mounted atop a metre-high pole above the armoured car’s rear hull. At first the signal faded out, then returned with greater strength and clarity. “It’s to the west,” he decided. “South-south-west…!”

“Let’s not call this in just yet…” the car commander decided, “…they may be monitoring our signals, which might explain why they always seem to disappear before we can track properly.” He turned his attention to the driver. “Crank this thing up and take us east past the airfield. Let’s see if we can vector in on it.”

There was a loud cough, followed by low growling as the eight-wheeled armoured car’s six-cylinder diesel clattered to life in a cloud of acrid exhaust. Parked near an army checkpoint across the Rue de la Rocade, just a thousand metres or so west of Saint-Martin-au-Laërt (near St. Omer), the vehicle carried the ‘death’s head’ insignia of the 3rd SS Shock Division over a standard grey Wehrmacht paint scheme that was so dark it seemed almost black, particularly at night. The evening itself was similarly lacking in illumination, with low scrub and hedges lining the road on either side, beyond which lay just featureless fields stretching away into the darkness with just the occasional light from farmhouse windows in the distance shining like single stars against the black background.

At thirteen tonnes, the P-7A Puma was substantially heavier even than the P-1 Wiesel (Weasel) light tank, although the P-1 mounted a heavier automatic cannon in its turret by comparison. Unlike the tank however, the armoured car could also carry as many as six troopers in its rear along with the three crewmen that normally operated the vehicle. A total of six men sat inside the hull that evening, that particular vehicle having been converted into a mobile detection unit specifically designed to detect and track down enemy radio transmissions. There’d been numerous radio signals detected in the St. Omer area over the last few weeks and the local military command suspected French Resistance agents were passing information to enemy intelligence services in England. Three of the crew inside the Puma that night were specially-trained signals experts from divisional HQ tasked with locating the source of the transmissions and putting a permanent halt to them.

Following directions from the men in rear hull, the driver engaged the transmission and the armoured car cruised slowly away toward the airfield along the narrow, country lane without just the barest glow from its covered, ‘slitted’ headlights. The Rue de la Rocade intersected with the Route de Boulogne to the south-west, skirting the western boundaries of the St. Omer airfield as it did so. Originally a relatively small installation, plans to install the new 3,000-metre concrete runway that was currently under construction had necessitated the requisition of a great deal of pastoral land in the area between St. Omer, Tatinghem and Wisques, and had also required the permanent closure of the Route de Wisques as it headed north-east between Wisques and Longueness below St. Omer.

The closure hadn’t been well-received by locals already incensed by the eviction of numerous farming families from their land in the interest of the airfield’s expansion, none of which of course had been of any particular interest to Luftwaffe command or the Wehrmacht military units who’d been ordered to force the inhabitants away from their properties, at gunpoint if necessary. On either side of the base’s perimeter fences, Route de Wisques now terminated at guarded gates that allowed access to the western end of the installation for construction and maintenance crews as required.

As a result, St. Omer airfield now consumed a large area of the relatively flat country to the south-west of the town. On the northern perimeter, the Rue de Milou began at the Route de Boulogne to the west-north-west and ran approximately 1,300m before joining the newly-closed Route de Wisques quite close to the guarded gates on that side. On the opposite side of the terminated road, a well-used and hard-packed earthen track ran along the north-west perimeter fence for another 700 metres or so before linking up with the Chemin de Plateau des Bruyères for the rest of its journey east, skirting the southern edges of Longueness before intersecting with Route des Bruyères not too far south of the Longueness cemetery.

A side road branching off the south side of the Chemin de Plateau des Bruyères travelled just a dozen metres or so before reaching the base’s main gates and the large buildings of the main vehicle park directly beyond. To the immediate left heading through the base grounds through those guarded gates were the security barracks and brig with the base infirmary behind them. To the right were a pair of two-storey wooden structures with large windows that were the headquarters and administration offices. Further along on the left were the officer’s mess and quarters, and then two larger buildings housing the NCOs’ and OR’s messes and the main barracks. Beyond them were two wide, tall constructions of galvanised iron that were the main hangars and workshops for ZG26.

On the other side of that main road, ZG26’s 600m grass airstrip ran due east, and parallel with it on its northern side, construction was continuing on the massive new runway that when completed would stretch far off into the distance to the west-north-west; a flat, paved expanse of hardened, reinforced concrete cut through a landscape that had once been French farms. Near the HQ and Admin buildings and between the two runways rose the control tower, standing four storeys high on a thick wooden framework. A pair of newly-constructed circular concrete patches were embedded in the ground nearby with a large, yellow ‘H’ painted at the centre of each.

Beyond the main hangars toward the south-western end of the perimeter was the guarded side gate opening onto the southern section of the Route de Wisques — the very same manned checkpoint Ritter had used earlier — and close to the nearby fence, a collection of tents lay clustered around a fire in a large oil drum on a flattened, grassy. Four P-3C medium panzers sat empty and motionless to one side of those tents, no more than silhouettes in the darkness of late evening and already almost invisible in the failing light because of their dark paintwork.

The Panzer Model III, known by the military designation of P-3, was a relatively light ‘medium’ tank of around 26 tonnes and was armed with a 75mm main gun of moderate power and two machine guns: one 7.92mm mounted co-axially in the turret and one 13mm heavy weapon mounted above the turret for anti-aircraft use. The intermittent illumination of the oil-drum fire was enough to occasionally highlight the Balkankreuz national markings painted on their hulls and the three-figure yellow unit numbers — 321, 322, 323 and 324 — on the sides of their turrets. Also visible ahead of the unit numbers on each turret were the white ‘deaths head’ skull and crossbones insignia of the 3rd SS Shock Division ‘Totenkopf’ to which all belonged. Not visible in that darkness were the large red rectangles painted on each tank’s rear decking above the engine, each sporting the ubiquitous black swastika in a white circle.

Although the Luftwaffe had invariably held air superiority throughout the Polish and Western Campaigns, their own pilots could sometimes make mistakes. It was rare, but SS Lieutenant Berndt Schmidt, the troop’s commander, had lost two personal friends to air attack during his tour in Poland, both times from over-enthusiastic Stukas. ‘Friendly fire’ was a rather terminally ironic term in Schmidt’s opinion, and an apology really wasn’t going to help much once a 250-kilogram bomb had landed on your turret roof. It never hurt to give the Luftwaffe a little help with regard to identification in his opinion.

“You know what the real problem is, Milo,” Schmidt observed out of the blue as usual, lecturing his favourite corporal in his favourite ‘worldly’ but kindly tone. “Our glorious leaders at Headquarters have been too long away from the front lines!”

“Of course, Herr Obersturmführer…” Corporal Milo Wisch replied dutifully, not as awestruck as he affected to appear to the junior officer but nevertheless listening attentively to what Schmidt had to say despite the barely-concealed wry smile on his face.

Both men were dark-haired and of medium height and although Schmidt — in his late-twenties — wasn’t that much older than Wisch, he was career military and carried with him a wealth of useful knowledge and information as a result — information that was likely to keep others alive if they listened and took note. While he was no Nazi and had never displayed any of the fanaticism many usually associated with the Waffen-SS, Schmidt had been with the service since its inception. The troop commander could waffle on a bit here and there — particularly after a few hard-earned beers — but he also often had something of value to say as well and he possessed a wealth of experience gleaned from his service in Spain with the Condor Legion. Milo had only left recruit training six months ago and although the capability was definitely within him to be an excellent soldier, there was still much he had to learn — something he himself was quite openly aware of.

Schmidt’s command — the 2nd Troop of 3rd Company — had been detached from the main body of the 3rd SS Division following the fall of Dunkirk and the cessation of hostilities in France thereafter. His troop of four tanks had been assigned to provide armoured support for the airfield and SS mechanised infantry units stationed at St. Omer, which had up until that point been an uneventful duty considered positively luxurious in comparison to the combat they were more accustomed to. They weren’t on duty that evening however and half of the unit’s sixteen men were off in town somewhere seeking entertainment of one type or another.

Schmidt, whose wife and three year old daughter were at home in Berlin, had no desire to be out carousing the local bars or chasing skirts. He’d had just one or two beers with his good friend and gunner, Milo Wisch, before heading back to the tent cluster that comprised their billets at the airfield. They might have found more comfortable quarters within the main airfield barracks, but most preferred to be close to their vehicles. There was also a vague disdain of the Luftwaffe that ran throughout the armoured units, due in no small part to those same occasional occurrences of ‘friendly fire’. For each of the few times that death or injury had been caused by a Stuka’s bombs or a fighter’s cannon, there’d also been a myriad of lesser incidents such as machine gun strafings that despite doing no actual harm to the tanks or their crews, nevertheless left the tankers unnerved and shaken.

Wisch, unattached but no big drinker or womaniser at the best of times, had decided to accompany his commander back to base, intending to seek solace in study, which he worked at during quiet moments when he wasn’t enjoying the camaraderie of the unit itself. In this fashion that evening, Schmidt, Wisch and a half-dozen of their fellow crewmen clustered about the warmth of that drum fire, quietly swapping stories and enjoying the extended period of inaction.

“Take our ‘wonderful’ Mark Threes, for example…” Schmidt continued pompously, intentionally refusing to use the Wehrmacht’s new designation of P-3 and throwing a hand back toward the dark shapes of the tanks from where they sat on their collection of deck chairs and ammunition crates. “Certainly the new, roomy turrets are an improvement over the early model ‘-Ones and ‘’-Twos…” he observed, “…but when are our esteemed leaders in the RWM going to start thinking things through properly?

“On paper our little gun there is the match of any enemy tank to be found on the battlefield, but what the boffins back in their workshops fail to mention is that, in the case of taking on Tommi Matildas at least, one has to get a lot closer than we’d like! All well and good for us — the ‘-Threes at least have enough sloped armour to give us some protection — but the poor bastards in the ‘Mark-Twos’ have more than likely been shot full of holes by enemy two-pounders by the time they get close enough to make a dent! It’s a simple equation…either give us more armour or give us a better gun…” he snorted in mildly drunken derision. “Better still, give us both and we’ll really make a mess of the enemy! We can only hope these new panzers we keep hearing rumours of have some battle experience behind them that includes a better armament!”

“We should count ourselves lucky we’re not stuck in P-1s, going around annoying the Tommis with our ‘doorknockers’,” one of the young gunners observed from the other side of the fire with some mirth, raising a few laughs and nods from the others. ‘Doorknocker’ was a nickname the Wehrmacht general soldiery had coined for the automatic gun arming the current P-1 light tank. While moderately effective in Poland, the P-1 tankers had discovered rather unpleasantly in their first engagements with the tanks of the British Expeditionary Force in France that the frontal armour of the Matilda II tank was utterly impervious to the so-called ‘armour-piercing’ shells of their 30mm cannon. The nickname was thus coined: the only purpose the ‘doorknocker’ seemed to serve in the eyes of the gun crews was to ‘knock on the door’ by shattering or bouncing off the enemies’ armour and alerting them to their presence.

“No worse than being one of those Frenchie Somuas!” A driver added, nodding. “Bloody things are riveted together or something ridiculous like that! I saw one near Sedan get hit on a ‘seam’ and the whole damned tank split wide open!”

“Yes, I saw that too…” another agreed beside him “…what a mess it was! Hit by a ‘Thirty Six’…” He referred to the lethal Flak-36 88mm anti-aircraft gun that was far more effective against tanks than against aircraft and had already developed a reputation of being able to deal with anything to be met with on the modern battlefield at incredible range.

“You’d split wide open too if you were hit by an Eight-Point-Eight!” The gunner observed in return, laughing as he pushed the man’s forage cap down over his eyes.

“A powder puff would split him wide open!” Another chimed in.

“Or a navy boy, no doubt!” Wisch added with good-natured cruelty, drawing the expected rude response from the good friend who’d become the butt of the joke.

All were still laughing loudly — even the slighted tank driver — as a motorcycle drew to a halt on the track beside their little encampment. The dispatch rider aboard dismounted from his Zundapp and jogged toward them, instantly picking out Schmidt as the ranking officer present by the way the tanker rose to meet him.

“Obersturmführer Schmidt, I presume?” The rider ventured hurriedly, coming to attention and saluting.

“That’s me, unteroffizier…” Schmidt nodded, all light-heartedness leaving him as he returned the salute and noted the other man’s serious expression. “What can I do for you?”

“Orders for you, sir…!” The rider began, handing over his authorisation papers for Schmidt to examine. “Local HQ requires the presence of an armoured vehicle immediately — if you could follow me, sir!”

“Any idea what it’s about, man?”

“Just that you’re required to mobilise one panzer and rendezvous with other units by the vehicle park outside the main gates. The officer in command will be able to fill you in further — a Captain Stahl is in charge.”

“Well, gentlemen; I guess that ruins our Saturday night…” Schmidt cast his eyes about the men with him, all now also on their feet. No complete single crew was present, but he could draw the appropriate crewmembers from those around him to operate one of the panzers. They wouldn’t work quite as efficiently as a practised and cohesive team might, but they weren’t expecting to go into battle in any case. “Milo, Hans and Karl with me: Karl… get ‘Three-Two-One’ warmed up…”

Richard Kransky hid behind of a clump of bushes by a low stone wall and watched as a small convoy rumbled past along the track toward the farmhouse at high speed. Among the supplies and equipment he carried on his back and about his person, he possessed both a scoped rifle (at that point slung on his back) and a cocked and loaded machine pistol in one hand. Neither of them could be of any use against armoured vehicles, and even if he did have enough ammunition to take on the squads that had arrived in a pair of canvas-covered trucks — which he didn’t — that wasn’t part of his mission requirement and would also be a very good way to get himself killed into the bargain.

Kransky had seen a lot of things in his thirty-seven years, many of them unpleasant. As a young man growing up in the urban sprawl of Trenton, New Jersey he’d been an idealistic soul. A cadetship with a small time newspaper had paved the way for a career in journalism; his own ability and sharp mind had taken that career further — to the point where he was free-lancing for several major US papers by the time he was twenty-eight. But somewhere along the line his career had gone astray. Even he couldn’t remember exactly where, but if there’d been a defining moment, it would’ve been sometime during the Japanese ‘annexation’ of Manchukuo in 1932.

He’d originally travelled there for some reason he could no longer remember — a story of some kind that had soon been lost and forgotten. Whatever that reason, he’d been on the spot as the Japanese invaded, pushing what little resistance there was before them. He could remember the atrocities clearly in his mind — sometimes he still woke up with the images of the dead and the tortured fading in his dreams. The rest of the time he mostly woke up trying to forget the faces of those he himself had killed in the years since…it was a lot to forget: far too much to do so successfully.

Kransky had spent three years in Manchukuo (known at the time as Manchuria) and hadn’t written a single article since. However during that three years he’d learned a lot that he’d put to use many times during the following years: Richard Kransky had learned how to kill. He’d also learned how to organise and lead armed groups and how to fight guerrilla war against a numerically and technologically superior enemy.

Since then he’d become involved in a number of conflicts around the world; from fighting the Japanese in Manchuria to Spain during the Civil War, against Franco’s Nationalists and the Condor Legion. From Spain he’d then returned to Asia once more, this time facing the Japanese in China as they’d invaded into the south from Manchukuo in 1937. By the time he’d left Asia and returned to Europe just prior to the outbreak of war in Poland, the Japanese High Command in China were offering a bounty equivalent to £1,000 Sterling for Kransky’s head: a veritable fortune for any potential Chinese informant (and indeed, no small amount in the UK either).

Experience in Spain had left the man with as little respect for the methods and interests of Hitler’s Germany as he’d shown for Japan’s colonial aspirations, and Kransky thus found himself operating in France in the middle of 1940. There were already the beginnings of a Resistance Movement, and in Kransky’s opinion the British had displayed amazing foresight in setting up a quite serviceable spy network that hadn’t taken long to locate and tap into.

Of the more dangerous of those talents he’d acquired in the years since his experiences in Manchukuo, by far the most developed and lethal was that of his immense capability as a sniper. To his surprise as much as anyone’s, he’d discovered that his skills as a marksman were excellent to the point of being quite deadly. With a good rifle and a set of optical sights, Kransky could hit a man in the chest at a thousand metres in good conditions. Aided by a large pair of naval binoculars he’d souvenired from the body of an Japanese naval officer, he’d also developed the uncanny ability to determine exactly who was the most important target in any given situation. This hadn’t been particularly difficult with regard to the Japanese military, as their officers continued the outmoded and rather suicidal practice of swaggering about the battlefield and behind the lines sporting pistol and ceremonial sword.

It proved more difficult against enemies that had learned the hard lessons of such behaviour during the Great War. German officers would carry sometimes a machine pistol as would an NCO or, for that matter, many lower ranks in such corps as artillery or tanks, and of late had even started carrying rifles just like anyone else. At ranges of 500 metres or more it was impossible to pick out rank insignia, and Kransky would instead rely on observation of the interaction between groups of men. It usually wouldn’t take him long to pick out the ranking officer in that fashion and deal with them accordingly.

Kransky watched as the vehicles split up some distance from the farmhouse, the tank the armoured car quickly moving away from the trucks and circling to cover the far sides of the house as searchlights mounted atop the nearer trucks blasted the building with brilliant white light, making it impossible for anyone to effect an escape. From his vantage point a hundred metres away, it was clear that the Germans were deadly serious. Kransky had noted the insignia on the tank and trucks as they’d passed in the darkness: the illumination from their slitted headlights had been enough to clearly identify it as a convoy of SS armour and grenadiers.

He was a tall man — close to 187 centimetres when standing fully erect — and the wall he hid behind was barely enough to provide him adequate cover, but he made the best use of it he could as wayward searchlight beams swept past and over him. The farmhouse had been the rendezvous point for channelling him out of France and back to England for debriefing. There was every possibility the British would offer him more ‘work’ on his arrival, and in truth he was thinking of signing up formally if they could place him somewhere his talents might be useful. He wasn’t a man accustomed to working under formal authority, or for liking the concept, but he also recognised the seriousness of what was going on in Europe and that it was going to take more than just localised resistance to defeat the Wehrmacht.

Kransky scratched thoughtfully at his chin as he watched the SS troops pour out of the trucks, his short, scruffy beard as unruly and unmanaged as his dirty mop of blond hair. He scratched somewhere else, just below the rumpled collar of his khaki battledress tunic. With a thin, wry smile he considered it amazing the nearby Germans couldn’t smell him hiding there: he hadn’t had a decent bath for at least a week and his clothes could do with a good wash into the bargain. He’d hoped to accomplish both tasks that night, but it now appeared he’d have to wait a bit longer.

It was unfortunate to say the least that his avenue of escape was now apparently being cut off, but there were alternatives and he was mightily glad he hadn’t been ten minutes earlier or he might well have been captured with them. He’d been unhappy with the location of the safehouse in the first place: it was far too close to a Luftwaffe airfield for comfort and by definition that meant it was far too close to the Wehrmacht in general — a concern that it appeared had now been realised.

Kransky watched for a good twenty minutes as the Schutzstaffeln troopers milled about, stomping their feet against the ground to fight off the chill of night that was settling in. The American didn’t feel it himself — several layers of clothing above and below the waist added to years conditioned to living off the land in harsh circumstances meant it had to be very cold before he’d feel any effects. He could hear occasional shouts from inside the house — almost certainly in German although the words were indistinct at that distance. After a while there were a few screams too — a female voice this time — and added to that rose the unmistakeable wail of a crying baby, making him cringe visibly and scowl in obvious displeasure at his own relative impotence: there was nothing he could do to intervene against so many troops save for getting himself killed.

Deciding that further observation could do no more than increase his feelings of displeasure and uselessness, and that he had another hike of at least thirty kilometres to reach the next safehouse, Kransky turned to sneak off through the bushes and beyond. It was at that moment the first of the shots rang out from within the house, instantly regaining the entirety of his attention. He instinctively hefted the heavy little machine pistol in his hands, as if to reassure himself. He’d picked the weapon up a few weeks before following the battle of Arras, where Matildas of the BEF had given Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division a bloody nose. The German tanker he’d taken it from hadn’t needed it anymore.

It was a remarkable weapon unlike any he’d before seen. No more than thirty centimetres long overall, it nevertheless held the power of a full-sized submachine gun twice its length. A stubby handgrip and guard fitted ahead of its curved, 30-round magazine was no luxury — the weapon’s rate of fire was savagely high, making the grip a necessity for keeping the thing under control when on full automatic. It was certainly a perfect defensive weapon for someone such as himself where operating alone and cutting down on unnecessary size and weight were as vital for long term survival as marksmanship.

Known to the Wehrmacht as an MP2K (the ‘-K’ meaning ‘Kurz’ or ‘Short’), it had been derived from the full-sized MP2 that was coming into widespread use throughout the Wehrmacht and was arming NCOs, non-combat troops and Military Police everywhere. His encounter with the dead panzer crewman had been the first time he’d come across this smaller, more compact version, and Kransky could imagine how handy it’d be in an environment such as a armoured vehicle where space was at a premium.

Another high-pitched female scream pierced the night and roused him from his momentary reflection, cut painfully short by a second pair of shots that had all come from the same type of pistol by Kransky’s experienced reckoning. A second or two later, a general shout of alarm rose from the troops outside as a small figure darted from the open doorway and bolted across the open space between the farmhouse and a large wooden barn, a few dozen metres to the left. It was a young boy from what Kransky could see, who managed to get past two or three soldiers out of sheer surprise before he was finally caught and held captive near the centre of the open floodlit area.

Without a second thought, the American suddenly shifted position and dragged the rifle from his back, slinging the tiny machine pistol in its place. Using the stone wall as a rest, he lifted the semi-automatic sniper rifle and sighted carefully through the 4-power Zeiss scope mounted above the weapon’s receiver. With the help of its magnification he could clearly see what was happening. The boy, no more than five or so, was struggling and kicking for all he was worth and Kransky could now hear his cries of childlike rage and terror. It was all to no avail: a pair of SS troopers held him securely by both arms.

As he watched it occurred to him that there was something strange about the scene he couldn’t quite pin down. As he swept the rifle to either side and took in more of what was going on, the reason came to him in a flash: the troops standing there seemed exceptionally ill at ease about something. Expressions were strained and grim with some troopers clustered together and speaking in what were even at that distance obviously hushed tones. The two holding the boy seemed more than usually unhappy about the task, as if what they were doing were positively distasteful. To see that level of unease with the Waffen-SS in relation to the harsh treatment of the local population was unusual indeed.

Another figure stepped from the farmhouse, moving toward the men holding the boy, and he followed the newcomer’s progress through the scope. The tall, blond-haired man was an SS officer — old enough to possibly be a captain or major from what Kransky could see although rank insignia wasn’t clear. The most telling part of the scene, one that chilled him to the bone and brought feelings of rage welling up from deep within him, was the sight of the man buckling his belt as he left the house. The image left no doubt in Kransky’s mind as to the reasons behind the woman’s screams of a few moments ago.

A senior NCO followed close behind the officer, pistol in hand and presumably the source of the gunfire so far. Kransky realised in that moment why the troops seemed upset by the situation: regardless of enemy propaganda, most soldiers in any given army — even the Waffen-SS — weren’t generally predisposed toward atrocities. Certainly there were isolated incidents that occurred in the heat of battle, but this wasn’t such a situation and concepts such as cold-blooded murder and rape were obviously as abhorrent to these soldiers as they were to most normal human beings anywhere.

Kransky was also suddenly very concerned for the fate of the boy the troopers now held. Even if they were unhappy about the situation, he knew that troops conditioned to obeying orders wouldn’t prevent the officer in charge from murdering everyone at that farm if he so desired — and if those in the house were already dead there was little likelihood the boy would be allowed to live. As the pair drew near to the child, Kransky made a serious life decision in an instant: a decision that went against every basic rule as a sniper or guerrilla fighter…he decided he had to get involved.

He drew back the rifle’s cocking handle, sliding a cartridge from of the 10-round magazine and into the breech. The most difficult decision in that moment was that of whom to target. He dearly wanted to put a round through the head of that blond-haired officer but that wasn’t likely to free the boy. Instead he placed the aiming point of the scope’s central crosshair over the head of one of the men holding the struggling child. He hoped the boy could run and had somewhere to run to: there’d be only precious seconds of confusion and he wouldn’t get a second shot — if he fired again they’d have his position and he’d probably be captured or killed. Once the boy was free he’d be on his own.

There were few men of any rank about as Ritter and Meier walked from the maintenance hangars that evening, passing rows of silent aircraft on their walk back toward the barracks area in the darkness. Orders they’d received that afternoon had come as a surprise to all and were the source of some discussion and excitement. Staff Flight and Number One Gruppe of ZG26 were to prepare for immediate relocation to I/LG3 north of Paris for conversion training to a new type of aircraft. The rest of the wing was to be considered stood down from any active service and on R&R until they too could be transferred to Paris for similar training.

Although the orders had come through the proper channels — from Fliegerkorps, via Luftflotte offices — they’d been authorised by the OKW directly…signed by Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters himself. That fact intrigued the officers greatly.

“So what do we know of these new planes, Carl?” Meier inquired as they walked without jackets, ignoring the freshness of the night. “What’s the story on these ‘Lion’ fighter-bombers?”

“Well they’re not classifying them as ‘fighter-bombers’ for a start: they’re instead being listed as ‘attack aircraft’.”

“Is that going to affect our designation as a zerstörergeschwader…?”

“There’s no implication ‘Horst Wessel’ will lose its name or designation…but I think our mission statement will change. It looks certain we’ll be called on more in an attack role from now on than as a heavy-fighter unit, although I hear these new planes are wonderful to fly. Fast as an RAF Hurricane and almost as manoeuvrable when flying ‘clean’ — and they can carry nearly four thousand kilograms of ordnance over short ranges.”

“Viertausend kilogramm…?” Meier was impressed. “That’s as much as a Junkers or a Heinkel! Will they be replacing the…?” He was cut off in mid-sentence as the first pistol shot rang out in the distance. They halted for a moment, staring pointedly off in the direction from which the sound had come. A few seconds later, two more shots roused them from momentary inaction.

“The farmhouse…?” Meier ventured, a frown crossing his features “…and that SS troop went through here not long ago…!”

“Too close to my airfield for my liking! Let’s find out what’s going on, yes?” Ritter snapped curtly, knowing which farmhouse his XO was referring to, and for some inexplicable reason he felt the stab of a sharp, icy feeling at the pit of his stomach. “Get a squad from the guardhouse and meet me there!” He ordered, breaking into a run toward the manned gate opening onto the southern termination of the Route de Wisques beyond the far end of the hangars. “Make sure they’re armed…!”

Kransky took a deep breath, held it halfway through release and gently squeezed the trigger. It broke cleanly, the weapon pushing firmly against his shoulder as a single brass shell case spiralled away into the air to his left. He didn’t stop to watch what happened next: he knew his shot had been true and that was all that mattered. Now was the time to make good his escape before the furore died down and logic took over. Slinging the rifle once more as he disappeared into the bushes, he again took the machine pistol in hand and loped off across the fields as indiscriminate firing broke out from the area of the farmhouse.

Wisch and Schmidt and the rest of his crew had dismounted their panzer the moment the area had been secured and they were no longer required. They stood about awaiting official dismissal, sharing a cigarette with a few of the 3rd SS frontschwein and talking shop. Only Schmidt even bothered to carry his machine pistol with him, the others leaving theirs clamped in the rack within the vehicle’s hull.

It was a few moments before the hushed whisper started spreading about what was going on inside the house: a rumour that spread faster as the shouting of Captain Stahl inside was suddenly joined by the cries of a woman and screams of a young girl. Wisch and Schmidt tried to reassure themselves that what the troopers were claiming — what the officer and NCO were doing in there — surely couldn’t be possible. They weren’t just talking about a woman, after all — there were young children in there as well — but the expressions on the faces of the troopers that’d stepped quickly from the house following screamed orders to “Get out!” were a tale in themselves, and not a pleasant one. The shots had caused them all to flinch; particularly the way the last two had silenced the woman’s final scream, although the terrible crying of the baby continued unabated.

Only the sudden appearance of the boy at the door roused them from their horror. He’d darted past a few of the men before a pair of riflemen standing beside the panzer crew caught him, holding firm against his unintelligible screams and cries. The boy was terrorised and distraught, no rationality showing in his face as he struggled. When they caught sight of Stahl leaving the front door of the house, still doing up his pants, Schmidt finally decided he’d had enough. As the only other officer present, even as one junior to Stahl in rank, it lay upon his shoulders to do something to put a stop to it all. With a reassuring nod to Wisch to stay where he was, the lieutenant took a step toward the other, approaching officer.

In that instant it seemed to Milo Wisch that the helmet of one of the men holding the boy suddenly flew off as if taken by a savage gust of wind. Only as the sound of the rifle shot followed it did anyone register that half the man’s head had been blown away inside. The offending slug, its course diverted in the impact with the man’s head and stahlhelm, still carried enough energy to strike Schmidt in the upper right arm and tear out a chunk of flesh the size of a golf ball. The panzer commander cried out in agony as he fell, clutching at the vicious wound while everyone else reacted in reflex to the shot and threw themselves to the ground around him, seeking cover. One of the men manning a heavy machine gun mounted at the rear of one of the APCs let fly into the darkness with a few bursts in panic before his NCO gathered himself together enough to bark a command to cease fire.

Ritter was a fit man and his breathing was barely laboured as his long strides took him at full speed across the open fields between the base and the farm buildings. As he ran, boots sinking a little into the soft grass of the fields, he saw everything in the lights of the vehicles. He saw the men fall and heard the shot as he was reaching the stone wall at the near boundary to the farm, hurdling it in his stride and drawing his own sidearm — an old Luger that had once been his father’s. He was very nearly shot down himself in the panic and confusion as a spotlight suddenly turned his way, finally bringing him to a halt as he was temporarily blinded. Once his eyes had adjusted, Ritter took in the scene before him. Men were regaining their feet while several were tending to the wounded junior SS officer lying near the centre of the yard area. Two more spent a few seconds confirming what was already obvious from a distance: that the first man hit was indeed dead with a dark and terrible crater over his lifeless left eye where his temple had once been.

As no further shots came out of the darkness and reason began to once more wrest control from shock and panic, the commanding SS officer reappeared from the door into the farmhouse where he’d sought cover. He began issuing orders and organising two squads to begin searching the general area where they believed the shot to have come while searchlights mounted on the APCs swept the road and bushes beyond it. Ritter went initially unnoticed by the SS officer in charge and he deliberately made no attempt at drawing attention to himself, striding purposefully across the yard out of the man’s field of vision. Luger still held tightly by his right hip, he steeled his mind against what unknown horrors he feared he might find and stepped inside.

The door led directly into the kitchen and in the far corner near a small, wood stove, a Frenchman lay in a crumpled heap on the stone floor in what seemed quite a large pool of his own blood, He was obviously dead, his ashen face contorted in a final rictus of agony as hands clutched futilely over a terrible wound in his stomach. The kitchen table was overturned beside him on the floor along with the shattered remains of a radio transmitter and Morse key set.

Ritter was momentarily shocked and sickened by the sight despite his military experience; as a pilot it wasn’t often the lieutenant-colonel encountered death at such close proximity. Yet still the sound of a screaming baby resonated through the house, galvanising him into action. Face grim and thin-lipped, he turned and pushed open a side door that he presumed lead to the rest of the house.

In the short hallway beyond he halted once more, again momentarily immobilised by what he found there. The body of the children’s mother lay on the floor against one wall. Tattered shreds of her flimsy summer dress hung moistly about her, stained darkly with fresh blood. One arm was outstretched and lay across the floor of the hallway. Her face was bruised and badly cut, her lip shattered and one eye so badly swollen it was entirely closed. The other eye stared skyward with a lifelessness only possible in death. From where Ritter stood he could see at least a dozen individual cuts on her body from some type of blade.

He dropped to one knee before her, not able to accept the unmistakeable. Reaching out with his free left hand, he shook her lightly in the vain hope of eliciting some kind of lifelike response. Instead, the body unbalanced and rolled onto its face with all the properties of a broken doll, causing him to rise to his feet once more and quickly take a step backward with a sharp intake of breath. Two large, ragged bullet holes showed in the middle of her back: bloody exit wounds.

Gagging but resisting the urge to vomit, Ritter felt a rage rising within him: it was obvious from the slightness of her figure that the woman would’ve been unable to provide any physical resistance whatsoever. His features hardened as he reached down with his left hand and worked the cocking piece of his Luger — a weapon his father had originally carried in the Great War. He felt the reassuringly solid click as a round slid into the chamber and the mechanism snapped shut behind it, and with a deep breath he moved on to the rooms at the other end of the hallway.

He found what he was both seeking and dreading in the first room on the left — perhaps once the dead woman’s bedroom considering the size of the feather bed within. In the cot beside it, the baby’s cries continued unabated, and from his vantage point in the doorway, Ritter could see the child’s tiny hands clutching in the air as it sought solace from a mother who’d never again hold it in her arms. That image itself would’ve been enough to bring the Luftwaffe officer to his knees had his complete attention not been consumed by the sight of the feather bed itself and the devastation that lay upon it.

Ritter forced himself forward into the room, his body beginning to shake involuntarily as his eyes took in what he couldn’t bare to see. Blood…so much blood: more than Ritter had ever seen at one time in his life or so it seemed. Blood in torrents staining the stark whiteness of the sheets and yet there was still enough to spill down onto the stones of the cold floor below on either side of the bed.

That afternoon, an innocent girl had held his Knight’s Cross in her hands and stared in awe. Less than twelve hours later she now stared lifelessly at the ceiling of that room, the crimson essence of her body lost to the floor and the sheets around her. There were no gunshot wounds this time: instead her delicate throat had instead been crudely cut from ear to ear. He stared on in silence, slowly shaking his head as if unable to believe what he was seeing. Her body was bruised and battered, and her thin nightdress was torn and hung in bloody tatters about her waist and thighs: it required no medical qualification to determine what else they’d done to her.

“May I ask what you’re doing here, Herr Oberstleutnant?” The soft voice behind him caused the pilot to stiffen visibly, a hard and emotionless expression crossing his features as he turned slowly toward them. Two of them stood there in the doorway, just inside the room. It was the captain who’d spoken the question, a man barely in his twenties it seemed to Ritter, with ice-blue eyes and straw-blond hair beneath his peaked SS officer’s cap.

“What am I doing here?” Ritter hissed slowly, his rage building quickly now. “What have you done?” Nothing in all his years could’ve prepared the pilot for what he’d seen there that night.

“What exactly do you mean?” The voice was calm and laced with confident contempt. “I’m doing my job, Herr Oberstleutnant…are you doing yours?” As he locked eyes with Ritter, his expression solid and unfazed, he added: “I suggest you put that weapon away and tend to your own affairs.” He placed both hands on his hips. “Go back to your planes and your airfield — what’s going on here has nothing to do with you.”

“‘Nothing to do with me’…?” Ritter repeated in sickened disbelief, an involuntary shudder coursing through his body. “‘…Nothing to do with me’…?” A wild and righteous fury was evident in his eyes now as he bellowed the words a second time, the force of it causing the SS officer’s smug demeanour to waver slightly. “You dare to tell me my job, hauptmann?” In his fury, Ritter used the Wehrmacht equivalent of the man’s SS rank as an intentional insult and display of distaste. The vile creature might be an officer of the Waffen-SS but he was nevertheless still a junior officer. That the fact might be completely irrelevant under such bizarre circumstances didn’t even occur to Ritter as he raised his pistol at arm’s length before either man could react, pointing it directly at the officer’s face.

“Herr Oberstleutnant…” The captain began, his tone one of warning but also containing some personal fear for the first time. It was quickly becoming apparent he’d misread the situation and underestimated the pilot’s resolve.

“You’re both under arrest!” Ritter continued coldly, cutting him off completely. “Take your weapon from its holster and place it on the floor…carefully, I warn you!” There was the flash of movement from one side as the senior NCO who’d accompanied the SS officer began to move forward, right arm rising with great speed. Ritter was faster and was far too nervous and pumped up to react with anything but pure reflex. His own right arm pivoted slightly and the Luger bucked in his hand, the report painfully loud within the confined space of the bedroom. The staff-sergeant fell backward under the impact of the 9mm slug, flesh and skull fragments spraying against the wall behind and out into the hall through the doorway as the bullet punched into the far wall.

There was a moment of stunned silence during which a trio of SS troopers with sturmgewehrs (assault rifles) arrived in the hallway, drawn by the sound of the shot.

“You’ve signed your own death warrant, Herr Oberstleutnant!” The officer snarled as the troopers appeared. “Place this man in custody for the murder of your oberscharführer!”

“This man is under arrest for the atrocities committed here tonight!” Ritter bellowed in return, riveting them to the spot with a wild look in eyes that stared at them over the iron sights of his pistol. “That NCO tried to kill me!” The long-bladed stiletto that had fallen out of the dead man’s hand was lying in the middle of the floor beside the body for all to see, and the expressions on the soldiers’ faces suggested to Ritter that they were as sickened by what was happening there as he was. “I suggest none of you do anything to implicate yourselves in this.”

“I am your commanding officer!” Stahl screamed hysterically. “Do as I say!”

Had there been any inclination to obey those orders, and it appeared that there wasn’t, the chance to act in any case came and passed quickly as Willi Meier appeared in the hallway behind them, a troop of armed Luftwaffe guards in tow.

“You’re all right, sir?” Meier inquired with concern, pushing his way into the room.

“Yes, Willi — I’m all right…” Ritter replied, the croaking quality of his voice suggesting otherwise. “Have your men clear the hallway please…” With a word from Meier, the air force troopers began moving the others out of the hallway and back into the kitchen.

“Take a look, Willi…” Ritter snarled, his eyes and pistol never leaving the SS officer. “Take a look at the courageous war efforts of our esteemed Schutzstaffeln!” There was a short pause, during which Ritter heard his XO draw a sharp breath as he had earlier.

“Mein Gott!” Meier groaned finally, equally revolted.

“I’ve placed this ‘man’ under formal arrest for the crimes committed here. Take his weapon if you would, Willi.” As Meier stepped in to take the man’s service pistol from the holster at his belt, Ritter added: “You! Your name?”

“Hauptsurmführer Pieter Stahl, Third SS Division.” Stahl hissed vehemently in return.

“Outside…!” Ritter growled, gesturing with the Luger. “…And move carefully…I’d be more than happy for you to give me an excuse to fire this weapon a second time tonight!” Turning slowly, Stahl moved out into the hallway and headed for the kitchen with barely controlled fury showing on his features.

“Remember my name, pilot!” The man spat with distaste and contempt as they crossed the kitchen floor, heading for the front door and the open air. “I have powerful friends. You’ll be lucky if you end up before a firing squad!”

“You think I’m afraid of you?” Ritter’s smile was thin and entirely without humour. “I was flying fighters in Spain while you were still in the school yard, pulling the wings off your first fly! You and your depraved lot think you can take over the military? We’ll see who the ‘lucky’ one here is: I’ll see you hanged for this travesty!”

“‘Travesty’…?” The SS captain’s tone was one of genuine incredulity as he whirled to face Ritter in the doorway of the house, the headlights and searchlights of the vehicles outside throwing the man into stark silhouette. “‘Travesty’, you say? They were working for the resistance, you fool! What do you think the fucking radio was for — BBC Home Service? There’s a war on here! Who do you think will court-martial an officer of the SS over the death of some French whore and her bastard children?”

All control finally left Ritter in that instant and he lashed out, his right hand slashing across in a forward arc. The backhanded blow slammed into Stahl’s face, the butt of the pistol he still held tearing open the man’s right cheek with a spray of blood. The man cried out, dazed and in pain, and stumbled backward, sprawling on the hard earth outside as gasps of shock rose from the watching SS troopers. Not one made any move to assist their commanding officer.

Stahl clutched at the rent in his cheek, moaning as blood oozed from between his fingers and he tried futilely to rise once more. Ritter was after him in an instant, drawing back his right foot and sinking the toe of his boot into Stahl’s side as three ribs snapped like twigs under the impact and the man released a horrible, gurgling scream. He was about to receiving a second kick as Meier threw both arms around his CO and dragged him back.

“Leave him, Carl — it’s not worth it!”

“Get off me!” Ritter snarled wildly, struggling and vainly lashing at the fallen man with his right foot.

“It’s not worth it, Carl…!” His exec bellowed in his ear, the words finally breaking through the pilot’s rage and bringing him back under the command of his own senses. Meier felt Ritter’s muscles and body relax as the uncontrolled anger was finally placed in check, and he released his CO. Ritter took several deep breaths.

“I’m all right now, Willi…I’m all right…” There was a long pause, silent save for the moaning of the agonized Stahl on the ground. For what seemed an age, Ritter considered the pistol he still held in his hands as if wondering whether to use it or put it away. In the end, he dropped the magazine from the butt before removing the live round from the chamber and re-inserting it into the top of the magazine, which he then slipped back into the butt and slammed solidly home with the palm of his left hand.

“What a shame there’s no cartridge for this…” he said softly, his eyes burning into the man on the ground as he raised the pistol to aim at Stahl’s face. He ‘dry-fired’ it to release the cocked action, bringing forth a dull ‘click’ as the pin fell on an empty chamber. “I suppose someone else shall have that ‘pleasure’.” He turned to Meier, whose heart (much like the prone Stahl’s) had missed a beat as the pistol had ‘fired’ despite ‘knowing’ that the chamber was empty. “Take this creature to the base infirmary and keep him under guard. When the medic had finished with him and the lieutenant over there, have the Herr Doktor come down here and perform autopsies.” He paused for a moment before adding: “Have one of the nurses come down to care for the child inside…if possible, find one with experience with children.”

At that moment, something that had been gnawing at the edge of his consciousness suddenly sprang to the forefront of his mind. He stepped forward toward the small group that stood about the wounded but alert Lieutenant Schmidt. Ritter singled out the next ranking tanker there — Milo Wisch.

“You — unteroffizier — there was a boy who also lived at this house. What’s happened to him?”

“We…we had him in custody…” Wisch informed, not wanting to speculate on what might’ve happened to the child had that single shot not come out of the darkness. “An unknown sniper fired at us from the darkness and killed one of our men holding him. He escaped…” He paused before continuing. “…I didn’t see which way the boy ran after that…”

Ritter’s searching and accusatory glare swept the group with more power than any searchlight, but the reactions were all the same. No one had seen where the boy had gone in the chaos that followed the shot. He turned his gaze back to Wisch.

“I know you!” Ritter said suddenly, making the man flinch. He took in the faces of all the tank crew, including the wounded officer, that statement suddenly encompassing all of them. “You men crew the panzers at my airfield!” He didn’t wait for confirmation, instead addressing his next commands to Wisch and Schmidt together. “Obersturmbannführer, you’re going to need medical care. While that’s being attended to, I expect this NCO here to take the rest of your crew and carry out a search for the boy.” His gaze turned back to Wisch now. “You’ll report personally to me at thirteen hundred hours tomorrow: the duty officer will be expecting you and will know where to find me. Is that understood?”

“Jawohl, Herr Oberstleutnant!” Wisch snapped immediately, coming to attention and presenting the ‘zeig heil’ Nazi salute that was the standard of the SS.

“Next time you see me,” Ritter hissed, his voice soft and acidic as he refused to return the gesture, instead leaning in to within centimetres of the man’s face. “…you’ll show your respect with a proper Wehrmacht salute; not that Nazi filth. Is that understood?”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heels and stalked back into the house, not able to look at the bodies of the dead there as he returned to the main bedroom and stood staring down at the crying child. Alone there save for the baby in the cot before him, tears began to stream down his cheeks as Lieutenant Colonel Carl Werner Ritter finally allowed the personal pain within him to rise and take over.

“There… there…” he spoke in soft, broken words between sobs, reaching down almost in reflex to check that the cloth nappy the child wore was still clean, at the same time noting the child was a boy. “It’s all going to be all right, little fellow…”

With a confidence and fluidity that only came with experience handling newborn children, he folded the cot blanket snugly around the child to protect it against the cold of the night and scooped it up into his arms. As he held the boy close, staring down through tears with pain-filled eyes, Ritter rocked him slowly back and forth for a few moments until the crying finally subsided. Finally provided with the comfort he was seeking all along and completely exhausted by his own screams, the child almost instantly fell asleep as the pilot cradled him in his arms.

Ritter stood where he was for a few more moments, making sure the child was properly asleep before carefully carrying him out into the hallway and down to the kitchen. He pulled a chair away from the table there with one hand and dragged it closer to the crackling wood stove that was the only source of warmth in the house. Carefully lowering himself to the chair and never allowing his attention to stray from the sleeping child he held in his arms, Ritter again began to rock gently back and forth, this time humming the tune of a soft lullaby through sobs that still shook his body as tears continued to fall.

As a pair of the base guards led the moaning Stahl away, Willi Meier issued a few short, sharp orders to the others to secure the area. As the rest of the troop dispersed to carry out his commands, he turned his attention back to the wounded Schmidt, who by this stage had dragged himself to his feet and was leaning against the front of one of the trucks as Milo Wisch carefully applied a more effective combat dressing to the wound in his arm.

“You’ll need you get that looked at…” Meier observed with some compassion, nodding at the wound.

“I’ve had worse…” Schmidt replied honestly with a dismissive shake of his head, almost managing a thin smile “…I’ll live. Your CO’s got some guts, and that’s the truth!” He observed, changing the subject. “Jumping in balls and all like that on his own.” There was a certain amount of grudging admiration in those words…and also a certain amount of guilt. “…Something that should’ve been taken care of ‘in house’…” he finished softly with no small amount of shame.

“He shouldn’t have needed to jump in,” Meier agreed, then adding: “Hard to take charge though with a slug through your arm…” Under the circumstances, the XO was willing to cut the wounded lieutenant some slack.

“What’s that about?” Schmidt changed the subject again, nodding his head in the direction of the farmhouse, still feeling guilty and not willing to let himself off the hook quite so easily. From where they stood, all could see straight through the open back door and the seated figure of Carl Ritter beyond, cradling the sleeping child.

“Carl has a wife at home…” Meier answered sadly, staring at the scene inside the house with the others. “…Once he had a family.” He took a breath and allowed the statement to sink in. “Lost his boy ‘to crib death in Thirty-Six while he was in Spain…wouldn’t have been much older than the child in there…”

“Scheisse…!” Schmidt cursed softly, and spat at the ground in disgust. The war had kept him away from his own family for months now, and every mail call was a desperate wait for the next letter from his wife and more news of the daughter who was his unashamed pride and joy. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how he might cope with the concept of the loss of his own child.

“…Shit indeed…!” Meier agreed, nodding slowly.

Inside, Ritter continued to hum that gentle melody as the little boy slept in his arms. The tears had ceased, finally, and instead his face was now a cold, hardened mask completely devoid of emotion. The wild, righteous rage he’d felt earlier had now coalesced into something dark and fathomless…something he’d never before experienced in his thirty-five years…something that began to churn and fester in the pit of his stomach.

HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

The Orkneys lay just a dozen kilometres or so off the North coast of Scotland. Comprised of a multitude of islands at the north western edge of the North Sea, three major land masses of the group — Hoy, South Ronaldsay and Mainland (the largest) — surrounded the naval base HMS Proserpine: the huge natural anchorage of Scapa Flow that was the home of the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet.

It was a windblown and desolate place to the large part with fishing settlements being the main areas of habitation dotted about the islands. It was also a place of much historical note and some of the oldest recorded settlements in the British Isles could be found in the Orkneys. The islands were comprised predominantly of low hills and grassed expanses where sheep and goats were often the only variation to a largely treeless, unwelcoming landscape. The only real exception was that of the island of Hoy, the western half of which rose to high hills and cliffs on its western side. St. John’s Head, on the west coast, was the highest vertical cliff in Britain and towered hundreds of metres above the surface of the ocean.

From his excellent vantage point in the Lightning’s rear cockpit, Trumbull had enjoyed the flight north across the darkened British countryside. He’d been more than a little surprised however to find their destination lit up like a veritable chandelier upon their arrival. Never having visited Scapa Flow previously, he knew little actual detail about the place but the little he did know had suggested a base far less comprehensive that the massive land-based installation they were now circling above.

“Icebreaker to Harbinger: come in please.” The call came within seconds of the jet arriving over the base’s airspace.

“That’s our cue,” Thorne quipped conversationally as he keyed the transmit toggle on his radio. “This is Harbinger receiving you loud and clear, Icebreaker. How the hell are ya, mate?” It seemed to Trumbull in that moment that Thorne might actually have been intentionally accentuating his own accent.

“Coping, old chap — coping. How’s our friend?”

“Safe as houses — the pickup went as smooth as silk…mostly… A couple of those Flankers we were worried about did try to gatecrash though…” As he spoke these words, Thorne was bringing the F-35E in over the airfield proper, his speed dropping away dramatically.

“Glad you managed to show them the door, old man…” The radio voice countered jovially. “I’d have been rather upset if these last twelve months had been wasted!”

“And it seems like only this morning we parted!” Thorne chuckled, knowing only he and the man at the other end of the radio would get the in-joke. “Mind if I park this bastard down there near the hangars there? She’s chewed quite nicely through what little fuel I’ve got left…”

“Wherever you can fit her in, Max — go right ahead.”

HMS Proserpine lay on the east coast of the island of Hoy by the small village of Lyness, opening onto the south-western edge of Scapa Flow, while close by lay five smaller islands within the Flow itself: Cava, Faro, Flotta, Switha and Risa. Anchorages for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, destroyers and smaller warships lat between the string of islands and the coastline itself and stretched from Gutter Sound in the north-west down to Switha Sound in the south-east. Beyond the string of islands in West Weddel Sound, corralled by Caro, Faro and Flotta, lay the main fleet anchorage in the deeper sections of the Flow.

The airfield and attendant structures lay a thousand metres or so west of the main naval base and comprised a large rectangular area covering quite several square kilometres. There were clusters of buildings and hangars to the south-east of the area while an incredibly long concrete runway stretched away to the north-west a little more than three thousand metres. As they circled in slowly above the landing area, Trumbull noted a number of heavy and medium AA emplacements on the far side of the runway, their gun crews following the aircraft with their sights as it halted completely and hovered over a broad concrete area at the near end of the strip, close to three gigantic hangars.

The subsequent landing was just as impressive from inside the aircraft in Trumbull’s opinion, and seemed a great deal more straight-forward watching from inside than it’d appeared from outside. The jet remained steady on its pillars of exhaust, lowering smoothly to the concrete below as Thorne gently drew back the throttle and eased down the power. A trio of Fleet Air Arm ground crew appeared immediately with a set of wheeled steps, pushing them up to the side of the Lightning as Thorne began to shut down its powerplant and unstrapped himself from his seat. The canopy rose above them with a whine and Thorne dragged the helmet from his head to reveal a shock of medium-length dark hair with just the hint of grey about it. He clambered from the cockpit and climbed down to the ground on those steps, stretching and running his hands through his hair as Trumbull awkwardly followed him.

“Good to see you, Maxwell,” one of the group clustered there ventured. The man appeared to be in his late forties and wore the red tabs and rank of an army brigadier. Neither man saluted; they embraced instead, and Trumbull could’ve sworn for a moment that he caught the glint of tears in the officer’s eyes. “I was scared you weren’t going to make it for a while there…”

“No chance of that, mate,” Thorne reassured, not quite as solemn but also sensing the magnitude of what they’d accomplished. “Only this morning, remember?”

“It’s been a year for me!” The brigadier exclaimed as they parted fully and he grasped the Australian’s shoulders at full arms’ length. “…A whole bloody year!”

“A lot longer than that for both of us, I reckon,” Thorne observed sombrely…thinking that for him it really had only been that morning they’d seen each other last. “Better get onto the LDV too, by the way…the crew of one of those Flankers managed to eject and they’ll be wandering about the Dorset countryside right now up to all sorts of shit. I want those arseholes caught ASAP and brought up here for interrogation: who knows what they might be able to tell us!”

“Bluddy ‘ell…!” The remark came from beside Trumbull as the two NCOs who’d pushed up the steps regarded the jet before them with awe. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir…” the sergeant added as he realised the squadron leader was watching them.

“That’s quite all right, sergeant,” Trumbull reassured with dry sarcasm, clapping his arms about himself at the wind that whipped about the airfield on that cold, coastal night. “That’s just what I thought!” He gave a bemused smile, repeating silently to himself: yes, that’s just what I thought!

A second later, he realised that Thorne and the officer were now walking off together across the concrete taxiway, heading toward a control tower that stood a few hundred metres away. He darted forward in order to catch up, joining step with them a metre or two behind.

“How’re we going for time?” Thorne inquired as they walked. “With all the extra carry on I’ve been a good deal longer than expected.”

“Somewhat, yes…” the other man nodded, consulting a wristwatch. “We’ve about twenty minutes, I’d say…enough time to get to the tower and have a grand seat.”

“Excellent!” Thorne stated emphatically, and the RAF pilot could hear the anticipation in the Australian’s voice. “The Raptor should be able to cope in the unlikely event anything else unpleasant turns up. I’d hoped to get back with enough time spare to top up my tanks and be up again to escort them in…” he threw a cocked thumb back at Trumbull “…but ‘Muggins’ here buggered all that up…” Which returned attention to the squadron leader as they walked on. “Nick, this is Alec Trumbull — Squadron Leader Trumbull, may I introduce Nicholas Alpert — brigadier, it appears.” He gestured to the tower they were approaching. “If you’ll bear with us we’ve some important things to prepare for and we’re on a tight schedule. You’re welcome to tag along, but we won’t be able to answer any questions until we’re done. Okay?”

“I can wait, I suppose…” Trumbull replied dubiously, noting the honesty in Thorne’s tone. He could wait…for a little longer.

The tower rose a good twenty metres above the ground and the stairs to the top were a fair climb at any pace, leaving all three men breathing heavily. The platform itself was large and well set up — fully glassed and enclosed from the elements — while a pot-bellied stove crackled in one corner providing a little heat. Even in summer, Trumbull had no doubt it might get quite cold at night in such an exposed position, particularly near an ocean so close to the Arctic Circle.

“Only about five or six minutes now, I’d say…” Alpert advised as they stood in the tower, staring out at the long, well-lit runway “…if they’re on time…”

“Yeah, well they’d better fuckin’-well turn up on time!” Thorne growled, tension now also starting to show on his face. “You lot displaced ten minutes before I did!”

“…And they certainly jumped okay again after I bailed out,” Alpert stated, trying to reassure them both. “Lit up the sky like Blackpool on a Saturday bloody night…they’ll be here.”

“What on earth’s going on here, if I may ask, sir?” Trumbull finally ventured softly beside Thorne as they waited, able to remain silent no longer. Although he’d not yet ascertained the Australian’s rank, there was no doubt in his mind the Australian was in charge judging by his interaction with the officer they’d just met.

“Just watch, mate,” Thorne grinned back, anticipation of the reaction he knew he’d get from Trumbull overcoming his nerves and fears for a moment. “All will become clear in a few minutes…” he chuckled a little to himself, then again added rather unhelpfully, as seemed to be his wont: “…well, clearer than they are now, anyway.”

“Well it doesn’t take a genius to work out we’re waiting on an aircraft of some sort.” Trumbull replied, only a little miffed, and that more at the realisation the Australian was having fun at his expense rather than any lack of explanation.

“We’re having a few friends drop in…”

“I can hardly wait…” Trumbull retorted dryly, but was prevented from saying anything more by the flash.

It was a brilliant burst of illumination far off above the horizon that momentarily lit up the anchorage and islands all around for great distances off to the north-west. As the sky returned to darkness once more, several tiny sets of lights were now visible where it had been, and although no larger than pinpricks they were obviously quite powerful. Setting the frequency of the main radio set into a console facing the runway, Alpert lifted a large microphone to his lips and keyed ‘transmit’.

“Icebreaker calling Phoenix Flight: come in please… over.”

“Icebreaker, this is Phoenix Flight reading you loud and clear.” The reply brought visible sighs of relief from Thorne and Alpert. “Phoenix-Two and –Three are status A-Okay and ready for landing. Is the area secure…over?” Trumbull found it intriguing that the voice appeared to be that of an American, considering the United States weren’t even at war…

Canadians, he reasoned logically in an instant, obviously Canadians rather than Americans! Trumbull’s experience with Americans wasn’t broad enough for him to pick that the voice had carried a distinctly Texan tinge that placed its owner’s origins a long way from Canada.

“The area is secure, Phoenix-One.” Alpert replied. “Harbinger was required to see off some uninvited guests earlier but everything’s fine now…over.”

“Doing my job for me, Max?”

“Someone has to make sure it’s done properly, Jack!” Thorne laughed, taking the mike from Alpert. “Don’t worry, mate: there’s still a few ‘nasties’ left out there for you.”

“No problem, buddy: I’ll make a few circuits at high altitude and see if there’s anything sneaking about while Phoenix-Two and –Three come in. If anything’s around, I’ll find it!”

The only break in the dark sky above was a pair of glowing exhausts as the aircraft Trumbull assumed must have been Phoenix-One roared past overhead a second or so later, the thunder of its engines making the tower shudder. Judging by the sound alone, it left an impression of being far more powerful than the F-35E.

“Your friends…?” He inquired with a little nervousness.

“Our friends…” Thorne assured, nodding and grinning smugly.

“Oh good…!” The squadron leader remarked with faint sarcasm and mock geniality, unaware of how accurate that statement would indeed become. He returned his attention to the approaching lights in the sky, which were now much closer. At first, he thought there must be a number of planes out there flying in close formation, navigation lights blinking asymmetrically — red and green. It wasn’t long before he realised, incredulous, that all the lights he could see belonged instead to just two aircraft.

“My God…!” He breathed in surprise.

“Lockheed and Boeing, actually,” Thorne replied glibly, enjoying the moment immensely.

The first of the giants was upon them in another moment, the landing gear beneath the craft’s massive bulk searching for the far end of the runway. Without GPS or an ILS, the pilot was forced to actually carry out the whole landing manually, something that was unusual and took some concentration. It dropped toward the concrete with three massive clusters of rubber-tyred wheels in an unusual, tricycle arrangement Trumbull had rarely seen, its airspeed still seemingly far too high for a landing in his opinion, and he saw it clearly for the first time as it passed the first of the runway markers at the far end and into the field lighting beyond.

With a wingspan of 68 metres, a length of almost 76 and a basic operating weight of more than 150 tonnes, the Lockheed Galaxy C-5M, erstwhile of the United States Air Force Logistic Command, was far and away the largest flying thing Alec Trumbull had ever laid eyes on. Tyres bit into the concrete as it touched down, releasing chirps of protest and puffs of bluish smoke, and as the nose wheels also touched down, the roar of its General Electric engines changed pitch and increased in intensity as reverse thrust kicked in. Its speed of approach began to slow dramatically as it thundered on down the runway, and Trumbull could only stare on in stunned silence. The McDonnell KC-10A Extender tanker aircraft that landed with it a few moments later, although smaller, was no less impressive.

Thirteen thousand metres above them, Captain Jack Davies of the United States Air Force completed three wide aerial circuits right around the Orkneys, his powerful radar systems telling him there were no threatening aircraft within detectable range. As it happened, the Luftwaffe aircraft Sentry had been forced to retire to its base at Wuppertal just thirty minutes earlier with minor engine problems and as such there was no equipment present that could detect the emissions of his AN/APG-77 radar. That was unfortunate in a way, as the interest the discovery of the F-35E Lightning II had created would’ve paled mightily into insignificance in comparison to knowledge of the appearance of an F-22A Raptor stealth air superiority fighter.

4. Food for Thought

Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ

Amiens, Northern France

Saturday

June 29, 1940

It was well after midnight before there was any sleep to be had at Amiens for Reichsmarschall Reuters or Albert Schiller. Late into the night they were both still in the briefing room of the mansion, joined now by another — a smallish man in his late fifties wearing a long civilian overcoat, waistcoat and trousers. Joachim Müller, once a physicist at a leading German university, was Reuters’ head technician and scientific advisor and was immensely capable in both roles. The three had been discussing the situation they were now presented with — the arrival of the F-35.

A late communiqué from Berlin had also informed them, rather to Reuters’ dismay, that the Führer would be making a surprise visit the following afternoon on the way through to a ‘morale-booster’ tour of the forward army groups throughout France and Belgium. Reuters might well be the Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht but a visit from Adolf Hitler was something anyone had to take seriously. He also knew questions would be asked regarding the unexpected and unpleasant arrival of the Lightning, and although there mightn’t be any immediate danger in a strategic sense, its arrival was still something that needed to be considered.

“So we know what happened to at least one of our aircraft that failed the ‘jump’…” Schiller observed softly, following a long period of pregnant silence.

“Under the circumstances, let’s assume NATO and the CIS captured or destroyed both C-123s.” Reuters countered from his comfortable chair as the three men sat about the map table, mostly hiding the sourness behind the remark.

“…And delayed our turbine, tank armament and nuclear programs by years!” Müller observed with more obvious displeasure from the opposite side of the table. “Thank Christ we kept the exact time destination classified and preset the TDUs! At least we took the precaution of programming them to reset their data immediately after discharge or in case of power failure.” He caught Schiller’s quizzical stare and almost rolled his eyes. “You two still don’t grasp the ramifications of this, do you?”

“How much real trouble can this cause?” Schiller shot back in a friendly tone, sceptical and deciding to play Devil’s Advocate. “So we have one enemy jet turn up… just one… even if it is a bloody Joint Strike Fighter. The ‘Temporal Wave’ thingy or whatever you call it takes around 24 hours of Realtime to take effect, right? So they had a day — or part of one — to lash some kind of response together… so what?”

“Assume for just a moment, dear Joachim, that both of us poor mortals here are the complete simpletons you’ve always suspected us to be,” Reuters added with a wry smile, cutting Müller off before he could give the reply that was about to accompany the exasperated expression Schiller’s remarks had elicited. He had no doubt that there was more to it than Schiller’s flippant dismissal, and knew his 2IC probably recognised that also. “Enlighten us with your thoughts on the matter, if you would.”

“Well, to begin with: who says they’ve only had one day or part thereof?” Müller returned immediately. “Markowicz mightn’t have been the lead scientist on the project, but he was Lowenstein’s partner for ten years, and that sneaky bloody Yid would’ve known enough to give the UN a fair estimate of what their project was capable of. We grabbed Lowenstein the moment they’d gotten far enough to make it worthwhile, and that was a full twelve months before we jumped…” He fixed Schiller with a quite wilting gaze to match his sarcastic tone. “What do you suspect they imagined we were doing with their lead temporal research scientist during that time… playing hopscotch?”

“You think there’ll be more aircraft?” Schiller queried, more serious now and taking no offence at his friend’s patronising tone.

“You can bet your last Reichsmark they will,” Müller answered instantly. “Those TDUs are tough — we built them that way for a reason — and each aircraft carried two of the devices: one main unit and one back up. We must assume the worst case scenario that NATO captured all four in working order.”

He took a short breath. “Markowicz and Lowenstein’s research was a fully-funded British MoD project right from the start and DARPA also got involved with further funding the moment it looked like it was going somewhere.” He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly how much cash was sunk into the research prior to us grabbing Lowenstein, but I can guarantee you it was in the range of several billion US dollars…and that was in spite of the Global Financial Crisis. The moment our involvement became known the whole thing was handed over to MI6 and they were basically given carte blanche to find us and wipe us off the map at all costs!” Joachim grimaced, ignoring the urge to touch a jagged scar at the back of his neck that was the result of an injury received from flying shrapnel as his C-123 cargo plane had been fired upon by Russian ground forces while taking off just moments prior to making their ‘jump’ into history. “Thorne and his bloody Hindsight unit had the complete financial and material backing of the UN Security Council, NATO, the United States, the European Union and the Russians. Those bastards just had to snap their fingers for money or anything else they wanted to start rolling in.”

“And we’ve had seven years of unrestricted freedom in this world…” Reuters observed finally after a short pause, having absorbed and accepted everything Joachim had said “…and we prepared for five more years before that: planning, research, development and procurement. We may not have had he backing of ‘world powers’, that’s true, but you’d also have to admit, Joachim, that our own resources were by no means insubstantial. I can think of very few situations in which Hindsight or anyone else could get in the way of what we’re doing here.”

“I can give you one right now, Kurt…” Müller pointed out with much less good humour. “Suppose for a moment that one of these four possible aircraft that arrives — even the F-35 we already know about — is loaded with tactical nuclear weapons? What’ll that do to our planning of Sealion or our occupation forces in France… or if the Strategic Air Command has ‘loaned’ them a B-1B Lancer or a B-2A Spirit with enough nukes to turn every major city in Germany to dust?”

He gave a hollow laugh, already well aware of the real concern Reuters felt. “You’re worried more about what this new arrival might do to shake the Führer’s confidence in you…aren’t you? How d’you think turning Berlin being wiped out would shake that confidence…assuming, of course, any of us were all still here to bitch about it afterward anyway…?”

“All right, all right, Joachim!” Reuters half growled, half laughed as Schiller shook his head, also smiling. “You’ve made your point.” He took a deep breath and a sip of water from a glass on the table before him. “You think I’m more worried about the Führer than I am about Hindsight or this jet that’s turned up, and you’re right…I am more worried about that!” He took another breath, and there was a genuine fear and seriousness in Reuters’ eyes now as he spoke.

“When we made contact here for the first time, we couldn’t get anyone to take us seriously to begin with. Even with the few tasty little morsels of technology Schiller brought with him on that first mission, it took every ounce of his persuasion and three months of bargaining and pleading just to get access to a suitable airfield for the rest of us to land on another two months later. No one…and I mean no one…wanted us to get anywhere near Hitler ourselves, and it took a full year before I was actually able to speak to the Führer face to face. Hess, Bormann, Göbbels, Himmler, Göring, Rohm and a brace of others at or near the top of the Nazi Party hierarchy, and all of them hated and mistrusted us…” He took a short breath before continuing.

“Seven years later, it’s true we’re in a far different position, with myself as Reichsmarschall and all of us in positions of great influence. Our core group has been almost entirely absorbed into the Wehrmacht now, and it is we who wield the power in Germany directly below Hitler himself. One thing hasn’t changed however, and that’s the fact that most of the other players in this little intrigue we might whimsically call the politics of the Nazi Party still hate and mistrust us…moreso now because of the power we control. The Reichsführer-SS Himmler has started to come around and warm to us, and there’s the potential for a real and useful ally in the SS to come out of this, but I suspect the others I’ve mentioned would all rate myself — and the rest of us by definition — somewhere lower than eel shit in the scheme of German society.” He took a deeper breath this time before continuing once more, both other men mesmerised by his words.

“So now to address your question, Joachim, regarding the possibility of these irritating newcomers perhaps threatening or, indeed, using nuclear weapons against us…during Sealion or otherwise. Well — in light of what I’ve outlined above, what do you think the likely outcome would be if for any reason I suggested to the Führer that we perhaps ‘ease up’ a little on our Western Offensive? We’ve started something here in Germany that can’t easily be reversed or even slowed down — if at all! In the face of continued opposition from every sceptic and ‘doomsayer’ in the NSDAP, I’ve spent the last seven years convincing a reluctant Adolf Hitler that an invasion of Great Britain and its subsequent total subjugation is not just advisable but integral to the continued existence of Grossdeutschland once Western Europe is conquered. It was hard enough winning the confidence and trust of the man at all, let alone enough of that confidence for the Chancellor to permit me to take over the running and planning of the war entirely. If I go to him now and suggest that maybe we need to ‘slow down’ — to ‘hold off’ for a while — I’ll destroy everything we’ve accomplished here in a second.” He left another very pregnant pause hanging as the reality of what he’d said sunk in completely.

“I’ve made too many deals and called in too many favours for this to fail for any reason! Remember what happened to Rohm and the SA: that can easily happen to anyone who gets far enough on the wrong side of Hitler for him to start hearing the words others are constantly whispering in his ears. Political power and military force can both be virtuoso musicians, gentlemen…” Reuters gave a wry smile “…but neither of them have any principles. They’ll play any tune you wish and play it for as long as you wish if they think you will pay…but sooner or later you do have to pay. The position we’ve carved for ourselves now controls us as much as we control it…nuclear threat or not. If this new enemy can destroy us then they will, and we’ll be dead. If we fail the Führer now, we’ll be ruined here and no better off…almost certainly eventually dead anyway, in all truth…and probably in a far more brutal and drawn out fashion than anything an atomic bomb could do to us. Whether these supposed nukes exist in reality or not is therefore in practical terms utterly irrelevant: we die or we succeed…it’s that simple. I, for one, intend to do everything I can to make sure we succeed.”

“So that still leaves you with the problem of how to handle the Führer,” Schiller noted, diverting the subject slightly.

“That, I’m painfully aware of,” Reuters admitted, smiling once more, if ruefully, “…and I’ll think seriously on it.”

“…And of these newcomers…?” From Müller this time.

“That’s another matter entirely, Joachim, and with the potential problems you’ve so eloquently put forward, it’s one we do need to deal with quickly.” He turned his gaze to his friend and 2IC. “Tell me, Herr Generalleutnant Schiller: as my capable master of intelligence, how do you imagine this changes our thoughts on the unexpected and very unhistorical expansions of Scapa Flow our reconnaissance aircraft have been observing over the last year? Not simply the result of a flow-on effect our own presence created, as we — it seems — rather arrogantly assumed originally?”

“The benefits of twenty-twenty hindsight, Kurt…?” Schiller gave a wry smile, adding quickly: “No pun intended. Perhaps the obvious questions — particularly that of what might require the construction of several kilometres of runway — should’ve appeared more obvious? Original Abwehr and Naval Intelligence reports of those upgrades started surfacing roughly twelve months ago, before the war began…so we can imagine that Hindsight — I’ll assume its Hindsight until proven otherwise at this point — has had someone on the ground here for that long at least. Yet this Joint Strike Fighter appears today rather than any other time? Surely we’d have encountered some evidence of the bloody thing already if it’d arrived here before today? And what needs three thousand metres of runway? Not a fucking F-35B, that’s for sure…or any tactical strike aircraft worth its salt…” he grimaced “…strategic bombers, on the other hand…”

“Or heavy transports…!” Joachim suddenly cut in, taking the conversation away from previously covered ground. Both men’s eyes fell upon him as he smiled broadly, the light of realisation on his face. “Really heavy transports…!”

“Go on…” Reuters urged softly, his eyes intense and fathomless as he recognised the expression the man often displayed when experiencing an epiphany.

“A Galaxy, for example, or one of those bloody great Antonovs for that matter: either of those big bastards would need the better part of three thousand metres to take off when fully loaded. If they do have all four TDUs, then we know that one of those is in that F-35. Their intel would’ve told them that we had four Flankers on our side, courtesy of the CIS and the Chechen Mafia via that pleasant little Pakistani arms dealer…do you think they’d have taken the chance on just one fighter being able to deal with all four Su-30s if they attacked all at once…even one fighter as advanced and stealthy as an F-35? I’d ask for at least one other fighter… a dedicated air combat aircraft: maybe an Eagle or a Tornado F3…perhaps a Eurofighter or a Rafale…something brand new — ‘straight off the rack’.”

“Raptor…” Schiller said softly, capturing the others’ attention instantly. “Why go back a generation for any of them if they’ve already been given one of the most advanced stealth aircraft on earth to play with? If you’re going to go ‘balls-out’ with an air superiority fighter, it stands to reason the only possible choice would be an F-22…”

“Have to keep an eye out for that, then…” Reuters nodded thoughtfully, not liking the concept but unable to fault his friend’s logic. “We’ll make sure Sentry is briefed to report any erroneous or unexpected emissions.” Inwardly, he cursed the fact that the aircraft was an old, ex-Soviet model with comparatively less sophisticated equipment…although he also recognised that it was probably a moot point anyway: the stealthy nature of a Lightning or Raptor would make either basically invisible even to the most advanced AWACS aircraft at anything more than suicidal ranges.

“If we assume a maximum of four units then we probably have two cargoes and two escorts,” Müller decided with some confidence, also accepting the F-22 theory as logical. “In their shoes I’d want as much equipment as I could get.”

“To do what with…?” Reuters frowned, tapping his fingers on the table top with mild frustration. “Say they do have a couple of C-5s or Antonovs? What do they bring with them: a load of cruise missiles to threaten us…Harpoons perhaps to sink our invasion force — or at least put a serious dent in it? Personally, I’d think the nuclear deterrent angle would be a better option — even the Führer would take notice of the threat of nuclear weapons……probably…” he added finally with unwilling honesty. He noticed Schiller’s mouth beginning to open and cut him off with the raise of a hand. “And no, Albert — I’m not ready to tell him exactly how powerful this field of research is just yet. Explain atomic weapons completely on a Tuesday and our Chancellor would be demanding a gross of them by Friday…” Reuters gave a chuckle. “…Last Friday, at that…!” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand more in recognition of the fact that he was dog-tired rather than that anything had been resolved.

“We can speculate about it all we like but until we get a clear idea of what they have there — or what they don’t have — we really have nothing at all. We have two Flankers left…”

“A recon mission…?” Schiller suggested. “We can send one over Scapa Flow with a camera pod and have the glossies on your desk within five hours…”

“…And we can have both Flankers back there a few hours later if need be with thousand kilo bombs…” Reuters finished with finality “…but not tonight…” he finished firmly. “We’re all tired and I have something I need to take care of first thing in the morning. We’ll run the mission tomorrow night after sunset — that’ll give the ground crew plenty of time to prep and test the aircraft and equipment. I believe Sentry had a minor engine problem today they need to fix, anyway.”

“She’s developed some more irregularities in one of the engines…” Müller confirmed with some frustration, nodding. “It’s those bloody replacement compressor blades again: the metal in the rest of the aircraft doesn’t age or wear any more than we do, but the blades we had to replace due to damage do.” He shrugged. “…The replacement parts wear, and the quality isn’t as high as the originals to begin with, and they keep throwing everything out of sync and eventually fail as a result. It’s like the rest of the plane keeps ‘rejecting them’ and it’s something we’re going to have to live with…”

“There are a lot of things we’ve had to live with over the last seven years,” Reuters observed pointedly and all nodded in agreement, if for different reasons. With as much silent pain as ever, Schiller thought about Rachel, whom he’d left behind and who would now never exist. They’d played with time, and time could do many things, but healing his soul wasn’t one of the things they could hope to accomplish.

HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Sunday

June 30, 1940

Trumbull still wasn’t asleep at 0130 hours on that freezing Sunday early morning. He’d been shown to more than adequate quarters within the officers’ billets and he was certainly exhausted, but the overwhelming power of his curiosity refused to give in to his body’s demands for much-needed rest. The room he’d been allocated was one with windows that provided an excellent view of the runway, hangars and concreted aircraft parking areas. All of those areas were still brightly illuminated and although they were hundreds of metres away, Trumbull could see quite clearly the hive of activity that continued to surround the new arrivals.

All four aircraft intrigued him equally. Although everyone had been far to busy to be able to answer many of his numerous questions, he’d at least been able to eventually ascertain that all four were American planes, and the three he’d watched arrive with Thorne and Alpert the evening before clearly displayed United States’ national insignia, unlike the F-35E he’d arrived in which displayed little other than the coloured strip of multinational flags he’d noted upon its first appearance. The information came as a surprise to Trumbull, to say the least, as the USA had continually and emphatically proclaimed its neutrality with regard to war in Europe. Certainly, the Americans had been sympathetic to Britain’s plight and there were rumours that military aid was indeed being secretly provided, but the presence of three such obviously military aircraft might well be viewed by the Axis as an outright act of war.

That was assuming for a moment that Trumbull believed the Americans capable of such technology, which he didn’t despite the aircraft’s obvious existence. Another inexplicable point was that the insignia on the craft all purported to belong to the ‘United States Air Force’. There was no such organisation that he was aware of — the Americans’ air power resided with the USAAC — the United States Army Air Corps — and Trumbull was certain he’d have been aware had there been such a major name change.

The second fighter aircraft had landed some minutes after the two larger planes and was generally similar in overall appearance to the F-35, although there were some notable differences as well. Its twin tails were canted dramatically outward much like the Lightning, and there didn’t seem to be a defined point at which the broad wings and tail actually joined the flattened, faired fuselage — the wings and body instead seemed to ‘blend’ together in a smooth fashion that Trumbull suspected was very aerodynamic. Save for the tricycle landing gear it rested upon there seemed to be almost no breaks at all in the smooth surfaces of its fuselage.

Trumbull had never seen a more streamlined or sleek craft: even the bubble-shaped canopy that covered the single-seat cockpit was low and ‘sculpted’ to fit in with the rest of its shape. He’d heard Thorne and Alpert refer to the fighter as a ‘Raptor’, which the dictionary defined as a bird of prey of some type…as he stared at the plane’s sleek, purposeful lines he thought the name was singularly appropriate.

The two larger aircraft were something else again. The smallest of the pair — Thorne had called it a ‘KC-10A Extender’ or something equally obscure — lay off to one side of a large concreted area close to the near end of the runway. At that point in time, none of the activity outside on that cold early morning appeared to be centred around it at all. As with all of the aircraft, it was painted all over in a low-visibility mid/dark grey with faded markings and insignia. Three engines powered the Extender (one mounted in the very tail with an intake set below the leading edge of the jet’s tall rudder to complement one under each wing), and beneath its tail was a singularly unusual piece of apparatus that in Trumbull’s opinion looked to all the world like some kind of huge, man-made ‘wasp’s sting’.

It was the largest of the arrivals however — obviously a gigantic transport aircraft of some kind — that was the centre of attention out in the landing area that night. They’d called it a C-5M ‘Super Galaxy’ and the grandeur of the name was more than suitable. The massive nose of the craft was hinged beneath the high-mounted cockpit glass and had lifted upward and completely out of the way, revealing a loading and a vast, spacious cargo bay beyond that ran down what appeared to be the entire length of the aircraft. At the far end, beneath the high tail, equally large ‘clamshell’ doors also opened on either side to reveal a second, rear loading ramp. Trumbull couldn’t even begin to estimate the carrying capacity but it was obviously massive, and to his mind the craft was one of the most intelligently designed things he’d ever seen. He was incredibly impressed by the potential and practicality of the Galaxy and what that could mean to any armed force that made use of it.

The front and rear doors of the Galaxy had opened within minutes of landing and the disembarkation and removal of personnel and cargo had begun. Still watching from the tower earlier in the night, Trumbull had been privy to a much better view of the goings-on. Two dozen men had emerged from the C-5M, filing down its forward ramp in twos and threes before assembling as a group in front of the huge plane and all dressed in various types of military fatigues. Some were of a similar type to those Trumbull had sometimes seen visiting US personnel wear, but others were of strange patterns indeed — splotches of green and black and browns against a light tan background. Rather than US-style forage caps or helmets, those men wore Slouch Hats in the fashion of Commonwealth troops: Australians or New Zealanders.

As the men had assembled on the tarmac below the plane in those first few moments they were almost uncontrollable. As they were met by Thorne and Alpert there were whoops and howls of joy as all embracing each other in an obvious show of relief that seemed to be going quite a bit overboard to Trumbull. After a bit more thought however he was willing to concede with a wry smile that a flight inside that huge thing might indeed make him feel as happy about being on land again as they obviously were.

They were a loud and boisterous lot — some of them were definitely American — and the enlisted men joked and chatted enthusiastically as they began to unload the first few cargo pallets, NCOs bellowing orders back and forth all the while. Trumbull also noted with some interest that there was at least one woman among them wearing the full uniform of an officer of the Royal Navy — as opposed to that of the WRNS (the Women’s Royal Naval Service).

Trumbull had watched with great interest as the first of the items of cargo the huge plane carried were unloaded that evening. He was intrigued as the first of a pair of vehicles trundled down the rear ramp wreathed in clouds of condensation and diesel exhaust. Although the vehicles were unlike any he’d before seen, the RAF pilot was quickly becoming desensitised to surprise to the point of simple acceptance…most things he’d seen that day had been unlike anything he’d seen before and he’d basically used up his capacity for amazement to the point that he was willing to hold it in check until some suitable explanations had been provided. Whoever held those answers was certainly going to be in for a lot of questions.

The vehicles were quite big — substantially larger than a Matilda or Vickers — but were obviously tanks of some type nevertheless that travelled on long, wide sets of tracks. Both of them were seemingly identical, painted in khaki, brown and dark green stripes similar to those the pilot had seen on British tanks. Each sported a large turret atop the centre of their hulls mounting what appeared to be long-barrelled cannon on either side. A cluster of six long tubes were also mounted outside each of the guns, while several other large devices were hung from the front of the turret or projected above it that he couldn’t identify.

As the pair of tanks reached the concrete they each halted momentarily to allow a trio of men to enter the vehicle through a large hatch in its turret after which each cleared the shelter of the C-5M’s tail and powered away off the taxiway in clouds of exhaust. The first disappeared into the darkness along a track running parallel to the long, concrete runway, presumably heading for the opposite end with only its tail and headlights visible for a long time until they too eventually vanished.

The second of the tanks headed off in the opposite direction toward a large mound of earthworks, the top of which stood two stories above the ground level and was dimly visible beyond the OR’s barracks to the south west. He lost sight of the vehicle momentarily as it moved behind the nearer buildings before spotting it once more, driving lights blazing as it climbed the moderate gradient to the top of the artificial hill. Once there it almost disappeared entirely into what was obviously a prepared defensive position.

Before its lights shut down and it too vanished into the darkness once more, Trumbull noted that the only part of the vehicle that could still be seen was the large, bulbous turret and its side-mounted weapons. The squadron leader was no fool, and as his mind took in the placement of the vehicle and the complete field of fire its raised position afforded, the immediate thought that came to him was that the vehicle was intended for anti-aircraft defence. Having seen the missiles Thorne had used earlier to destroy one of the enemy Flankers, he suspected the six tubes mounted beside each cannon might well contain similar weapons. Although it was no more than a guess, it somehow seemed a logical assumption, and those missiles would most likely provide long-range defence to compliment the deadly-looking guns.

He’d experienced ack-ack fire a few times in his career — twice from German gunners on the French coast and once, rather more irritatingly, from an over-exuberant Bofors crew at one of his own airfields — and it was something he didn’t care to experience again if it could be avoided. He could only wonder at the potential power of the weapons each vehicle mounted and hope fervently there’d be no air attack against which they’d be called on to defend.

As he continued to watch on that early morning, Trumbull shivered at the cold despite the warm clothes and fur-lined flying jacket someone had found for him. He turned away from the windows, finally deciding to try and get some sleep…sleep that proved to be a long time coming and even then, one that was restless and filled with strange dreams.

The Officer’s Mess was much warmer thanks to the raging fireplace in the wall opposite the door, close to one end of the small but ornate, wooden bar. It was a relatively small mess, having been originally designed specifically for the group of officers who’d just entered, and was also relatively cosy as a result. The panelled walls were sparsely decorated with small, original paintings that, by the look of their naval themes might well have been scrounged up from the main areas of the naval base itself.

A de rigueur portrait of the King hung above the bar of course, and a collection of a dozen or so armchairs in worn but well-kept condition — all large and comfortable to be certain — were clustered beside and around circular drinks tables that sat at knee height. Someone had followed Alpert’s earlier orders and seven filled champagne flutes now sat together on a silver tray on one of those tables near the centre of the room.

“Now there’s a bloody good idea,” Thorne declared loudly, first through the door and spying the booze immediately. “Nice goin’, Nick old son!” He made a beeline for the table as the rest of the seven present filed in behind him. Thorne, in his mid-forties, was the commander of their newly-arrived unit — the unit named ‘Hindsight’ as Schiller had correctly assumed from the other side of The Channel.

“I heard that, boy!” Captain Jack Davies added as he entered close behind, dressed in a black pilot’s G-suit and dark blue parka of Arctic capabilities. “Goddamn, it’s cold out there. Anyone told those bastards at meteorology it’s actually still summer here?” Despite years of experience, Davies refused on principle to accustom himself to British weather. He possessed a broad, country face and a smile filled with impossibly-large teeth that resulted in him being a not altogether unattractive but also a not altogether handsome man either. Davies, apart from being equal second-in-command, was the only man qualified to fly the F-22 Raptor. A veteran pilot with service in Bosnia along with several tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, Davies had also spent time as one of the USAF’s lead test pilots on the aircraft before transferring to the Hindsight unit eight months before.

“God forbid they’d have cold weather in the States of course…” The dark-haired, female naval officer behind him added, baiting him in long running gag between the two. Her voice was tinged with a moderate Glaswegian accent and her hair, although cut in a short bob and barely reaching the back of her neck, still served to frame her pale skin, well-defined high cheek bones and a finely-shaped nose. Commander Eileen Donelson was twenty-nine years of age in comparison to Davies’ thirty-six, although she stood at least fifteen centimetres shorter than the Texan’s one hundred and ninety. Donelson also held the same standing within the group as Davies — that of equal 2IC- and filled the role of Thorne’s engineering and military ordnance adviser.

The rest filed in behind them. Nick Alpert, a year or two older than Thorne, had worked in British Military Intelligence before transferring to Hindsight and was probably the only person on the team who knew as much about their objective and enemies as Thorne himself. As tall as Thorne, he was thinner and of a bookish appearance that was accentuated by the small, circular spectacles perched on his nose. His key task within the unit was as intelligence officer, and with liaison between Hindsight and Whitehall.

Alpert was followed by a man little taller than Eileen Donelson. In his early forties, Robert Green was one of those men Trumbull had noted wearing the rather strange, mottled camouflage and slouch hats — an example of which he carried in his hands. The field uniform he wore carried a pattern known as Auscam, as was the pattern on the thin Japara jacket he wore over them. Green, a colonel with the Australian Special Air Service and commander of a six-man squad of SAS, carried an unruly shock of red hair that could only be kept under control when cut close to the scalp as he currently wore it.

The sixth person to enter the room wore the green dress uniform of the United States Marines and radiated career officer to the core. In his late forties, Michael Kowalski was a man of average height and lightly-greyed dark hair, and held the rank of colonel with the USMC. Kowalski had seen service in both Gulf Wars, Afghanistan and in numerous other trouble spots during his thirty years in the military. Although he’d certainly have denied it, Kowalski also probably came closest to possessing outright good looks of the males of the group, the grey at his temples only adding to the strength and even proportioning of his features.

The last man to enter was the group’s only civilian and was an amazingly capable seventy-seven years of age. He was also the shortest member of the group and barely reached 165 centimetres, but his diminutive height and deceptively small frame belied a wiry physical strength for his age that had come as a result of many decades of hard work. The years showed heavily in the depth and weathering of his small features and eyes that were alight and intense most of the time. Hal Markowicz held a PhD in nuclear physics, along with degrees in engineering, astrophysics and quantum mechanics. He was also a Polish Jew, although he’d spent the majority of his life in the United Kingdom, and most of the time displayed just the barest hint of a vestigial accent, although it could become more pronounced whenever he became angry or excited.

When they’d all acquired a champagne flute and had gathered around that central table, Thorne raised his glass in a toast. Silently and solemnly, they all lifted theirs in unison and joined him in recognition of their achievement. They all drank.

“Glad to see we rated the good stuff,” Thorne observed with a grin, breaking the mood with timing as good as ever and raising a chuckle. His accent was heavier than normal, as it often was in times or stress or tiredness, but no one made mention of it…it was something they were all used to and knew that it was almost impossible for him to regulate.

“Only the best, of course, Max,” Alpert agreed, lifting his glass once more momentarily. “Only the best…”

“Well, it’s not JD…” Eileen began with a barely-hidden smirk, purposefully drawing groans from all present except Davies, who nodded in serious agreement “…but it’ll do.” She sipped at her own glass. “Not a bad drop at that…!”

“Yes, we know,” Green retorted with a grimace. “We all know there are only two types of alcohol in that small universe inhabited by Eileen Donelson and Jack Davies:… Jack Daniels on one hand and the rest is all piss!”

“Well, ‘Jimmy’ — piss is a strong word…” Donelson shrugged, relenting somewhat. She also sometimes liked to accentuate the Glaswegian in her own voice more than was usual but in her case, although it was quite deliberate, none of the men present ever thought the less of her for it. Secretly, most would’ve honestly admitted that it only added to the beauty of a young woman all already considered stunningly attractive. “Of course we have to make do with what we have.” She flashed a winning smile. “There’s a war on, after all!”

“You can say that again!” Thorne agreed fervently, sliding into a nearby armchair and crossing his legs, instantly appearing extremely relaxed and comfortable. “You lot didn’t have ‘Nasty Old Jerry’ trying to shoot your arse off this evening…made me feel very bloody unwelcome!”

“Doesn’t seem to have done you any harm, you whingeing bastard!” Green shot back in typically unsympathetic, very Australian fashion as they all followed Thorne’s lead and took chairs close together. The officer cadre of Hindsight was, at Thorne’s own lead and insistence, a quite informal group and there was a high level of friendship and camaraderie. “The way Nick here tells it, two of ‘em were only bloody ‘Dora-Nines’ anyway.” Green used the model number for the aircraft he still thought of as a Focke-Wulf Fw190D-9 and that the Wehrmacht called a J-4A. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size for a change.”

“No bloody fear, mate!” His commander shot back with a grin and shake of the head. Those Flankers were too much hard work for my liking…I’ll take the regular old Luftwaffe any day of the week.”

“One kill away from being a goddamn ace after just one real combat mission, and the guy’s complaining!” Davies growled in mock indignance. “Do you know how many missions it took over Kuwait for me to make an ace?”

“What…hard work was it, chasing Iraqi pilots as they all fucked off to Iran at full throttle?” Thorne laughed, displaying two fingers in Davies’ direction in a rude gesture. “At least mine weren’t running away…” then he added, relenting “…not all of them, anyway…” Thorne engaged in the banter deliberately, although he was having fun all the same. The tension in the air that night had been palpable and keeping the mood relatively light with humour was important. Just that minor exchange had noticeably relaxed the group already and all were now smiling.

“And how goes the state of the war, Brigadier Alpert?” Kowalski asked loudly, obviously changing the subject before the two ‘combatants’ started in on one of their favourite arguing points once more. The emphasis on ‘brigadier’ was in recognition of the fact that when last they’d seen Nick Alpert that morning he’d still worn the rank of captain.

“An excellent question…!” Hal Markowicz agreed, leaning forward in his chair with fire in his eyes. What can you tell us?”

Nick Alpert suddenly found himself the centre of attention as silence reigned and even Thorne and Davies became quiet. Nick was the only one there as learned in history as Thorne, and had also gained the added experience of having spent the last twelve months living in wartime Britain. He was therefore in a perfect position to judge the progress of the opening months of the Second World War.

“Yes, well as Max has already pointed out, the New Eagles are already here: in fact they’ve been here since well before I jumped into Leicester twelve months ago — that’s fairly obvious from the evidence at hand.” He delved his fingers into a top pocket of his uniform battle jacket and withdrew a pen, which he tossed to Markowicz to pass around. “Ball-point pen, courtesy of German industry…direct copy of a Staedtler, by the look of it…I suppose they found that a hugely amusing irony. That’s about as good an indicator as any, and there’s plenty more evidence both civilian and military I’ll be able to show you. Hard to call, but my best guess would put the New Eagles’ arrival sometime in the first half of the ‘Thirties. Those ball-points came into general use in Europe around ‘Thirty-six.”

“Too fuckin’ early by a long shot…!” Thorne growled, his good humour failing slightly at the revelation. He glanced at Eileen. “…Maybe ten years ahead of time…?”

“Patents were pending just before the war…” She shrugged. “Didn’t really hit the market place properly until ‘Forty-Five or ‘Forty-Six though, so close to a decade or thereabouts…”

“I’d suspected as much,” Nick nodded slowly. “On the military side, the Nazis tested a good deal of equipment in Spain during the civil war there, just as they did in Realtime…only difference is this time that included Messerschmitt Bf109 ‘E-types’ — at least four years early — and two new tanks they named as ‘Mark-One’ and ‘Mark-Two’ models that have no resemblance to the Panzer -Ones and -Twos we would know of. The acceleration of their shipbuilding programs has also been incredible…the yards at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven have been basically working three shifts solidly now for five years or so, so far as our intelligence can work out.”

“More U-boats…?” Kowalski ventured, his own historical knowledge making that assumption seem logical.

“That’s what we’d have expected…” Nick agreed, but shook his head. “As it turns out, it seems that U-boats have been pushed back on the shipbuilding agenda rather than given priority.”

“Why cut back?” Davies frowned. “They almost brought the Brits to their knees in Realtime with what was, in reality, just a handful of subs: with a fully-operational force they could shut the country down altogether.”

“That’s a worrying situation on the face of it…” Eileen observed, giving it some thought. “It implies the Germans aren’t worried about needing to isolate Britain.”

“That’s our conclusion here also,” Alpert nodded with a grimace. “It gets worse: instead of U-boats they’ve instead embarked on an expanded capital ship program. Most of this information has been gathered since I landed in ‘Thirty-Nine, but there seems to have been a lot more frequent and open trading in technology and knowledge between Germany and Japan over the last half of the decade, and part of that has included warships.”

“Oh shit.” Thorne groaned in sour anticipation and Nick nodded in dark agreement, understanding the man’s reaction.

“Yes — reconnaissance and espionage reports indicate that Bismarck and Tirpitz were launched a few months ago and are believed to be completing sea trials soon, if they haven’t already.”

“So they’ve got their two battleships out a bit earlier?” Green began, with more hope than he really felt.

“Sorry, Bob — not quite that simple,” Alpert explained. “We’ve also got pictures of two more battleships of the same class nearing completion in the shipyards– a class that definitely shouldn’t exist on this side of the planet. Hitler apparently refused to abide by the Washington Treaty right from the start and the mentality of appeasement throughout the last half of the Thirties meant he bloody-well got away with it, just as he did in Realtime.”

“Battleships…?” Davies interjected, frowning. “Why goddamn battleships? They should be building carriers if they had any sense.”

“You can bet your bottom dollar there’ll be a few carriers out there too somewhere…” Thorne explained, thinking on his feet as Nick nodded silently in confirmation. “…but you have to take into account the times…in 1940 the world was — is — still obsessed with the battleship as the symbol of naval power: Yamamoto didn’t destroy that myth until Pearl Harbor, although the Brits’ attack on Taranto a year earlier suggested naval air power was on its way. If Reuters is involved then they’ll be building carriers all right, but the image of sea power will be just as important to people like Hitler and the pricks in charge of foreign policy over there. Battleships give a nation a lot of ‘street cred’ when ‘Flying the flag’, as it were, to the rest of the world.”

“There’s also their utility in a worst case scenario,” Eileen pointed out. “If the Germans do come across the Channel, there are few things as useful to an invasion force as a battleship’s guns — that has been a constant for centuries.”

“Yeah, well they’ll get a nasty surprise or two if they do try that!” Davies gave an evil grin. “A very nasty surprise or two…!”

“That’s as may be,” Thorne growled, not liking to take too much for granted. “But I’d still make sure we’ve a contingency plans in place.” He turned his gaze back to Nick. “Were ‘Alternate’, ‘Waypoint’ and ‘Bolthole’ prepared as required?”

“They’re being finished as we speak, although work has taken longer than I’d originally hoped. ‘Alternate’ is complete, and at a pinch, we could probably get in at Tocumwal right now, but it may be another month or so before the Ceylon strip’s finished — seasonal rains and supply problems have delayed things a bit. Fuel may also be a problem: we’ve a refinery — finally — that can cope with producing jet fuel to a high enough standard and the underground tanks here are full, but again it may also be a month or so before we can get enough shipped out to Ceylon for use at Waypoint.” He gave a grimace. “That’s assuming the U-boats that are operational don’t make things difficult.”

“In any case we’d better have ‘Larry’, ‘Curly’ and ‘Moe’ prepared for immediate use — we might need them.” Thorne shrugged, accepting Nick’s answer as the best they could’ve hoped for under the circumstances. “We got an aircraft that can deliver them?”

“Bomber Command has given us a Halifax we’ve had modified to specs. She’ll carry one of the weapons to Berlin and back well enough from here.”

“Assuming they make it out of the target area…” Thorne pointed out, then added: “But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it: worst case, the F-35 can take one in anyway and I’ll pilot the frigger myself if it comes to that.”

“I’ve a detailed report prepared for all of you to read when you’ve had a chance to settle in,” Nick continued, returning to the topic at hand, “but the upshot is that it’s obvious the New Eagles have definitely been here quite a while…a lot longer than we’d have liked. We know for a fact that at the very latest they arrived earlier than June of 1934.”

“How in God’s name can you be so certain?” Thorne was genuinely puzzled.

“I’m surprised you haven’t realised already, Max,” Nick answered evasively with a broad grin, making no effort to conceal his glee as he decided to keep his CO guessing. “All this time we’ve been sitting here and you haven’t noticed?”

“Oh, F-F-S…!” Max replied with an exasperated smirk of his own, beginning to cast his eyes about the room as he recognised and accepted he was about to become the butt of a trick of some kind.

“Christ on a crutch!” Eileen breathed softly in exclamation, the first to notice what Nick was talking about as all looked all about seeking the same clues. “The mantelpiece, Max…!”

“The mantelpiece…? What about the bloody…?” Thorne’s initial glance in that direction yielded no revelation, but as the others also stared and there were more gasps of recognition, he finally caught what Alpert was referring to. “Holy crap…!”

As was standard practice in any military mess anywhere in the Empire or Commonwealth, there was always a picture or portrait to be found hanging somewhere prominent of the reigning British monarch. The Officers’ Mess they were in at that moment was no exception and a large portrait hung high above the mantelpiece by the bar. The image was of the King standing alone at the top of a set of stone steps, dressed in ceremonial robes with a sword at his belt while holding hat and gloves in either hand.

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary at all to begin with until Thorne had taken more notice of the actual person in the picture and had realised the same thing Eileen, Bob Green and Hal Markowicz had discovered. The person they saw standing in that posed portrait was not of the man they’d expected to be depicted there.

“What the fuck’s he doing up there?” Thorne blurted, completely caught off guard.

“That, Max, is an official portrait of the King by the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith and Emperor of India: Edward the Eighth.” Nick went out of his way to include the entirety of the king’s full title to add weight to the impact of the revelation.

“How in God’s name did he end up staying on? He should be shacked up in bloody Lisbon right now playing footsies with his Nazi mates with that Simpson bint…!”

“Words from the wise, old chap…” Nick cut in with a soft but firm voice, suddenly very serious for a moment as the others noted the change in his demeanour. “No harm done here in front of any of us, but I shouldn’t make a remark like that ever again within earshot of anyone else: words like that are tantamount to treason and that’s quite literally a hanging offence these days.” He continued on a lighter note, providing something of a brief explanation. “We know that the New Eagles have been here at least that long is simple…Wallis Simpson’s death in a car accident in June of 1934 left the King a very different man: a man whom I’ve had the honour of meeting numerous times since my arrival here.”

“‘Car accident’…?” Thorne’s incredulous repetition of those words echoed the surprise in everyone’s minds.

“London Coroner concluded that the death was a result of losing control due to a combination excess speed and excess of alcohol while travelling through London’s Rotherhithe Tunnel very early on the morning of June the Tenth. The Rolls Royce Phantom they were travelling in lost control and veered onto the wrong side of the road inside the tunnel, colliding head on with a large coal truck heading in the opposite direction. All passengers in the Rolls were killed instantly including Simpson.”

“So you’re telling us,” Eileen began, her eyes narrowing as she thought over what she’d just heard, “that the woman was killed in a car accident in a tunnel as a result of high speed and alcohol? She was nae bein’ chased by the paparazzi at the time as well, by any chance?”

“Does sound rather familiar, doesn’t it?” Nick conceded with a sombre expression. “Of course, I instigated some investigations of my own upon my arrival but it was five years after by that stage and many leads had gone cold. Scotland Yard weren’t happy about revisiting such a sensitive case, but once they re-opened it and dug a little deeper they discovered some interesting facts about the accident…”

“Such as…?” Kowalski inquired with keen interest.

“That the driver of the coal truck that the Rolls supposedly hit head-on, who was the only survivor or the accident and escaped unscathed, had disappeared from the face of the Earth. There were no records of him existing until about three months prior to the accident and he disappeared about two months after the case was closed…hanging about just long enough so as not to arouse suspicion while the investigations were going on. As there were no other witnesses to the event, well before dawn as it was, the driver’s testimony was all the coroner’s court had to go on apart from forensic evidence that was rather basic and poorly-collected by our standards. Guests staying at the same boarding house the fellow had lived in at the time also recalled him having visitors on occasion who spoke with a distinctly German accent…”

“Fuck me!” Thorne shook his head as the enormity of what Nick was implying. “You’re saying the Krauts pulled a ‘Diana’ and assassinated the Prince of Wales’ mistress?”

“That’s exactly what it looks like.”

“Why…?” Extra words couldn’t hope to sum up the simple question as effectively as Davies had just put it.

“Actually makes sense…” Thorne conceded almost immediately, giving a shrug. “The Nazi Hierarchy of the Thirties were of the strong opinion — whether rightly or wrongly — that Edward as king wouldn’t oppose Germany and they hoped to build close ties with Britain rather than go to war with them over the Nazis’ plans for invasion of Continental Europe. In Realtime, Edward’s abdication made the whole thing academic, but there are a number of historians who believe at the very least that he was sympathetic to the Nazis and to Hitler.

“Even after he stepped down from the throne and became the Duke of Windsor, there were unsubstantiated rumours that he’d leaked Belgian defence plans to the Krauts, or at least that Simpson may have. There was certainly some suggestion that she had some Nazi friends and they moved in some very ‘diverse circles’ in Spain and Portugal at the beginning of the war before Churchill bit the bullet and ordered him off to the Bahamas under threat of a court martial.” Thorne stopped and took a deep breath, then a sip of champagne before continuing.

“Edward’s involvement with Wallis Simpson was considered a scandal and a constant source of embarrassment for the Palace at the time: even after he became king following the death of his father in ‘Thirty-Six, he maintained his intention to marry Simpson, a twice-divorced American, and this created a constitutional crisis within the British Parliament that was only solved by his abdication.” Thorne shrugged once more and paused for a moment to think. “I can see how any Nazi armed with knowledge of history might well think it worth the effort to try to retain Edward as the British Monarch, and it’d be obvious that the best chance of accomplishing that would be to take Wallis Simpson out of the picture.”

“Might’ve worked too, except they weren’t counting on someone from MI6 sticking their nose in with a little ‘inside information’ of his own…” Alpert added with a thin but self-satisfied smile.

“That canna been an easy conversation to have with the man,” Eileen observed after a moment’s silence.

“Fortunately not one I personally had to take care off, but I can’t imagine it was pleasant, “Nick conceded. “Whatever else can be said about the man, there’s no denying he was utterly in love with Simpson and he was devastated when she died. The five years between her death and my arrival and subsequent re-opening of the case were by all accounts quite a dark time for the King and his Country.”

“How’d he take the suggestion that the love of his life was assassinated by the Nazis?”

“Not well, Robert…not well at all…”

“I suspect he accepted it in the end though, yes?” There was a knowing look in Hal Markowicz’ eyes as he asked that question.

“We gave him someone to ‘blame’.” Thorne caught exactly what the old man was getting at. “Rightly or wrongly, the suggestion that there was someone actually responsible for his mistress’ death — someone else being the unspoken part of that equation — would be a very persuasive idea. Its human nature to want a scapegoat…the Nazi propaganda that the Jews and the Communists were to blame for the First World War and for the ‘stab in the back’ at Versailles basically brainwashed an entire nation and swept them into power. People want someone to blame for their misfortunes: telling someone they don’t have a job because they’re lazy or just because ‘shit happens’ will never win votes, but tell them it’s someone else’s fault they’re out of a job and have no hope and they’ll follow along like rats behind the Pied Piper.”

Nick Alpert nodded slowly and stifled a yawn as he glanced around at the rest of the faces in the room and noted the unequivocal excitement and interest the conversation was generating. He was tired — dead tired — but he also understood how much adrenalin would be coursing through the veins of rest of the people there, having arrived in similar circumstances on his own just a year before. He’d recount as much of what had happened in that world as he could… he owed them that much just for turning up. The conversation and the associated questions and answers would continue on until dawn and beyond

Airfield at St. Omer

Northern France

That next morning was as clear and bright as the day before with cloudless skies stretching right across Western Europe and the British Isles. Ritter was quite calm as he shaved before the mirror above his wash basin not long after breakfast, already dressed in his silk shirt, uniform breeches and boots. His report regarding events of the night before had been transmitted through to Fliegerkorps late the night before and fifteen minutes ago he’d received confirmation from his communications officer that a senior SS officer would be arriving within the hour to investigate the matter.

After drying his face, he shrugged on his tunic and slipped the Knight’s Cross over his head: he wanted to be properly dressed for such a serious occasion. Even as he was still buttoning his tunic and adjusting his uniform he heard the sound of an approaching aircraft and thought that it must be the officer they were expecting. He left his quarters, rendezvoused with Willi Meier by the door to the HQ buildings and the pair stepped out into the morning sunshine together, searching the clear skies. As the sound drew nearer they noticed a difference in its quality: it was a strange ‘whump-whump’ noise that was instantly recognisable as the sound of one of the Luftwaffe’s new hubschrauber aircraft — a helicopter.

Produced by Focke-Aghelis, the NH-3D — known colloquially as the ‘Schpect’, or ‘Woodpecker’ — was one of the many utility helicopters beginning to appear all over the Western European Theatre of Operations, zipping from place to place. Powered by a twelve-cylinder petrol engine mounted above the main cabin and able to carry fourteen fully-armed men, they increased the Wehrmacht’s mobility immensely, or at least would do so once available in great enough operational numbers.

The broad-bellied NH-3D banked gently around the northern side of the main control tower, circling right across the hangar area before setting down lightly just a dozen metres or so from the fliers’ position. A pair of 13mm heavy machine guns were fixed to each landing skid, firing forward, while a 7.92mm medium MG hung from a flexible mounting in the open doorway on either side of the cargo bay. The aircraft was painted an overall dark-grey on its sizes and upper surfaces, while its underside was a pale blue similar to the colour adorning the bellies of most Luftwaffe combat aircraft.

Ritter and Meier jogged across the short, grassy expanse to meet the chopper as it touched down and a black-uniformed brigadier climbed from the aircraft’s cargo bay, ducking his head in deference to the whirling rotors above. He carried with him a leather briefcase and behind him a lieutenant followed closely accompanied by a pair of troopers armed with stubby MP2K machine pistols.

“You’re Obersturmbannführer Ritter?” The thin-faced, dark-haired officer demanded as they met. He seemed to be in his mid-to-late forties and was of average height, perhaps just a few centimetres shorter than Ritter. It was hard to ignore the narrow, hawk-like slant of his features and the quite severe demeanour it conveyed; something that was in no way improved by an apparent total lack of ability to come anywhere near a smile.

“I am Oberstleutnant Ritter, Mein Herr,” Ritter acknowledged, ignoring the man’s use of the SS equivalent for his rank, both he and Meier coming to attention as he gave a proper, military salute.

“Heil Hitler,” was the reply returned in a severe manner along with a raised hand and arm in a Nazi reply. “I’m Brigadeführer Barkmann.”

“I’m sorry this has been necessary,” Ritter began. “It’s an unfortunate incident and I’d of course prefer to see it dealt with as quickly and as cleanly as possibly: we’ve all got other matters to attend with, I’m sure.”

“Indeed…” the brigadier mused dubiously “…unfortunate indeed. We shall see. You’ll take me to the officer in question immediately.” He turned to his aide and the SS troopers. “Come…” he commanded simply.

“This way, sir,” Ritter invited curtly, extending an arm in the appropriate direction as Meier caught his eye with a pointed stare. The CO of ZG26 feigned ignorance and walked off with the cluster of SS officers and troopers in tow.

The base infirmary was large and well equipped, with a dozen beds running down either side of the main aisle. The group marched straight through, headed for the Medical Officer’s records room at the other end, inside which a bed had been provided for captain Stahl as a pair of guards with pistols at their belts watched him from their posts by the door.

A large field dressing protected the right side of Stahl’s face and covered half a dozen stitches, while tightly-wound bandages held his fractured ribs firmly in place. Painkillers were only partially effective and the man suffered great discomfort when attempting to speak, while moving too quickly or in the wrong manner also elicited stabs of agony from his injured sides.

“Ernst,” he began, rising from his bed. Upon sighting the SS brigadier beside Ritter, his face once more assumed a semblance of his favourite expression: smug confidence. “Thank God you’re–!”

“Silence…!” The brigadier snapped sharply, turning to Ritter. “I wish to speak to the prisoner alone, if you please…?”

“I suppose that would be acceptable,” Ritter agreed reluctantly, deferring to the other’s superior rank and jurisdiction. “I pass responsibility for him to you, Herr Barkmann. Guards…!” The air force troopers followed their CO as he and Meier left the man alone with their prisoner.

“I don’t like the look of this much,” Meier muttered sourly as they stood with the guards outside the closed room as Barkmann’s aide and SS troopers stood impassively by the exit at the far end of the infirmary.

“Nor I…” Ritter concurred. “There’s not much we can do about it though. I was hoping the OKH would send someone down, but I should’ve expected it really: the SS don’t like airing their dirty laundry in public.” He paused and then added: “He may have the last laugh yet, that bastard!”

“How’s the baby?” Meier changed the subject instantly, seeing no point in continuing with that line of discussion for the moment.

“Well enough, fortunately,” Ritter conceded with a non-committal shrug. “As luck would have it, one of the nurses here has just given birth herself and has been able to care for the child for the moment…at least until more permanent arrangements can be made.”

The sound of more helicopters overhead sounded suddenly as they spoke, catching both by surprise.

“It seems we’ve some unexpected visitors,” Meier observed. “Shall we see who they might be?”

“Why not… no doubt those two will be a while yet…” Ritter turned to his own guards. “You two remain here. No-one is to go anywhere without my permission.” He walked away without waiting for a reply, ignoring the SS men who came to attention as he and Meier marched past.

A second NH-3D was settling to the ground near the first as they approached, this one similarly armed but also escorted by a pair of rather evil-looking SH-6C Drache kanoneschiffen — helicopter gunships. Long craft with narrow fuselages, each carried a 20mm cannon and a pair of 7.92mm machine guns in a low-mounted chin turret along with short stub wings that although empty in this case could each carry rocket- or gun pods on four hardpoints. The gunships had been christened ‘Dragons’ by the troops they supported in combat and they more than lived up to their names in their threatening appearance.

As the new arrival lowered itself to the ground, a small group of men disembarked and the pair of escorts banked away to land off in the distance by the construction area for the new airstrip. Four of the men wore the grey uniform of army grenadiers while the other two were officers: army staff officers. A chill ran through Ritter as he realised who the first of the approaching men was: Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters, the highest-ranking officer in the entire Wehrmacht.

“Herr Reichsmarschall!” He snapped, smartly coming to attention and saluting.

“You’re Oberstleutnant Ritter, I presume?” Reuters inquired as he returned the salute, in fact fully aware of that fact already. Taking the pilot’s silence as appropriate confirmation, the Reichsmarschall added: “This is my assistant, Generalleutnant Albert Schiller. We’ve come to observe this matter you’ve speedily brought to the attention of OKW.”

“I’m honoured to have such recognition, sir, although I regret the situation that has arisen, of course,” Ritter informed, taken aback. “I was beginning to think the SS would be handling the matter alone.” He frowned as he regarded the Reichsmarschall with an inquisitive gaze. There was something undefinably odd about the man that Ritter couldn’t quite determine.

“And where is Generalmajor Barkmann?” Reuters’ purposefully incorrect usage of army rank for the SS officer didn’t go unnoticed by Ritter or Meier — the intentional slight was a significant one coming from the Reichsmarschall himself.

“The brigadier is interviewing the prisoner as we speak, Herr Reichsmarschall. Shall I take you to them?” Reuters nodded and Ritter led them away just as he had the SS officers ten minutes earlier. Only Schiller accompanied them as Reuters’ guards remained by the helicopters.

As thy all entered the infirmary once more they found Barkmann and Stahl stepping from the records room.

“My deliberations are complete,” The brigadier growled, apparently only slightly perturbed by Reuters’ appearance. “You’ve come to investigate this matter also, Herr Reichsmarschall?”

“Merely to observe at this point, Herr Barkmann… what conclusion have you reached?”

“Of course,” Barkmann replied sourly with little obvious respect for the man’s supreme rank, although the fact that Reuters knew already his name was somewhat unnerving. “Hauptsturmführer Stahl here was engaged in the pursuit of members of the French resistance, although it might be argued that his methods were — shall we say — slightly ‘overzealous’? In any case, he was involved with the interrogation of a prisoner when obstructed by this Luftwaffe officer. In the resulting confrontation, Obersturmbannführer Ritter murdered the senior NCO present. I’ll be recommending to the OKW that this ‘officer’…” he indicated an almost speechless Ritter, “…be tried by court-martial as quickly as one might be convened.”

“You must be joking!” Ritter was incredulous. “This is–!”

“This is no joke, Herr Obersturmbannführer!” Barkmann snarled, cutting him off. “I hope for your sake that no connections are uncovered concerning yourself and the resistance members at that farmhouse.”

“‘Connections’…? I will not have my–!”

“Enough…!” Reuters snapped, ending an exchange that was degenerating rapidly into rage on both sides. He turned to the SS officer. “I’ll speak with you alone…now!” He immediately guided the man back into the records room, closing the door behind them. The smug Stahl merely stood there, smiling in serene confidence.

“You were warned…” he observed with a sneer.

“You’ve not won yet, mark my words…” Ritter returned icily, refusing to be baited as he forced his fury back under control.

Although it was impossible to understand what was being said within that room, the volume and heated nature of the conversation was distinctly audible to all standing outside… something that went a long way in tainting Stahl’s self-confident expression with just a hint of concern. Within three minutes the door opened once more, the SS officer obviously infuriated but under control. The Reichsmarschall appeared a little red-faced also but to nowhere near the same extent, and Ritter rather wryly deduced that rank on occasion carried the benefit of relieving stress, if only in the ability to pass it on to subordinates.

“You’ll allow Hauptsturmführer Stahl to leave with these men. You’ll proceed no further with any of the charges you’ve laid regarding this matter.” The Reichsmarschall commanded, staring unflinchingly at an incredulous Ritter. “You’ll do as I order.” With the Schutzstaffeln group staring on, he added: “And I’ll speak with you alone also.” As the reluctant pilot stepped into the small room, Reuters turned to the retreating Barkmann. “Take that ‘man’ of yours and get the hell out of here — I don’t want to see either of you when I leave this room!”

“You’ve my permission to speak with complete candour,” Reuters remarked as he closed the door, turning to face an infuriated Carl Ritter.

“How can you allow them to get away with that?” The pilot snarled wildly, deciding in his rage to hold the Reichsmarschall to his word. “Did you read my report? Do you realise what occurred at that house?” The manner in which he addressed the highest officer in the Wehrmacht, normally unthinkable, was drawn out of anger and indignation he’d never before experienced.

“I’ve a clear understanding of the situation,” the Reichsmarschall replied, attempting to remain detached from the emotion of it.

“He raped a twelve-year old girl!” Ritter hissed vehemently. “What they did to the woman I could perhaps understand from soldiers in the field, although it remains a vile act nevertheless, but they raped and murdered a child, for God’s sake! That fucking sergeant I’m supposed to have ‘murdered’ slit her delicate little throat from ear to fucking ear and he’d have done me too if I hadn’t put a bullet in him…and that bastard, Barkmann has the unmitigated audacity to threaten me with a court-martial! Are we not officers of the Wehrmacht? Where’s the ‘honour’ of the Officer Corps gone?”

“Do not presume to question me on my honour!” Reuters snarled back, knowing full well at whom that last question was directed. “Didn’t you think for a moment what you were getting yourself into? You assaulted an officer of the Reich — of the SS! Did you actually think the SS or the OKW or anyone else is going to care about a couple of French civilians on the eve of our greatest triumph? They’re not even a drop in the fucking ocean! Someone will remember it if a Luftwaffe commander assaults an SS officer and shoots his NCO though — they’re sure to remember that! Did you actually think I enjoyed letting those SS shits walk out of here free as a bird? I came close to strangling the vile son of a bitch myself!”

“I…I’m sorry, sir…” Ritter stammered slowly, totally deflated by the Reichsmarschall’s heartfelt rebuke. “I didn’t think…”

“Of course you didn’t think,” Reuters snapped disgustedly, great frustration showed on his face as he tried to calm down. “I’d probably have done the same thing in your place. I probably would’ve ended up before a court martial too with a dozen SS ‘witnesses’ to condemn me no doubt, some of whom might actually have been there! There is still a place for honour in Germany, my friend, but there must also be a place for discretion. This Stahl is a — ‘friend’, shall we say — of Barkmann’s? Barkmann is also a ‘friend’ of one who is close to Heydrich! I’m an acquaintance of the Reichsführer’s, but not of the same vein… if you take my meaning…” The Reichsmarschall gave a distasteful grimace. “There’s no way justice might’ve been served here today. Do you think a small-time land-owner who made a name for himself at Verdun is enough ‘pull’ to subvert the influence of the SS?”

“You know of my father?” Ritter’s eyes narrowed. “Why such an interest in my welfare…?”

“Let’s just say I’d rather not see good officers wasted at the hands of scum like the SS.” The tone Reuters used wasn’t evasive — it was just one that conveyed no interest in giving an explanation greater than that. “The details are unimportant: just try to forget about it. I don’t like the idea any more than you but no one will care — there are greater things afoot. Just forget it.”

In a staggering moment of clarity, Ritter suddenly saw the magnitude of the mountain he’d almost brought down upon himself. The attempt to bring the SS officer to justice was undoubtedly doomed to failure. All it might’ve accomplished was the destruction of his own career; probably his life too. All would’ve have been otherwise fruitless.

“I understand, sir. Please forgive me for my outburst.”

“Nothing to forgive…I asked for candour and you gave it.”

“Then thank you, sir,” Ritter added, extending his hand for reasons even he couldn’t fathom. Before Reuters could think better of it, he instinctively accepted the gesture. As their hands clasped it was as if a spark of static electricity passed between them. Ritter flinched noticeably but didn’t understand. Reuters understood, but in that moment he was equally shocked and quickly withdrew his hand.

“There’s something wrong?” The Reichsmarschall asked, suddenly as concerned as Ritter felt.

“No… Nothing, I think. I just felt for a moment that… no, it doesn’t matter.”

“I must leave…” Reuters blurted hurriedly. “Barkmann will go howling back to his superiors before this morning’s out and I’ll have some serious shitting to do from upstairs to keep them under control.” He gave a salute. “I wish you luck in your career, Herr Ritter.” He added. “There’s no need to see me back to my aircraft.” With a whirl he threw open the door and marched out, leaving Ritter puzzled.

“There’s a problem?” Schiller inquired as the pair walked back across the grass to the helicopter.

“I’m not sure…” Reuters replied, ill at ease. “Müller warned me not to touch him but I wasn’t expecting that. It was like a spark — a bolt of static.”

“You think he might suspect?”

“How could he? No one would believe the truth of it.”

“You’re all right?” Meier asked softly as the pair stood alone in the infirmary.

“Hmm…? Yes I’m all right, I suppose. There was something…” Ritter shook his head. “I don’t know. We shook hands…and then… It doesn’t matter,” he stated in the end, dismissing the event. There were greater matters at hand. “It’s not important.”

“The business with Barkmann… ?”

“It seems the Reichsmarschall was able to change his mind. I doubt that we’ll hear anything further of it.”

“Shall I return to normal duties, then?”

“Yes, you may as well. There’ll be no further entertainment this morning.”

As Meier saluted and marched briskly away, Ritter leaned against the end of one of the beds, deep in thought. Although subdued and under control, a rage still burned within him regarding the events of the night before…a futile, frustrated fury…

“We’re not all such butchers, Herr Oberstleutnant…” The voice from a nearby bed caught him by surprise. It belonged to a shirtless Obersturmbannführer Berndt Schmidt, propped into a sitting position by extra pillows at his back. His wounded arm was heavily bandaged and a small stain of blood showed through — the roughly circular wound had been exceptionally difficult to close and stitch. “There is honour within the Waffen-SS, even if creatures like that sometimes have their way. That Stahl has a ‘reputation’, shall we say, for his ‘overzealous’ methods.” Schmidt had watched the previous, angry exchanges with much interest.

“I fear perhaps that honourable men may soon become a dying breed, lieutenant…” Ritter growled in return, staring long and hard at the injured man as if seeking an excuse to lose his temper once more. The understanding, agreement and genuine disgust he saw in the younger man’s eyes mollified him somewhat and he finally gave just a curt nod of assent.

‘There’s still a place for honour in Germany.’ Reuters had said that. But what honour was there if these animals masquerading as men were allowed to carry out such acts with impunity? The answers to questions like that wouldn’t come readily to mind. What honour was there when honest men were persecuted for attempting to bring them to justice? What kind of ‘honour’ allowed inhuman sadists to reach positions of power in so civilised a nation as Germany? Where was the honour in this? Ritter rose fully and began to walk slowly down the aisle toward the exit. The cold, dark ball of anger had reappeared within the depths of his soul and Ritter could feel it slowly growing.

5. Revelations

HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Eileen found Thorne in the Officers Mess completely by accident that morning as he stood behind the bar, filling a metal hip flask with scotch. They’d all slept late and it was midday before any of the Hindsight crew had showed themselves once more to the outside world. Thorne had spent a long time in the shower, luxuriating beneath the warm water before dressing in clean civilian clothes — comfortable jeans, tee-shirt and windbreaker of nondescript colours over which he wore a black, NATO-style parka with numerous, deep pockets. Donelson had also enjoyed the chance to spend time under a hot shower after a few needed hours of sleep and was also dressed in civilian denims, shirt and light jacket.

“Have you seen Nick, Max?” She queried from the open doorway as he glanced up, smiling in greeting. “I’ve been searching all over for him and his radio’s off.”

“He had to run down to the main communications centre at the anchorage this morning,” Thorne replied as he finished pouring and returned the bottle to the shelf behind the bar. “I believe there are a lot of people in very high places who’ve been asking after us and he’s the only liaison they have at present. He should be back in the next hour or so.”

“Bit early for that, isn’t it…stress getting to you already?” She joked with a grin, nodding her thanks at the answer and changing the subject.

“You might say that…” He shrugged, suddenly appearing a little uneasy. “Going to have a few words with Trumbull this afternoon about what’s going on here.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“The truth I suppose, sans a few important facts that’d do more harm than good and aren’t relevant anyway. Not speaking about his future was another of his brother’s stipulations and one that I intend to stick to if I can help it. I’ve seen the man’s record: Trumbull was — is — a bloody good pilot and a pretty sharp bloke all ‘round by the look of it. We could do a lot worse than have him on board and it mightn’t hurt having a few links with this world within our own ranks.”

“Well if Nick’s not about I’m going to do a run around the defences to kill some time — make sure the crews have got themselves settled in. That should take an hour or so and give me a chance to warm up.” She locked eyes with him for a few seconds, her expression one of the fondness and sincerity of old friends, which they were. “Good luck with Trumbull…I’ll have my radio on if you need help.”

“Cheers, Eileen…I’ll see how I go…”

Thorne found Trumbull in his quarters, staring sullenly out the window at the busy goings out on the flight line beneath overcast skies. A two-day-old Scottish newspaper lay discarded on the bed…he’d tried to read for a while but had found himself too restless to concentrate. The scowl he gave Thorne as the Australian knocked and entered told a great deal of his annoyance.

“I thought you might be here,” he ventured, attempting a grin as he stepped into the room.

“Not much else I can do, is there?”

“Yeah, sorry about that…” Thorne apologised, his nervousness building. “Must be a bit bloody infuriating trying to work out what’s going on, I guess.”

“You have that entirely correct, old chap,” Trumbull replied, the words carrying a little more annoyance than he intended. “I believe I’m entitled to an explanation or two. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that everyone here is rather busy at the moment but I really would like a few answers.” His tone was level and good-natured: the man wasn’t particularly upset about things; just confused and desperate to find out what on earth was going on.

“‘Bout time I owned up, eh?” Thorne asked with a wry smile, but inwardly he shuddered at the thought. “I guess I owe you that, much as I don’t relish the idea. Why don’t you come for a walk with me and I’ll explain a few things. I’ve also got some stuff I’d like to show you.”

Trumbull shrugged a warm jacket on as they stepped outside and they walked off slowly toward the main flight area and the long, concrete runway. Despite still being nominally summer, the weather could be unpredictable that close to the Arctic Circle and there wasn’t a great deal of warmth in the air. The prevailing winds that whirled across the generally bleak and featureless landscape, depending on their direction, originated from either the North Atlantic or the North Sea and in either case there was always an icy chill to them.

Thorne took a deep breath and there was a moment’s silence as they walked and the Australian gathered his thoughts.

“You remember yesterday in the plane you said you didn’t think an aircraft like the Lightning could exist?”

“I said that, yes…” Trumbull conceded, remembering clearly.

“Well you’re right, after a fashion… You’d be pretty much right in regard to all four of the aircraft out there.” He waved a hand toward the group of planes they were approaching. “Although I was flying yesterday, I’m not actually a fighter pilot either, although I used to be…” As the RAF pilot nodded in acceptance of the information, he continued. “Actually I sort of work for the British Special Intelligence Service.”

“An SIS operative from Australia…” Trumbull stated blankly. The squadron leader knew little of the British intelligence service other than its name, but he suspected it would be unusual for an Australian to be working for the government in the intelligence field — at least, so high in intelligence as to be involved with such technically advanced equipment. He didn’t know a great deal about Australia at all really, save for the country’s strange animals, excellent fighting troops and a tedious penchant for fielding annoyingly good Test Cricket teams.

“Not so usual in these times, I’ll bet…. not that that’s particularly relevant…” Thorne conceded. “I’ve been assigned as commander of the unit you’ve seen arrive last night. “We’ve been tasked with stopping the men behind the German War Machine and getting history back onto its correct course.”

“You’re not exactly on your own you know, old chap…” Trumbull sniffed disdainfully, his professional pride a little insulted. “We’re all trying to do our bit as best we can.”

“You don’t understand, yet…” Thorne began, his voice trailing off as he searched for the right way to begin. He suddenly realised this was something he’d in no way been briefed for adequately. “Shit…” he muttered softly and dragged the hip flask from one of his jacket pockets. Taking a drag of booze, he cringed a little at the taste before offering the flask to Trumbull. As the man hesitated, initially refused, then also took a pull at the alcohol and cringed, Thorne grinned a little. It appeared the scotch was neither man’s preferred drink but he was sure they’d both be able to cope.

“Okay…” he began again, determination renewed as they walked on. “Let me give you an overview of what should be the correct path for the Second World War. The Wehrmacht rolls across the Polish frontier on the First of September, 1939 with the tacit support of the Soviet Union, and the Western Allies declare war on Germany on September Third. The Germans roll right on through France and the Low Countries during 1940, blitzkrieg tactics pushing all before them.” His tone and style became more confident and convincing as he gained momentum, instinct joining forces with his knowledge and training as he began to feel more comfortable and in his element.

“In 1941, the Germans solidify their position in Europe, although Britain is never invaded and the Krauts instead invade the Soviet Union in June of that same year with Operation Barbarossa. At the end of ‘Forty-One, the Japanese launch a surprise attack on the American Fleet at Pearl Harbor and start pushing through Indochina and the Pacific Islands, and things look good for the Axis forces for the next year or so: battles continue to go their way through this period, save for a few isolated instances. Nineteen Forty-Three becomes the pivotal year however, and by ‘Forty-Four the tide has seriously turned in the allies’ favour.” He took a breath and another drink while Trumbull stared at him as if he’d gone mad. He forged ahead, not a chance of stopping the ‘lecture’ now, and Trumbull again didn’t refuse the flask that was offered. The alcohol was providing Thorne with the little bit of extra courage he’d needed to push through his inadequate preparation and he hoped it’d also allow the RAF pilot to become a little more open minded.

“While the Japanese are pushed backward on all fronts, the Germans lose ground badly in the East against the USSR and, on June 6th, the invasion of France is launched from Southern England with British and Allied forces landing on the Normandy beaches. By the beginning of 1945 the war is lost for the Axis: Hitler suicides early in May and Germany surrenders while in the Pacific, the Japanese cease-fire commences on August Fifteen. The official surrender in the Pacific is signed on September Two, and the Second World War officially ends almost exactly six years after it began with something like fifty-five million people dead including twenty million Russians alone. The Nazis have also murdered in their concentration camps over six million Jews, foreigners and various ‘social undesirables’.”

“That’s a fanciful idea for the future,” Trumbull said finally as Thorne took another, deeper drink — his tone was wary and he still wasn’t altogether sure what the man was getting at. “Not a particularly pleasant one, but better than some alternatives I could imagine. What’s all this conjecture supposed to mean?”

“Not conjecture,” Thorne stated categorically, starting to feel the effects of the alcohol a little more now. “I had a chat with Nick last night and learned that things are going badly for England — very badly! The situation here shouldn’t be so bloody dismal by half!”

“You just ‘learned’ all this last night? I had no idea Australian news services were so far out of date!” Trumbull muttered sourly and drank some more of the offered scotch, the flask now just a third full. “We’ve been doing the best we can here, let me assure you…” The pilot could feel the alcohol beginning to have a vague effect on him also, the most likely due to a light breakfast and no lunch as yet.

“That’s not the point,” Thorne growled, a little exasperated. “I’ll give you an example: Nick tells me the BEF lost ninety percent of its men at Dunkirk; either killed or captured on the beach by advancing German armour. That shouldn’t have happened.” After a moment’s silence, the enormity of the event caught up with him fully, as if a focus for parts of the world Thorne once knew that was now coming apart at the seams. “That shouldn’t have happened,” he repeated solemnly. “Hitler should’ve held the panzers back outside Dunkirk in spite of Guderian’s requests to advance. The Brits should’ve evacuated three hundred thousand men!”

“Well perhaps that should have happened,” Trumbull snapped and stopped walking, angry now over a line of discussion that on the face of it appeared ludicrous to him. “The simple fact is that it didn’t happen and I still don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about!” He stood there with hands on hips, daring Thorne to explain himself.

“The problem is it did happen!” The Australian shot back, halting also as that single statement left the pilot speechless. “That’s exactly what happened! History’s being changed and what I’ve told you about the course of the war — what should happen — is no longer stable or certain…” Thorne was feeling some slight disorientation himself now as a whole range of concepts and facts that were no longer reality whirled about in his mind, the thoughts muddied somewhat by the growing influence of the scotch. Despite all he’d been briefed to expect, some of the historical cornerstones of his world were being shattered before his eyes and that wasn’t an easy thing to deal with, sober or otherwise.

“But…but what you’re talking about are things that haven’t happened yet…” Trumbull stammered, trying to grasp what Thorne was driving at. “The things you’re saying are events of the future!”

There was silence as the two locked eyes, Thorne’s expression deadly serious. “Only the future for you…!” For a moment, Trumbull almost scoffed openly at what the man had said but the look on Thorne’s face stopped him cold. Reality or madness, this man believed what he’d just said.

“You yourself said you didn’t believe the Lightning could exist,” Thorne ploughed on quickly now, the words coming in a rush. “It won’t… for about sixty-five years… None of those aircraft out there will…”

“You… you’re saying that you’re…” Trumbull couldn’t finish the sentence. “This is impossible!” He decided instead. “I don’t know what you’re attempting to achieve here but this story is pure fantasy!” He stalked off in disgust, but Thorne could hear an undertone of uncertainty in the man’s voice now. Thorne took a large gulp of alcohol and drew a deep breath, knowing there was no way he could not stop now.

Loudly, he called after Trumbull: “I was born on the Third of May, Nineteen Sixty-Five to Robert and Joan Thorne of Melbourne, Australia….” the words stopped the pilot in his tracks once more and for a few moments he stood stock still, continuing to face away from the other man. “I grew up in the inner Melbourne suburb of Collingwood before moving to the country in 1975 at ten years of age.” He ignored the pilot’s disbelief as the man turned again to face him from a few metres’ distance.

“I attended state secondary school before beginning flight training with the Royal Australian Air Force at the age of eighteen. After graduation as a flight-lieutenant I served ten years with the RAAF including three years with Number 75 Squadron, flying F/A-18 fighter jets as squadron leader. Upon leaving the air force in ‘Ninety-Three, I travelled to England to work and continue my studies at Oxford. Halfway through my PhD in Modern History I was recruited by the Special Intelligence Service, and England has been my home ever since.” He took a deep breath.

“I completed two university degrees during that time, including my PhD, which focussed on the rise of Nazi Germany and the Second World War. It was for this reason I was specifically assigned by the SIS to a special task force tracking a new and powerful Neo-Nazi movement spreading across Europe; a movement being backed by some high-level German businessmen and industrialists.” Thorne gave a thin smile as he spoke those words. “At that stage, we weren’t fully aware of what we were getting ourselves into.”

He could see by the expression on Trumbull’s face that the man was teetering between belief and denial — that reason and logic were at odds with the things he’d seen in the last twelve hours that gave evidence to Thorne’s claims.

“Take a look at the bloody planes, Alec!” Thorne insisted, his voice softening as he took a few steps forward to stand beside the man once more. “Where have you ever seen anything even remotely like them? You haven’t, and you know it! They’re so far beyond anything produced in this era by anyone that there’s really no other possible explanation.” He knew that statement was slight leap of logic but he also knew he was telling the truth and wasn’t really particular about how he got it across. “Tell me something then: from what I can gather, the RAF is just about done for, right?” Thorne decided that maybe he could take a different tack and skirt the subject a little for a while.

“Close enough, much as I hate to say it,” Trumbull admitted, nodding slowly after a long, uncertain pause. “We’re sending up everything we’ve got and it’s still not enough. They attack the airfields by day and the cities by night. The raids are accurate — the night raids incredibly so, sometimes. There are relatively few civilian casualties for all that but the bombs never fail to destroy or damage something of importance: a munitions factory at Enfield Lock, an engine plant at Derby, the Supermarine production lines in Coventry. There just aren’t enough pilots or aircraft left.”

“That’s what I figured…” Thorne nodded. “In July/August of 1940, Hitler issued Directive 17 which concerned what I believe became one of his greatest mistakes and eventually cost Germany victory in the Second World War. There was an operation planned called ‘Sealion’, ideally scheduled for sometime between July and September of 1940: this was to be the invasion of Great Britain. Before this operation could go ahead, Hitler demanded the total destruction of the Royal Air Force, enabling the Luftwaffe to be freed up to neutralise the Royal Navy. Göring promised that this could be done and on paper it certainly looked possible. At the beginning of the Battle of Britain the RAF had about six hundred and forty combat-ready fighters — a number that included 26 squadrons of Hurricanes and 19 of Spitfires. Against them, the Germans were fielding about twenty-four hundred fighters and bombers.

“Four to one: that was what Air Chief Marshal Dowding told us,” Trumbull interjected.

“Yeah, he said that where I came from, too…” The Australian added quickly, grinning. “Come on, mate…I know this is hard to cop in one load, but I’ve got a few things to show you that you might find interesting.” He clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder and started walking with him once more toward the concrete hardstands and the cargo aircraft.

If the C-5M Galaxy seemed large from the outside, it was no less impressive to the RAF pilot from the inside. The cargo bay was gigantic, measuring more than four metres high by five and a half wide, and stretched for nearly thirty-seven metres from nose to tail not including the loading ramps. As they mounted the forward ramp, Trumbull walking rather tentatively beneath the huge, raised nose section, Thorne threw a nod at an armed guard in US greens who stood immobile near the cargo at the aircraft’s rear. Trumbull couldn’t clearly make out the type of rifle he held in his hands, but he could see well enough to know it was no Lee Enfield or American M1 Garand, and was unlike anything he’d ever seen.

The sound of their boots on the metal floor literally rang and echoed in the darkened space, and in what light streamed in through the nose loading area, Trumbull could see quite a large load of cargo still stacked on pallets of various sizes, all tightly crammed in toward the centre of the bay from floor to roof with barely enough space for a man to squeeze down on one side and none at all on the other. A few metres inside, a retractable metal ladder connected an open hatch in the roof to the loading bay floor and lead to another level above — Trumbull presumed it led to the cockpit high above that hinged nose.

“Up we go,” Thorne said cheerfully, and without hesitation began clambering up the metal rungs. The Galaxy’s upper deck was smaller but still an eye opener for Trumbull. At the front there was an open hatchway through which could be seen instruments, cockpit glass and the pilots’ seats. Even in the small section of console he could see from that angle there were more gauges and dials and strange small screens than the pilot had ever seen on one aircraft. The area they stood in was filled with several rows of seats; enough for all the personnel he’d seen exit the aircraft the night before by Trumbull’s reckoning. Thorne led him down a central aisle between the seats to another hatch at the rear of the seated area.

Behind that second bulkhead was a small room with barely enough space for more than two or three people. On one side, there was a narrow bench surrounded by walls and panels of a type of cream-coloured plastic. The bench carried what looked like a typewriter keyboard made of similar material and a large, black screen similar — very broadly — to the type that were used in the few examples of prototype television Trumbull had seen, although quite a bit larger in size and screen area. Opposite that on the other side of the room were racks of black, anodised metal that carried all manner of inexplicable objects the pilot couldn’t identify from long, black, oblong boxes of plastic in wafer-thin cases to even thinner plastic containers with clear tops that protected what appeared to be small, shiny discs of an unknown material.

“Give me a moment here…” Thorne requested briefly as he fiddled with some controls set into the bulkhead near the screen. Invisible mechanisms within the bulkhead beeped into whirring operation and within a few seconds, the screen before them came to life. To begin with, the information the screen displayed was no more than a cascade of unintelligible text and numbers, but that was quickly replaced by something that was to Trumbull an equally inexplicable image filled with coloured borders and strange, tiny pictograms.

“You’re not going to recognise any of the equipment here, Alec, so do bear with me…” Thorne requested as he searched within the metal racks for something in particular. He eventually dragged out a DVD, lifted it from its case and slipped it into an appropriate slot in the PC’s casing. “I think what I’m putting on here might help a bit.” He gestured to the only seat in the room — a swivel-topped, padded stool at the bench. “Take a seat, mate — make yourself comfortable.”

As Trumbull sat, the screen began to flicker into motion and immediately captured the entirety of his attention. Sound began to issue from speakers mounted beneath the screen.

“Bloody hell…!” Trumbull exclaimed, stunned. “A colour television!”

“Just watch,” Thorne grinned, turning up the volume control.

The face of an old man appeared against the bright background of a huge airbase, dressed in denims and a thick, green parka as several jet aircraft stood in the background. Trumbull of course couldn’t recognise the aircraft but it was clear they were larger than the Lightning by a fair margin and all of them carried RAF insignia. The man on screen however did appear somehow familiar, although he couldn’t place the face. He appeared to be in his eighties, with silver hair cut short and thinning on top to the point of baldness. What appeared to be a rather cold wind was gusting past as he stood there before those aircraft, but despite the buffeting there was enough clarity in the image to show a strange intensity in the old man’s eyes that Trumbull found intriguing. He chose to ask no questions, instead waiting to hear what the fellow on screen had to say.

“Hello, Alec…” The croaky voice was surprisingly clear through a small microphone clipped to the collar of his parka, and again Trumbull found something familiar in the tone that he couldn’t quite identify. “This short video’s been produced specifically for you — Max and I are hoping it’ll go a long way to convincing you of the truth of what he’s been telling you. I know you won’t recognise me just yet, but I suspect you’re wondering about it” The old man gave a wry smile that Thorne instantly recognised as an almost perfect reproduction of the same smile he’d seen on Trumbull’s face several times since they’d met. “I’m eighty-five years old now, Alec and as you watch this in Nineteen Forty, I’m barely fifteen, so I’ll take no offence if you don’t recognise me straight away. Perhaps it might help if I take this opportunity to again thank you for never telling mother or father it was me that backed your MG into mother’s Riley that day…”

“Laurence…!” Trumbull breathed the name as if in sudden shock as Thorne used a small remote control he held in one hand to halt the video momentarily. “My God, that’s my brother! I never told anyone about that…!” Thorne watched with a good deal of empathy as the man seated beside him tried to assimilate what his eyes and ears were telling him. It was now quite obvious that it was his younger brother, Laurence Trumbull standing before him despite the ageing brought about by the intervening years. “He’s old…!” That blunt and rather obvious observation was all he could manage as he tried to come to terms with the ramifications of that information. There were faint tears welling in the corners of his eyes as he glanced up at Thorne. “‘Eighty-Five’, he said… and he’s fifteen now… that would make it…” he quickly made the mental calculation within his head “…the year Two Thousand and Ten…?” The revelation hit him like a brick. “…Two Thousand and Ten!” He repeated with incredulity. “That would make me…ninety-six?” The questions were coming with the speed of a machine gun now and were mostly rhetoric, which was fortunate for Thorne as there was no chance for him to actually provide an answer. “Am I still alive…?” The question the Australian had been dreading arrived, but again Trumbull answered it himself as his own excited logic carried him on. “Of course I’m not…why else would you have my little brother making this motion picture rather than myself? Who lives to ninety-six anyway… stands to reason!” Deciding it safer to continue the video rather than allow Trumbull any chance to dwell on those dangerous thoughts, Thorne activated the remote once more.

“If you look about this area, Alec…” Laurence Trumbull continued on screen, regaining his brother’s attention in an instant, “…you’ll probably not recognise this airbase either, although you were stationed here for a little while.” The camera panned around to show large buildings, even larger hangars, and more aircraft which Trumbull again had never seen before. The scene cut in an instant to a pair of aircraft the pilot did recognise. On either side of a set of blue-painted iron gates, a Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane each sat atop a thick metal pole no more than a metre or two high, suspended as if in flight. Beyond the gates, a short drive ran past low hedges to a building Trumbull also recognised.

“Biggin Hill…” he whispered softly to himself in awe, allowing the narrative to continue.

“A Spitfire and a Hurricane — I’ve no doubt you recognise them well enough. These replicas were originally erected here in 1989 as the Gate Guardians of St George’s Chapel of Remembrance at Biggin Hill. They’re here in recognition of the sacrifice of all who served and were stationed here between 1939 and 1945. As I speak these words, the war has been over now for sixty-five years.” The scene cut back again to the old man, this time standing side by side with Max Thorne dressed in identical clothes to those he wore beside Alec Trumbull now. “If you’ll bear with us now, I’ll hand you over to someone far more knowledgeable to give you a short history lesson and try to explain to you what’s going on.”

“Thanks, Laurence,” Thorne began on screen, the camera panning slightly to bring him into the centre of frame. “No doubt we’ve already met, Alec, if you’re watching this…” He grinned both on screen and off, almost in unison as he stood beside Trumbull in that small room and recalled exactly what he was about to say on the video. “I’m hoping I haven’t come across as a complete mental case as yet, and that if you’re still watching this you’re still keeping an open mind…” He paused for a breath. “First I’ll tell you about one of the greatest strategic mistakes of the twentieth century…” The picture froze momentarily as Thorne paused the video once more.

“We already talked about this bit — Operation Sealion and stuff — so I’ll zip forward a little…” With the press of a few more buttons on the remote control he held, the video image was replaced by the black and white scenes of British archival film: film of the Battle of Britain itself. It was footage Trumbull found familiar and somewhat eerie at the same time.

“For a while the RAF was in real trouble…the Luftwaffe was hitting British airfields close to the coast and forcing fighter squadrons to use bases further inland, thereby reducing the amount of fuel they had available to engage oncoming bombers. During August of 1940, the loss of RAF fighters, although high wasn’t so bad, as aircraft were being replaced as quickly as they were shot down. The real problem was pilots: by that stage nearly twenty-five percent of Dowding’s fliers had been put out of action — either killed or wounded — and nearly a third of the RAF’s fighter pilots were members of inexperienced Category ‘C’ squadrons commanded by a nucleus of experienced but exhausted ‘old hands’.”

Trumbull nodded as he heard these words, knowing the truth of it: so far, this story sounded identical to his perceptions of recent history. He found he couldn’t drag his eyes from the images on the screen as they held him completely in their power.

The narrative continued: “The Germans on the other hand had no such problems. Their flying schools were quite happily meeting the needs of any losses inflicted, and by the end of August, the RAF was just about done for. A few more weeks perhaps and it would be all over, with nothing standing in the way of Operation Sealion. That was the idea, you see: for the Wehrmacht to send its invasion forces across the Channel, it needed the RAF out of the picture first. Any naval operations would elicit a response from the Royal Navy and without RAF protection, they’d be sitting ducks for the Luftwaffe.”

“I gather something happened to alter this situation?” Thorne halted the DVD once more in order to respond to Trumbull’s question.

“Damn right it did,” he nodded. “One night during August, a lost flight of Heinkel bombers unintentionally drop bombs on London, which at that stage had been declared off limits by The Führer himself. The bombing was a complete accident but it needless to say annoyed the Christ out of Whitehall and they immediately asked Bomber Command, who were also a tad pissed about it, to carry out a retaliation raid a Berlin. There was bugger all damage done, except perhaps for Göring’s pride, but it scared the shit out of a few people high up! Göring had stated categorically that this would never happen and the whole thing had made him and Hitler look foolish. Couldn’t have that, could we?” Thorne added with more than a little sarcasm. “Well, sometimes shit happens anyway…” He started the disc again.

“At the point where it seemed everything was lost, the focus of the Luftwaffe attacks switched from airfields to British cities.” The footage now showed more archival film, this time of The Blitz — the bombing of London — and the new images unnerved Trumbull even more. These were buildings he recognised clearly — he’d spent a large part of his life in London — but the scenes were of something that hadn’t yet happened. Fires raged against a darkened sky while firemen vainly tried to extinguish burning buildings and walls collapsed under the strain. Workmen sifted through rubble that had once been a church, a pub, a corner store, someone’s home.

“Suddenly, Luftwaffe bombers start hitting British cities instead and something soon to be called The Blitz began against London and other cities, the redirection of attacks to civilian targets rather than military that gave Fighter Command a desperately-needed opportunity to regroup. There were a number of factors contributing to the Luftwaffe losing the Battle of Britain, but they ultimately made one major mistake: they halted attacks on the airfields at a time when Fighter Command was on its knees and ready to crumble. They stopped attacking the controller stations and Command HQ units. They stopped attacking the radar installations. In combination with a few lesser problems at a tactical level, such as the fact that they had no effective ‘Fighter Command’-style ground control system, this ultimately cost them an entire world war. The RAF was never beaten, and Operation Sealion therefore never went ahead.

“After the Battle of Britain, Churchill told the world ‘Never before in the field of human conflict had so much been owed by so many to so few’. It’s only in hindsight that the real truth of those words is seen. In 1941, Germany launches Operation Barbarossa — the invasion of the Soviet Union. At first, the war goes very well but that doesn’t last. By 1944 the Wehrmacht is in retreat on all fronts. As the war in Russia is going badly and American and Allied forces are pushing up through Italy, a ‘Second Front’ is launched in France. From ports all over Southern England, invasion forces set forth in what becomes known as ‘D-Day’ — June 6, 1944. From this moment the Germans are doomed. Italy has already surrendered by this time and the Germans are now fighting alone on three fronts: there’s no way they can win.

“It used to be a moot point, but there’s a theory that proposes that without D-Day and the Western Front, the Axis might have been able to halt and possibly even defeat the Soviet Union. Without Great Britain as a staging base, there’d be no way an invasion of France could’ve been attempted. Of the number of major mistakes or errors made by Hitler and his staff — and there were more than a few — this was one of the greatest in my opinion. Although he had no real wish to invade England, his failure to do so was to be strategically and literally fatal.”

“But something’s gone wrong with that…” The DVD paused again as Trumbull made the observation. No matter how much he wanted to disbelieve what was going on, the arguments and what he was seeing was becoming undeniable.

“You’re not kidding!” Thorne passed the flask of scotch across once more. “As I said, most of the BEF should have got out of Dunkirk. History as I know it’s already changed in a major way! Remember I said I was working for the SIS on tracking down a group of Neo-Nazis…?” Trumbull nodded. “Well, the Europe of the Twenty-First Century has a revived Aryan movement that’s unfortunately quite alive and thriving…particularly throughout Western Europe.

“For a long time, this was restricted mostly to gangs of thugs calling themselves ‘skinheads’. A majority of them swore some kind of token allegiance to Adolf Hitler and the defunct Third Reich, but that was all bullshit really: most of ‘em were just violent turds who liked to wander about looking for vulnerable people to thump and blame their problems on, just like the Nazi thuggery of the late twenties and early thirties.” He took another breath. “Around the end of the Twentieth Century however, we realised something else had started to rear its ugly head. Out among the wankers, there really was an organised ‘movement’ of sorts coming together…”

“This is where our story begins as such…” The narrative began again as Thorne continued the video and the picture focussed once more on Thorne and Laurence Trumbull at the airbase. “…A true Neo-Nazi movement sprang up early in the Twenty-First Century — a Fourth Reich of sorts. It’s believed to have been financed by a group of very wealthy businessmen with the military and technical assistance of this man…” A picture of a hard-faced officer in a strange but obviously German uniform appeared.

“Reichsmarschall Reuters!” Trumbull exclaimed, recognition instantly lighting his expression. There wasn’t a well-educated officer live who wouldn’t know that enemy face, and it was Thorne’s turn to seem surprised as he halted the presentation.

“Reichsmarschall…?” He repeated in wonder.

“It was on the newsreels a few weeks ago…he was given the rank by Hitler after the success of the campaign in France. He’s the military head of the entire Wehrmacht.”

“Nick didn’t mention that, the cheeky sod! Göring will be pissed off: that promotion should’ve been his after the fall of France. My God, they’ve really been making an impact over there if he’s got that far!” He started the picture again.

“He’s known as Kurt Reuters, an ex-German staff officer with well-known pro-Nazi sympathies. He, more than any other planned the strategic aspects of what’s now going on. Businessmen and industrialists with a lot of money behind them, most of them not old enough to remember the war but able to remember what Germany went through after it, were putting up cash to fund something big.” The picture went back to Thorne again. “For a while, the SIS and everyone else regarded it rather hopefully as a ‘flash in the pan’…something that would dissipate of its own accord. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be the case.

“We realised this midway through the year 2009… at that point a group calling themselves ‘New Eagles’ kidnapped a Jewish-English physicist by the name of Samuel Lowenstein. He and his partner, Hal Markowicz, had been working on a project researching what we called ‘Temporal Displacement’…” he added sourly, “…a project that was top secret…or so we thought at the time… In layman’s terms we’re talking about building a working ‘time machine’. If you’ve read it, this was broadly similar to the device in the H. G. Wells novel, and although Markowicz was assisting, it was really Lowenstein’s project. When he disappeared at the point it looked like it might actually produce results, most of the people that knew about the project went mad with concern!

“Within a month or so we’d confirmed it was the New Eagles who’d kidnapped him but we were unable to track either Lowenstein or his notes down. Without his help, Markowicz was unable to proceed much further with the research, although he gave us a damned good idea what they’d be able to do if they could make Lowenstein finish his work: they were going to try and change history…” Thorne stopped the video completely at that moment and the screen went dark.

“That should do of that for the moment,” the Australian decided.

“Could they do this?” Trumbull was enthralled. “Is it possible?”

“Looks like they already have, mate…” Thorne shrugged. “Markowicz reckoned it was very possible, although no one wanted to believe it at first. It’s apparently almost impossible to alter relatively recent events, but the further you go back in time, ironically, the easier it becomes. The technical aspects and the physics of the whole thing are a bit beyond me to be quite honest, but I can give you an overview of the general principles behind it. What happens is basically this: if you send someone back in time and they do something or say something at some point that alters the correct flow of history as you know it, something is created that’s called a Temporal Distortion Wave, and it can be either a large or small wave depending on what’s been done. At first, very little changes and it theoretically takes months for any major alterations to occur, but they are possible and reactions to this distortion wave grow exponentially as further changes are made, particularly as more alterations occur and the effect becomes cumulative.

“The New Eagles weren’t looking to so anything small, of course: they were working on creating a Temporal Distortion Wave the size of a friggin’ tsunami! We found out they’d set up a base somewhere in the former Soviet Union, but we couldn’t initially lock down exactly where it was, and with the amount of bribe money they were throwing about, none of the local authorities in the area they were hiding that did know about them were talking. We did however discover they’d been buying up on arms and equipment from various sources and something else started to dawn on us at that point.” Thorne paused for another breath and shrugged in a matter-of-fact fashion.

“We at first thought all they were going to do was go back and show Hitler what he did wrong. One of the most incredible things about the Second World War from a historical point of view is that the Krauts almost did it: one nation effectively took on the whole of Europe and nearly got away with it with just a handful of bad decisions, mainly on Hitler’s part, prevented them from pulling it off. With the right kind of tactical and strategic information and guidance, they could’ve easily walked right through the whole of Europe, North Africa and maybe even Russia…

“Once we discovered they were stocking up on hardware though, we realised something else…something that in hindsight should’ve been painfully obvious: they were collecting technology. There was no way they could take back enough stuff from the future to fight an advanced war effectively, but what they could do was take back enough technology to accelerate the Wehrmacht streets ahead of everyone else. Even if they only supplied an equivalent technology to that available by the end of the war, they’d still be unbeatable, and there was no reason to stop there!”

“I saw the capabilities of the aircraft that attacked us and of that F-35 out there, and I can’t imagine what that thing out there you call a ‘Raptor’ is capable of! Just one air wing of any of those aircraft could make an impact of tremendous proportions!” Trumbull was aghast at the idea Thorne had put forward.

“I wouldn’t count on that kind of technological leap, fortunately enough. It’d take a couple of decades to get an organised industrial base up to that standard even with inside information, and that’s not taking into account that we’re talking about a national economy crippled by fighting a world war into the bargain. Unfortunately, it won’t take that much: there were weapons, aircraft and armoured vehicles being developed at the end of the war — or within a few years after that — that are easily within reach of existing technological capabilities. Any of them could give the Wehrmacht a killer punch.

“The most glaring example of this is a single, devastating weapon developed in 1945, toward the very end of the war. The weapon was perfected by the United States and was intended to end the war against Japan in one fell swoop. Single examples of these bombs, called ‘atomic bombs’, were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th of that year respectively and basically obliterated both cities entirely.”

“One bomb destroyed an entire city…?” Trumbull was sceptical. “…An ‘atomic’ bomb?”

Thorne nodded. “Power equivalent to somewhere between ten and twenty thousand tons of high explosive depending on who you talk to or which book you read. They work through the collision and subsequent fission of radioactive uranium as it passes beyond critical mass.”

“I’ll take your word on that,” Trumbull said dubiously, having no clue as to the scientific procedures Thorne had just mentioned. “You think they’ll give Jerry this bomb to use on England?”

“Probably not…not straight away, anyway…” Thorne replied, shaking his head slowly. “Quite frankly, if they utilise their resources correctly they’ll have quite enough conventional hardware to take Britain rather comfortably. I also don’t think Reuters is quite that stupid. He grew up under the threat of a Cold War ‘peace’ sustained by two great superpowers armed with nuclear weapons — atomic bombs. Giving Hitler this weapon now without credible competition would totally destabilise the planet. One of the greatest ‘strengths’ of atomic weapons was one of deterrence — they held the peace between the world powers for close to fifty years following World War Two because neither side would use them for fear of massive retaliation. In the same way, conventional wars also couldn’t be risked between these ‘Superpowers’ because there was always the real danger of any war escalating to a nuclear exchange. With what I know of Hitler, I’d lay money on him not being stable enough not to use atomic weapons at a whim.”

“And you’re going to stop them — your group here is going to put things right again?”

“The short answer to that question…?” Thorne gave a thin, rueful smile. “Yes and no. As far as an invasion of Great Britain is concerned, we hope to stop it, but it all really depends on the strength of our enemy’s will. If Germany’s truly determined to take Britain regardless of any cost then — and they should be — there’s probably nothing we can do about that.” The answer, although unpleasant, was at least an honest one and as Trumbull made a move to protest he continued, cutting the pilot off before he could speak. “At least, not immediately…when Lowenstein disappeared and we found out what was going on, we set up a contingency plan of sorts. The time travelling devices they’ve developed — they’re called Temporal Displacement Units — take approximately twenty-four hours of actual passing time — what we’ve been calling ‘Realtime’ — to carry the traveller from one time period to another, although it seems instantaneous to the person travelling. What that means is that if any part of history is changed, it takes roughly a day before its effect is felt in the world.

“We eventually tracked the New Eagles to a decommissioned Russian military base east of the Urals, but they managed to launch most of their air group before we could field a force to stop them. We were able to prevent the last two transport aircraft from taking off however, capturing the crew.”

“They sent back aircraft, just as you have?” Trumbull this time required no urging or offer to take the hip flask from Thorne’s left hand and took a swig that finally drained it entirely.

“Yeah, for some reason the TDUs only work in aircraft that are ideally flying at high altitude and at high speed. Don’t ask me why — Markowicz couldn’t work it out and I doubt even the guys that developed them even know, really. Checking the TDUs inside the transports we captured got us nowhere — the settings had been scrambled by the time we got to the aircraft — so we had no real way of confirming exactly what date they’d arrived in the past. Some fairly speedy interrogation of the crew however did give us a date we’d hoped was accurate: noon on July the First, 1940. We didn’t have much time once the New Eagles had disappeared — only 24 hours — so we prepped the task force we’d gathered together as best we could and set the TDUs we recovered from their captured aircraft for a time and date a few days before that. The idea was that we could intercept and shoot down their aircraft as they arrived — destroy them utterly before they could make full contact with the Nazis of this era and alter history to any great extent.”

“Judging by what you’ve said, the date those prisoners gave you must’ve been a ruse as it appears they’re already here. I’d say they’ve been here for some time: Kurt Reuters has been a well-known figure in the German military right through the last half of the Thirties”

“As I said, we only had a day to get moving so we didn’t really have as much latitude in grilling the transports crews as we’d have liked, and it does definitely look like gave us incorrect dates to throw us off the track. We got two units out of each aircraft we captured — one main unit and one secondary — and we used those in the four aircraft you see here today. As a preparation to yesterday’s arrival, we dropped Nick Alpert into mid-1939 by parachute prior to the bulk of us arriving yesterday. He’s been here since before the start of the war and was sent back first to try and get this particular airfield prepared the way we required. Fortunately enough, he succeeded — aircraft like the one we’re in need long, hardened runways for landing and, more importantly, for take off.

“I was sent next with the F-35 in case Nick failed and I was required to make initial contact. That would’ve made things extremely difficult but we probably would’ve been able to get the Extender and Galaxy onto the ground somewhere in an emergency. I doubt either would’ve then been in any condition to fly again though, or at least take off anywhere until we’d had a couple of miles of runway built. We weren’t expecting to find these kind of facilities easily without preparation and we only obtained that through some serious ‘wheeling and dealing’ with the appropriate advisers in the Chamberlain and Churchill cabinets. That’s one of the reasons it was ‘requested’ that I come to your aid yesterday evening…”

“My father’s connections with Churchill…” Trumbull deduced the link immediately, and the reasons behind the orders he’d received from HQ the preceding day to stand down suddenly became clear. Trumbull’s father was a high-ranking MP on good terms with Chamberlain and also, quite conveniently, a personal friend of Winston Churchill.

“Got it in one, squadron leader,” Thorne grinned. “Your brother was also happy to provide us with a personal video for your father, Richard, but one of the requirements for that assistance was that we have you removed from front-line combat and transferred to active duty within our unit. Of course, the final decision’s yours, but after viewing your service record and abilities I had no problem with agreeing to that…”

As Trumbull deflected the compliment with a sideways nod of the head and humble half-smile, Thorne continued. “Nick’s been able to get a few things organised already, but if we want to do something important for this world, we’re gonna need all the help we can get. What happened at Dunkirk has left Britain practically defenceless and with the inside information Reuters will give Hitler and the High Command, they’ll be certain to invade England now: the only real question is when. Because we’ve now arrived after the New Eagles, the plan has changed somewhat and we now need to somehow find out exactly when they did arrive in the past.

“We know they arrived in the past somewhere over the forests of Tunguska in Siberia, as the TDUs only permit travel in time, not in space, but the amount of change to history Nick’s observed already in the last year is a real concern. We know now that they’ve been here for years, but we need to know exactly when they arrived to be able to intercept them. Until we’re able to get hold of that information, we’ll try our damnedest to help the Allies recoup the technological lag they’re going to inevitably face. If they give us enough time, we may just save England yet.”

“I don’t suppose you fellows brought along any of those ‘atomic bombs’?” Trumbull asked hopefully, and there was a moment’s silence as Thorne considered his answer carefully.

“That was a question that we argued over long and hard in the twelve months we had to prepare, prior to coming come here ourselves. Ultimately it was thought that if the United Kingdom could threaten Germany with nuclear retaliation, it might ultimately be the only way to prevent an invasion. To that end we have brought with us three free-fall thermonuclear devices — atomic bombs.”

“Well that’s all right then, isn’t it?” Trumbull asked hopefully. “If these bombs can each destroy an entire city, then surely Hitler will reconsider an invasion. We could threaten Berlin!”

“Yes, we could threaten Berlin,” Thorne agreed, however the tone indicated there was a ‘but’ coming. “Bomber Command has set aside a special Halifax bomber for just that task should the need arise. With in-flight refuelling from the Extender I could even hit Berlin myself in the F-35 and probably make it back without any trouble at all, although I’d rather not risk the aircraft on that kind of deep strike unless absolutely necessary…” he paused and gave a grimace. “But this is where we get back to what I said about the will of the enemy. We’ve got these bomb and they’re extremely powerful — far more powerful than those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki — but we only have three. Also, this isn’t just a matter of stopping an invasion of Great Britain, as nuclear weapons are a strategic weapon rather than a tactical one. The Germans couldn’t just back down from an invasion and then continue on with the rest of the war with ‘business as usual’ — it’d mean a requirement to end the war altogether, because any aggressive action on their part from then on might be enough to elicit a nuclear response from the UK, if you see what I mean…” Trumbull thought about what he’d just said, taking time to assimilate the information before nodding, thinking he did indeed understand.

“We’d have to use at least one of the weapons to prove that we could back up any threat — Hitler would be certain to call our bluff — and that’d leave us just two devices. Say we do hit Berlin…perhaps Hitler is killed and perhaps he isn’t — we take that risk either way. If the attack strengthens their resolve rather than weakens it, what then? Use the second and third weapons to try and further dissuade the enemy, or save them for use in the case of an actual invasion? Just one of those bombs could devastate an invasion force — possibly to the point of halting it altogether — but again, if that fails…what then? We do possess nuclear weapons for use as a last resort against the Germans, but exactly where and when isn’t as simple an issue as it seems on the surface. Either way, we still have to be prepared to evacuate to somewhere safer should an invasion come: even if we can’t stop an invasion of the UK, we’re sure as hell going to make sure they’ve have a bloody hard fight on their hands.” Thorne paused once more, giving the pilot more time to absorb what he’d said and deciding it was time to change the subject. “What I’ve just said is about as ‘Top Secret’ as it gets by the way, so I’d appreciate it if the information wasn’t mentioned to anyone. Is that clear…?”

“Of course,” Trumbull reassured sincerely. “I completely understand.”

“Anyway… the upshot of telling you all this is that I’m offering you a position here with us at Hindsight if you want it, as per your brother’s wishes. As I said, the decision’s ultimately yours, so I’m not going to demand an answer right now, but time is relatively short — no irony intended there — so I’ll ask you to have a think about it and come back to me tonight after dinner. It’s not a minor thing — it’d mean you giving up regular flying with the RAF and a huge change in direction for your career that I can’t give you any predictions on — but you will be right here with us at the cutting edge of what we’re doing, and that’s something I can guarantee. Those of us who’ve come back from the future will need some close ties with this era, and I can’t think of anyone better offhand, so have a think about it.”

Alec Trumbull was close to making a decision right there and then but held back in the end, taking Thorne up on his offer to wait and think more on it. It was a tempting offer indeed, but having to give up his career as a fighter pilot was not something he could take lightly…after all, that’d also mean giving up a career he loved more than anything else in the world.

“Thank you, Max…I will think about it and give you a decision tonight.”

No worries then,” Thorne grinned broadly, extending a hand that Trumbull accepted and shook in an instant. “Until tonight…”

Airfield at St. Omer

Northern France

At midday the sun was bright in the summer sky over the European continent, a light, patchy cloud cover the only variation from the day before. At St. Omer, preparations were already being made for the transfer of Staff Flight and One Gruppe to the assigned airfield north of Paris to commence their conversion to the new aircraft type. The move wasn’t something that took a great deal of time: just a day or so of packing altogether at the most. ‘Horst Wessel’ had only started operations at the St. Omer strip a month before, at a time when construction and fitting out of the base facilities had already been well on its way to completion, and all had known there was little likelihood of settling in. Front line combat units like ZG26 grew very accustomed to travelling light and being ready to move at short notice.

Ritter was completely ready by noon, his overnight travelling bag sitting by the door to his quarters awaiting his departure and stuffed with a spare flight suit, clean underwear and toiletries. It was at least enough for a few days’ operations. His two large leather suitcases carrying his dress uniforms, other clothing and personal effects were already stacked carefully inside one of the dozen or so Brussig and Opel trucks that would follow on behind the flight, ferrying their maintenance crews and the rest of the flyers’ personal property on to the local rail head for shipment to Paris by train. The orders they’d received were unclear as to whether they’d be returning to St. Omer at all, so the pilots and ground crew made sure they packed everything.

The afternoon found Ritter inside one of the base’s four large hangars, checking and pre-flighting his J-110 with his rear gunner and head mechanic. It was as they double-checked their flight plans at a small table beside the aircraft that the duty sergeant approached, followed at a discreet distance by Corporal Wisch.

“NCO to see you sir, as per your orders…!” The man snapped loudly, coming to attention a few metres from the table. Ritter took a moment before glancing up, his expression instantly turning cold as he caught sight of Wisch.

“Well…well…well…” he growled with slow sourness, standing completely upright. “You may recheck the instruments, Wolff,” he added, turning to Kohl. “I’ve some business to attend to. You also are dismissed, Herr Feldwebel.”

“Jawohl, Mein Herr!” The duty sergeant replied crisply and saluted. Turning on his heels, he marched off with the intention of going about his normal business of the day.

“What’s your name, boy?” Ritter asked directly, his gaze sharp and icy as he approached with slow, deliberate steps.

“Rottenführer Milo Wisch, Herr Oberstleutnant,” the young man answered immediately, snapping to attention. Almost before he could stop himself, his right hand moved as if to fly forward and upward into the salute of the SS. At the last second he halted, the hand instead rising to provide the standard Wehrmacht version that was very much like the salute of armed forces the world over.

“Very good, corporal…” Ritter nodded faintly, not smiling at all. “The SS can learn new tricks, I see…” He stepped forward suddenly, brushing past Wisch and heading in the direction of main hangar doors. “Join me in a stroll…” He said softly as he passed, and the SS NCO instantly turned to follow.

“How old are you, Milo Wisch?” Ritter inquired with slightly less coldness as they ambled slowly across the open expanse of grass by the main runway a moment or two later.

“Twenty, sir,” Wisch replied apprehensively. “…Twenty-one in September.”

“I see… and what did you think of the incident last night, young man? You may be completely frank — no doubt you’ve gathered I’m no fan of the SS or your methods, but I’ll respect your opinion should it not concur with my own.” Wisch stopped dead in his tracks, momentarily stumped by the position Ritter’s unexpected question had placed him in. The pilot halted a metre further on and turned to stare directly at the NCO, the gaze expectant and intense.

For a moment there was silence and Wisch wasn’t sure how to answer. His instincts of self-preservation — strong in anyone who’d spent time in the SS — instructed him to support his commanding officer: to officially sanction what’d occurred the night before. Should the Luftwaffe officer decide to lay some obscure charge against him for that, he’d be acquitted for his loyalty and esprit de corps — of that he was certain. Yet there was something in Ritter’s gaze that inspired him to tell the truth. The lieutenant-colonel possessed an expression of intensity that, although intimidating at times, also instilled trust in those with whom he interacted, and there were few who felt they couldn’t confide in the man should the need arise. In the end, Wisch’s conscience made the final decision.

“I was horrified, sir,” he answered slowly, carefully. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.” He paused, and then added: “I only hope I never see the like again.”

“Not something they mention in the enlistment drives, is it?” Ritter noted with a grim expression, agreeing with the young man. Another of the pilot’s abilities was his judge of character, and he believed this young fellow to be honest and direct. “You sound like an educated man — you’ve studied?”

“Universität zu Köln, Mein Herr: I was studying social sciences, but left my course to join up.”

“Ah; my old school also…” Ritter observed, surprised and a little impressed. “You could’ve been an officer with those credentials.” He turned and began walking once more. “Why enlist into the general ranks…?”

“My father’s idea — he considers the SS to be the elite service,” Wisch explained as he hurried to catch up, drawing level with Ritter. “I might have had a commission in the Wehrmacht, but he convinced me to choose the Schutzstaffeln. As I wasn’t with ‘Der Jugend’ there was no way I was going to get a commission, but the opportunity did come up to join the newly-formed armoured corps.”

“There are opportunities to attend officer training following enlistment, even in the Schutzstaffeln, yes?”

“Yes, sir — I tried, but the RSM at my training unit rejected my application. He told me he didn’t need ‘eggheads’ with education in the SS and thought I was a ‘smartarse’, excuse my language, sir.”

“Well, I’d say your potential’s being wasted then, Milo Wisch,” Ritter said directly, staring straight ahead. Changing tack without warning, he asked: “Was that wasted potential able to locate the boy, as I instructed?”

“Yes sir, I believe I’ve found him.”

“You believe you’ve found him?” Ritter locked his eyes with Wisch’s in a narrowed stare, and this time it was the officer’s turn be stopped in his tracks by the conversation.

“Upon searching the house and surrounding area at first light, I was able to discover what appears to be a hiding place against the inside wall of the barn by the farmhouse. It was made up of old boards and a few hay bales jammed in behind an old plough in one corner.”

“The boy was there?”

“I can’t be certain, sir, as I made great pains to act as if I was unaware of the hideout, but I’d be surprised if he’s not there. I’d swear at one point I could hear the sounds of a child crying as I searched the barn. I made no attempt to uncover the boy: I thought that without help I might scare him away and lose him completely.”

“You’re saying he’s still there?”

“I believe that he was half an hour ago: I’ve three privates stationed outside the barn to discourage him from leaving.”

“You’ve informed no one of this… no one at all?”

“Only yourself, sir… my unit commander’s still in the infirmary, and technically-speaking I’ve no one to report to as a result.”

“Well done!” Ritter truly smiled for the first time. Well done, man!” He clapped the NCO on the shoulder. “Come on… let’s see if we can do something to help the young fellow!”

Trooper Evan Lloyd sat at the control console of the BRT and sipped at some strong, black coffee for his mandatory, two-hourly caffeine ‘hit’. Above the galvanised roof of the control tower in which he sat, the bulbous, white shape of a small radome had been installed with the instruments and control systems set up on a cleared space of bench at the rear of the tower’s operations deck. It wasn’t large –a little more than metre or so in diameter — and was a system normally used by battalion-sized units in the field. The Australian SAS unit of which Lloyd was part were, among other things, tasked with operating the BRT and keeping track of any potential air threats. Most usually assumed the acronym stood for ‘battalion radar transmitter’ or some such. When the troopers were feeling bored that was often how they themselves might describe the device, but at other times the men might’ve instead grinned and explained with typical, Australian irreverence that it was also a shortening of the colloquialism ‘Big Round Thing’. The radome was also often known by the nickname ‘The Golf Ball’ for equally obvious reasons.

Lloyd would’ve preferred Coke — the soft drink was his favourite method of taking his daily caffeine requirements — but supplies of those kinds of rationed luxuries in 1940s England were scarce enough as it was, and space within the cavernous hold of the Galaxy had been at a premium. Despite what the advertising companies might like Lloyd’s modern world to believe, Coca-Cola unfortunately hadn’t been deemed a permissible luxury he’d been allowed to bring with him. One luxury he had been allowed was his iPod Classic and small, battery-powered speaker dock. An accomplished guitarist in an amateur band during his high school days, he was a great fan of all contemporary music and was that day in a relatively ‘mellow’ mood. A shuffled compilation of songs by Green Day played softly from the unit’s speakers as he relaxed in his seat and kept his eyes on the empty screens of the radar display.

A tall man of solid and muscular build, Evan Lloyd had spent the last two of his twenty-five years with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment. He had no family (both his parents had died almost two years before in a terrible bushfire), and he’d left no serious romance or barely even a casual relationship or two behind. Trooper Lloyd was an intelligent man despite having struggled to finish his last year of high school, and was an avid if informal student of modern history in what little spare time the SASR allowed him. The board that had initially drawn up a multi-national list of potential members for the embryonic Hindsight Task Force had rated Lloyd high on the list of Australian candidates, and he’d accepted their offer without hesitation.

Lloyd was content with spending his four hour shift on radar duty as innocuously as possible and was more than happy for the screens before him to remain blank for the entire time for a number of reasons. That wasn’t to say he felt all that vulnerable. There were two self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicles out there at each end of the runway that could deal with a substantial number of low-level threats in the event of an air attack, not to mention the relatively heavy concentration of more conventional medium Bofors guns and heavy AA emplacements all over the naval base at Scapa Flow.

Originally of Russian origin, the 2K22M ‘Tunguska’ anti-aircraft vehicle was an advanced weapons system that made use of both guns and missiles to defeat low- and medium-level aerial threats. Known also by the NATO reporting name of SA-19 ‘Grison’, the two units that had disembarked from the cargo bay of the Galaxy the night before were the latest model, carrying the ‘Pantsir-S1’ turret upgrade mounting a dozen guided missiles and a pair of lethal 30mm cannon. Each vehicle carried its own radar, infra-red and optical tracking systems and was also linked to the radar transmitter above Lloyd’s head. Both were more than capable of dealing with any aerial threat that strayed within a range twenty kilometres, up to an altitude of 15,000 metres. Even so, he’d prefer not test them out that afternoon in a real air attack.

Lloyd was however happy of human company, and received the arrival of Squadron Leader Alec Trumbull in the control tower that afternoon with pleasure and some interest — it was his first contact with someone from that era, rather than his own. The squadron leader was in a similar situation to that of Trooper Lloyd, in that so long as everything was proceeding smoothly that day there was absolutely nothing for him to do. He was certainly giving Thorne’s offer serious thought — he’d been able to think of little else — but was also eager to meet with others from Thorne’s time. So far, however, none had made themselves available for a ‘chat’ as it were — much was going on, and that was something Trumbull found a little frustrating, although he could certainly understand.

Lloyd moved to stand as a precursor to coming to attention as Trumbull reached the top of the stairs and opened the door to the tower deck, but the squadron leader would have none of it.

“No, no — keep your seat, trooper,” he insisted with a wave of his hand. “I’m just wandering about — don’t mind me.”

“Don’t mind at all, sir…” Lloyd assured genially, glad of someone to talk to and too experienced a soldier to be put off by a squadron leader’s rank. “Happy to have the company: ‘been a bit boring up here on my own.”

“I’m sure it has been,” Trumbull agreed, inspecting the instruments Lloyd controlled with the well-faked air of someone who had some idea as to what their intended use was. “What is it you’re actually doing?”

“On radar watch, sir: four hours of keeping an eye out for any aircraft heading our way and trying to decide whether they’re hostile or not.”

“That little thing is a radar set?” Trumbull was impressed, although the technological surprises were no longer ‘amazing’ him so much. The control unit itself was a flat, dark screen set into the lid of a plastic, oblong box roughly the size and shape of a very large suitcase and coloured army green. Luminous green symbols flickered and disappeared across it like the science-fiction equivalent of unintelligible runes, first moving one way then another. The only radar installations Trumbull had ever seen were the ‘Chain Home Low’ stations that dotted the coastline and warned Fighter Command of impending attacks, and those towers of those were a good forty metres or so high — 130 feet tall in Trumbull’s world.

“This one’s only a small set, sir: detection range is only about a hundred and fifty kilometres at high altitude, although that reduces significantly as you approach sea level. Those little green ‘V’ symbols are ‘visible’ aircraft along with their altitudes in metres and their relative airspeed in knots. We’re the small dot at the centre of the screen, and those static green lines are an overlaid map of The Orkneys and Scapa Flow.”

“Metres and kilometres, eh…?” Trumbull said dubiously. He was aware of the European system of measurements but cared for it little. The conversions were simple enough with a bit of practice, but he couldn’t see the point of using such a complicated system when Imperial measurements were a viable alternative.

“Hardly anyone uses the ‘old’ Imperial system where I come from, sir,” Lloyd grinned, suddenly noting one of the myriad differences that separated his world from Trumbull’s. “The British use metric as well now, and even the Yanks are starting to use it…”

“Even the Americans…?” The pilot was inwardly a little disheartened by that news — he was as aware as was any informed man of the stubborn and reactionary nature of the American psyche. “My God, we must beat the Germans!”

“No, sir — it’s not like that at all,” Lloyd laughed softly, thinking Trumbull must’ve feared the metric system forced upon its 21st Century users. “The world just decided it was a simpler system to use.”

“If you say so, trooper…” Trumbull decided uncertainly, frowning at the idea. At that point the soft music intruded on his thoughts and he was drawn to the iPod sitting in its dock by Lloyd’s left arm. It was an almost identical model to the one Thorne carried with him, although the calibre of music playing there seemed an improvement at least to Trumbull’s ears.

“The music, sir…?” Lloyd noted the officer’s interest. “It’s called an ‘iPod’…” he explained, sounding out the word more phonetically than was probably necessary. “Where I come from we use them, and devices like them, to carry music with us so we can listen to it any time we want.” The Green Day song Wake Me Up When September Ends played as Trumbull approached and had a closer look.

“An ‘Eye-Pod’…?” Trumbull repeated the unfamiliar name as a question. “It plays music, you say?” He craned his neck to glance at the rear of the unit, as if the view from a different angle might somehow make the device’s inner workings more explicable. “Like a reel-to-reel tape player?”

“Something like that…just a bit smaller, though,” The SAS trooper nodded with a grin, removing the iPod Classic completely from the dock to afford Trumbull a closer look, the music ceasing instantly. He handed the player across and the RAF pilot turned it over in his hands. At just a little more than 100mm tall, 60mm wide and just 10mm deep, the tiny music and video player weighed in at just 140 grams and felt incredibly light.

“Just a little smaller, eh?” Trumbull have a wry smile. “And just how many thousands of songs does this little thing surely contain, I wonder?” He added with the hint of light sarcasm, choosing a number he expected to be a wild exaggeration.

“About forty thousand sir, give-or-take…depending on the formatting of the music files of course…” Lloyd answered honestly, not catching the attempted humour in the question.

“Of course,” Trumbull chuckled out loud at that, shaking his head in bewilderment and taking solace in the fact that at least the trooper hadn’t seemed to realise the joke had fallen flat and he’d made a fool of himself.

He handed the iPod back to Lloyd, who in turn immediately placed it back into its speaker dock and restarted the music. Trumbull took time to actually listen to the music now as the song continued where it had left off. It wasn’t Cole Porter or good jazz, but there was a strangely hypnotic quality to it that appealed to the emotions more than to the mind. As the track ended, Trumbull couldn’t for the life of him work out whether or not he actually liked the stuff. It was certainly an improvement over the caterwauling, so-called ‘music’ Thorne had played in the F-35 on the flight up to Scapa Flow the day before.

The song came to an end in that moment and the shuffle feature picked another Green Day song at random. The opening bars of ‘American Idiot’ issued from the speakers with substantially greater volume, and the RAF pilot gave a disapproving grimace, his unaccustomed ears again finding the raucous rock riffs of electric guitars quite unpleasant. Revising his initial assessment of the music, he gave the grinning trooper a sour look.

“Are you certain we won this war?” He asked with a dubious frown, and Lloyd could only chuckle at that question.

The barn was relatively small and barely larger than the main farmhouse to the north. It was also quite dark inside as Ritter slowly approached its half-open doors, the only visible light streaming in beams from the open loading bay in the loft above the doors, and through the multitude of tiny spaces between roof tiles and the wooden planks of the walls. Dust motes swirled and eddied in those sparkling streaks of illumination beyond the control of any noticeable breeze. Hesitating a moment, Ritter turned back toward Wisch standing a few yards behind him.

“Take your men and stand back a dozen metres or so…” Ritter ordered softly, making no sudden movements as he spoke in soft, level tones. “Under no circumstances are you to come any closer or enter the barn without my express command…is that clear?”

“Completely, Mein Herr…” Wisch nodded, beckoning to the three panzer crewmen standing nearby. All four men began to back away carefully.

With a nod, Ritter once more began to move toward the opening, attempting to seem as if he suspected nothing. At the entrance, his hand rested upon the edge of one of the large, wooden doors as he hesitated momentarily, wondering how he should proceed. Although there was no immediate emergency, time was certainly of the essence. His flight was scheduled to take-off in just an hour and there was still a lot of pre-flight preparation to be made. The possibility of being late wasn’t a particular concern –he was the commanding officer after all, and could demand a little latitude as a result — however excessive tardiness would cause interest in potentially unwanted places and that kind of interest was something he could definitely do without. Although his conscious mind was as yet unaware of it, the beginning of an idea was forming in his subconscious that might’ve seemed unthinkable just two days earlier.

Once inside, he spotted the hiding place Wisch had spoken of immediately although he cast no more that a cursory glance in that direction as his eyes adjusted slowly to the alternating segments of darkness and light as beams of sunlight stabbed downward in sharp, clearly defined ‘pillars’. Most of the farm equipment inside the barn — an old plough, a threshing machine of primitive design and a few other pieces — seemed to be in disrepair or disuse. No one to use them, he supposed, since the father was dead. He forced that sentiment from his mind.

Regardless of the atrocity committed here, he thought sternly, trying to be logical, it should be remembered this family was Resistance — they were spying on the airbase! My airbase! But the rationalisation instantly disgusted him: it sounded like something that might come from SS animals like Stahl and Barkmann rather than a man of honour and dignity.

A guttural, angry sound — almost a growl — was born and died in a second at the bottom of his throat. He was becoming frustrated by the conflict created between his old loyalties and the new one that was struggling to the fore, still unnamed, unrecognised and waiting to be fully realised. Although he was a master at tactical planning and military operations, Ritter despised complexity in the goings-on of day-to-day life — one of the reasons the military had so attracted him as a young man. Life in its essence, he believed, should be kept as simple as possible. Yet people — and life itself, sometimes — continually ‘conspired’ to prevent that and add complexity. That was something Ritter couldn’t tolerate and that SS bastard, Stahl, had just made his life exactly that. It was another not-insignificant reason for Ritter to despise him, and the lieutenant-colonel suddenly felt very silly sneaking about in this barn.

“I know you’re here…Antoine…” He stated finally in clear, slow French, needing to search his mind for the name the boy had given. He directed the words directly at the place of hiding, nothing but soft gentleness in a voice that showed none of the apprehension or indecision he felt. “I understand you’re scared and want to hide, but I’ve very little time. I know what’s happened and want to help you if I can.”

He didn’t talk ‘down’ to the child as he’d often observed other adults doing. His own experience of children was limited –his wife, Maria had given birth to just one child in their six years of marriage so far, and their son — Werner Josef — hadn’t lived beyond the age of twelve months. There’d been no evidence of why the boy had actually died, but infant mortality being what it was in the first half of the 20th Century, their doctor had simply diagnosed the cause as ‘Crib Death’; something that was exceedingly common and something that in more modern times would become known by the more medical but no less sinister or terrible title of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Ritter generally found it impossible to make the coy, childish and silly speech of others when relating to children. He believed, and to some extent had been proven right by his own experience relating to the offspring of others, that if one spoke to a child of reasonable age slowly, softly and clearly they’d often understand exactly what you were talking about…as long as they wanted to understand to begin with.

“My unit must go away this afternoon and I’ve only a short time to help you…” For a few moments he thought there’d be no answer, and he momentarily feared that perhaps Wisch had been mistaken or had played him for a fool. Then he heard the voice. It was soft — so soft he might almost have missed it but for the hate and venom it contained.

“You killed them…!” The acid, French tones cut Ritter in a way he’d never before experienced. “You’re all Nazis! You hurt them — you killed them…!”

“You know that’s not true — I wasn’t there!” There was even the hint of defensiveness in Ritter’s tone as he spoke, so greatly did the child’s words sting him.

“You were there! I saw you! You were there last night with the other Germans!”

“I came too late to stop them. If you saw me, then you saw me hit the other one for what he did.” The German officer suddenly found himself defending his own actions — indeed his own heritage — in a way he’d never before been forced to by anyone at any other time in his life. To receive such vilification from a child no more than five years old was sobering and a matter for some concern.

“He killed my mother…my sister! Kill him!”

“I couldn’t — believe me, I wanted to but I couldn’t…” Ritter pleaded desperately. How could he explain such moral issues to a child who’d suffered so terribly, particularly when he wasn’t entirely convinced himself? “I wasn’t allowed to–”

“You’re a monster like them!” Antoine screamed back defiantly, and there was an explosion of noise as he burst from the hiding place and tried to bolt past Ritter. The pilot was too quick even for the lightning speed of a child to elude at such close range, and one of his strong arms had encircled the boy’s waist in a second, preventing any escape. Antoine immediately began thrashing and screaming in Ritter’s arms, attempting to rain blows on the captor that held him from behind. Some of those blows struck home and although none of them hurt particularly, he was sufficiently unbalanced to send them both crashing to the hay-strewn, earthen floor. All the same, Ritter never once lost his grip.

“You’re all right, Herr Oberstleutnant?” Wisch’s call came from just beyond the doors. The young NCO was concerned by the commotion.

“Yes I’m all right, damn you!” Ritter bellowed wildly back, still struggling with the boy as they both sat splay-legged on the ground, one in front of the other. “Piss off!” The intensity of the matter at hand precluded any other phrase that might’ve so concisely summed up his intent.

“Let me go!” Antoine screamed hysterically, fighting all the while against the officer’s iron grip. “They’ll kill me too! Let me go!”

“They won’t kill you!” Ritter spoke over the boy’s cries. “They won’t kill you, or harm you in any way — I’ll see to that.” Whether it was the steely sound of the pilot’s voice at that point or whether the boy just ran out of strength was impossible to tell, but the struggling definitely began to subside.

“I saw…!” He wailed, his voice returning to a normal volume. “They made me see…! I saw…!” And the entirety of what the boy meant suddenly struck home.

“Mein Gott…” Ritter moaned softly, reverting to German in his horror. “God in Heaven…!” He cradled the boy gently now as Antoine began to cry, turning to bury his face in Ritter’s shoulder. “Dear God in Heaven.” He could only repeat the phrase once more, devoid of anything useful he might say that could possibly respond to that shocking revelation.

‘…You’re just like them…!’ The boy had screamed in accusation because he’d not killed Stahl. ‘…You’re just like them…!’ As the pain and disgust washed across him, the boy sobbed against his chest and Ritter found he couldn’t stop the tears either. In that moment, he believed the boy was right.

6. Opening Moves

Airfield at St. Omer

Northern France

Sunday

June 30, 1940

Ritter was once again completely composed by the time Staff Flight and I/ZG26 were ready for take-off, the twenty-six mottled-patterned heavy-fighters waiting in two rows of thirteen at the near end of the airstrip. All the trucks but one had already left, beginning their afternoon journey to the train station, and the last was waiting under Ritter’s specific orders.

Ritter himself was in the communications room, just as he’d been first thing that morning. This time however he wasn’t reporting to Fliegerkorps. In that hectic thirty minutes since he’d found the boy, a wild and irrational idea had taken root within his mind; one that a calm and logical Carl Ritter well might’ve dismissed as ludicrous only a few weeks or even days before. Had he been consulted, Willi Meier certainly would’ve considered his commanding officer mad. The captain hadn’t been consulted at all however: the first person other than Ritter to know of his idea was eventually to be the man he was trying to get in contact with at the other end of the phone.

The main base switchboard shared the room with the radios and Ritter had instructed it to be cleared of everyone save himself and the operator on duty. The non-com was astounded when his CO indicated who he wished to speak to, but a moment or so later he was nevertheless attempting to put Ritter in direct contact with Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters.

At first they met with little success — the all-powerful military principle of ‘chain of command’ saw to that — and it took Ritter himself getting on the phone before the sergeants and lieutenants they initially encountered at the other end began to take notice. After ten minutes of discussion and argument, which included the ‘dressing down’ of a truculent army major that in all probability would see Ritter end up on a charge, he was finally put in direct contact with Schiller, the Reichsmarschall’s aide.

“This is Generalleutnant Albert Schiller speaking, Herr Ritter: what is it you require of the Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht?” The tone was inquisitive but also detached, with almost a faint hint of amusement.

“Herr General, thank you for your time: I must speak with the Reichsmarschall immediately — it’s extremely important.”

“May I inquire as to the nature of this ‘importance’?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s a matter I can speak of only with Reichsmarschall Reuters.” The matter-of-fact tone of Ritter’s gentle rebuttal hid the fact that his initial rush of adrenaline had subsided to be supplanted by fear and uncertainty, and he was quickly coming to his senses regarding what he was actually doing. As he waited desperately, images of not only being refused audience but also of a court-martial flashed through Ritter’s mind in the seconds before Schiller finally gave his considered answer.

“Despite the unorthodox nature of your request, Oberstleutnant Ritter, I’ll put you through in a few moments if you’ll be patient…please hold…” Ritter was too surprised to do anything other than exactly that.

Those moments passed with agonising slowness as he waited, unsure now as to how to proceed. He fully recognised the enormity of what he was doing and the logical, rational side of his mind was taking over from the emotional, instinctive reactions he’d experienced earlier. He also realised that he’d caught a proverbial ‘tiger by the tail’: he was scared of proceeding but also knew it was far too late for him to turn back.

“Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters, Herr Ritter. I hadn’t expected to be speaking to you again so soon. What exactly is it I can do for you?” The Reichsmarschall’s voice at the other end of the phone suddenly brought his mind back to reality.

“I need a favour of you, sir,” Ritter began cautiously, almost humbly. What he was hoping to ask was a great deal and the pilot knew it. “It’s imperative that I meet with you as soon as possible to discuss a problem I need to resolve. It’s something I don’t believe I can accomplish without your help.”

“Another favour…? I’d have thought my efforts this morning far exceeded my responsibilities as it was…?” There was a statement of position in that: the Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht considered the pilot in his debt already for the morning’s intervention, Ritter wasn’t disputing. Yet Ritter could nevertheless detect a strange quality in the Reichsmarschall’s speech. Unlike Schiller’s amused tone, this one carried something the pilot hadn’t expected: an undercurrent of evasiveness. It sounded almost as if the OdW was intimidated by him in some strange, improbable way, and it spurred Ritter on somewhat, his own stance becoming a little more confident.

“I certainly recognise and appreciate the help you provided me this morning, Mein Herr, however this problem unfortunately still exists. It’s only yourself who has sufficient authority within the military to act on my behalf.”

“I’m an extremely busy man, Herr Ritter — you do understand that?”

“I understand completely, Mein Herr…” Ritter replied instantly, but in that moment he knew that he’d won…that battle at least.

“I’m glad you understand that, for I shan’t expect to hear from you in this manner again. Where do you wish to meet?”

“Are you aware, sir, of the new training airbase at Orly that Fliegerkorps has set up?”

“I know of it: you’re going to be there soon?”

“My unit’s transferring there this afternoon for re-equipment with a new type of aircraft — we’ll be there for a number of weeks, I expect.”

“Oh, yes — of course. I’d forgotten it was ‘Horst Wessel’ that was receiving the first operational S-2s.” He’d not forgotten at all in fact, and had given the order himself. “You’ll be there the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes sir, I will,” Ritter stated emphatically, almost breathless.

“Expect me to arrive by air at nine that morning then. Until then, goodbye, Herr Oberstleutnant.”

“Thank you, sir…” Ritter began, but Reuters had already hung up.

Thorne was seated with his back to the entrance to the Officer’s Mess that afternoon, an immaculate Maton Messiah six-string acoustic in his arms as he leaned forward in his chair and carefully tested the tuning. He was oblivious as Trumbull entered the mess and quietly approached, the Hindsight CO’s attention completely captured by the superb instrument in his hands as the fingers of his right hand plucked experimentally at each of the strings in turn. Pleased with the result, he nodded silently to himself in approval and proceeded to launch into a quite serviceable rendition of the classical guitar solo from ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ off Pink Floyd’s The Wall album.

Trumbull moved slowly around into Thorne’s field of vision to provide himself a clearer view of the performance, but it mattered little as the man’s eyes were closed tight and his head lay tilted slightly to one side as the unmistakable note progressions transported Thorne’s mind away to a time and place far from his present location. The faint smile and complete relaxation showing on the Australian’s face was quite a different look to that which Trumbull had become more accustomed to seeing of the man over the last two days. It was clear that Thorne loved what he was doing with a passion that moved beyond mere technical ability, and although he missed the occasional note here and there through lack of practice, it was clear that he was quite skilled with the instrument.

Making as little noise as possible and not wanting to disrupt the performance for a moment, Trumbull slid into a seat on the opposite side of the circle of armchairs. The tune Thorne played was mesmerising…like nothing he’d ever heard before…and yet it was also entirely different to the other pieces of ‘so-called’ music he’d heard playing on Thorne and Lloyd’s iPods previously. He’d wanted to speak to Thorne about what they’d discussed earlier that day but seeing this completely unexpected side of the man was so incredibly interesting, and he was happy to wait and continue listening.

After just sixty seconds of playing that seemed beautifully longer to Trumbull, the music came slowly to a end and with a final, flourishing strum of the strings, Thorne’s eyes opened and his peaceful smile instantly became a slightly embarrassed expression as he pulled back slightly in surprise at finding the pilot watching him.

“Bloody hell…!” He exclaimed with a start, immediately going quite red as he realised Trumbull had been watching him the whole time. “Ever heard of knocking? You’re like a bloody ninja! We need a friggin’ bell around your neck!”’

“Sorry, Old Man…” Trumbull ventured apologetically. “Didn’t mean to pry…”

“Nah, it’s all good,” Thorne lightened up, waving a dismissive hand and giving a grin as the crimson began to fade from his cheeks. “Just gave me a bloody start, that’s all.”

“That music was amazing…you play beautifully!”

“Ahh, I’m not that crash hot…I just do what I do and enjoy it. Just having a break for an hour or so and taking the opportunity to clear my head a bit.”

“I suspect you’ve had a rather tiring day, Max,” Trumbull observed kindly, smiling. “Difficulties of command, perhaps…?”

“Yeah, you might say that,” Thorne nodded slowly, placing the guitar gently on the seat beside him to his right and stretching as he adjusted his seating position. He stared out through the windows and noted that the sun was now quite low on the horizon, shadows lengthening almost to infinity. “Were you looking for me in particular?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I was,” Trumbull admitted with a smile. “I wanted to speak to you about what we discussed earlier…”

Evan Lloyd was within five minutes of finishing his shift on duty as the beeping alert signal rose from the control unit of the BRT. At first he’d hoped — in vain — that it might simply be an RAF patrol flight or some such that the equipment had incorrectly determined as threatening, however it took just a second or two to determine it was nothing of the sort. The radar had detected an aircraft approaching from the north at extremely high speed, and as Lloyd checked the contact’s information in more detail he came up with some unpleasant figures. It was flying at very low level and at supersonic speed, and had only been detected at a range of forty kilometres or so. Its low altitude and direction of approach meant the main islands of the Orkneys had masked a large part of its approach, and Lloyd’s rough calculations suggested they had less than two minutes before its course would take it directly over Scapa Flow.

“Christ on a fuckin’ bike!” He hissed in vehement surprise and jammed his finger against the nearby switch for the air raid sirens while grabbing for the speaker/microphone clipped at his left collar that was attached to the radio transceiver at his belt.

The conversation Thorne and Trumbull were about begin was cut off quite abruptly as the unnatural wail of air-raid sirens rose all over the base. A radio similar to Lloyd’s lay on the seat to Thorne’s left, and it burst into life a moment later.

“Tower here for Thorne…” Lloyd’s voice crackled from the speaker/mike as Thorne reached for it.

“This is Max, Evan…” the Australian replied, instantly recognising the voice and the urgent tone. “Talk to me…”

“We’ve got a single bogie heading in from due north at better than Mach-one, staying right on the deck all the way.”

“Shit!” Thorne swore, then asked: “Range and ETA?”

“Around thirty klicks out and closing fast — no more than ninety seconds at current speed.”

“Got that, Evan — make sure the Tunguskas are ‘linked and sync’ed’ and pass on the details to the conventional air defence units as well — they’ll need to know, even if they won’t be much use. Get yourself to a trench as soon as you can, mate — we don’t need any heroes today!” He turned to Trumbull as the radio went dead, snarling: “That means us too! We’ve got about sixty seconds to find some cover.”

Both men were bolting for the door in a moment, Thorne ahead by a second or two. Even as they burst from the building and headed for the nearest slit trench, it seemed to Thorne they were already too late. Men were running about everywhere, manning AA guns or diving for cover as were they, but all Thorne could think about were the four aircraft parked out on their hardstands. There was no way they had enough time to protect them, and the loss of any of those planes would damage the Hindsight Unit immensely.

As they dropped into the nearest trench, Thorne caught sight of the nearby Tunguska air defence vehicle behind the main buildings and hangars, squatting in the recessed emplacement atop of its mound of earthworks. Its turret was rotating to point northward under guidance from the main radar unit, patiently awaiting any target within range. All any of them could do now was to wait and see.

The pilot and weapons officer of Hawk-3 were little more than passengers as the black Sukhoi’s automated navigational systems took them through a pre-planned flight path at Mach 1.1, just 100 metres above the surface of the earth. That type of low-level penetration mission, whether carrying weapons or the reconnaissance pod that was slung beneath the aircraft’s belly at that moment, was exactly the type of operation for which the Su-30 multi-role fighter had been developed and exactly what its avionics and software had been designed for.

Terrain following radar (TFR) kept the Flanker at a set height above the water as they’d hurtled on across the empty expanses of the North Sea at faster than the speed of sound, coming in from the east before finally turning southward and trailing a thundering sonic boom across the northern islands of the Orkney chain. Intelligence gathered by Kriegsmarine maritime patrol aircraft prior to the war meant the crew already knew what areas of the base needed to be investigated and therefore, barring any unforeseen circumstances, there’d theoretically be no reason for them to deviate from the pre-programmed flight-plan at all.

“They can see us now…” Weapons Officer Hauser observed. “ELINT is picking up emissions from a NATO-type search system strong enough to return a signal. Distance to target less than thirty kilometres now.”

“They’ll be going nuts right about now then…” Major Schwarz replied from the seat in front of him with a slight grin. “Pity their flak guns will be lucky to even see us, let alone track us! Maybe they can — !”

“Weapon lock…! Weapon lock…!” Hauser shouted his surprised warning, cutting the pilot off mid-sentence. “Target acquisition radar just obtained a lock on us!”

“Scheisse…!” Schwarz snarled in response, taking control from the autopilot in an instant but holding the current course, wanting more information. “What’re we talking about? Guns…missiles…?”

“ELINT is evaluating…” Hauser replied quickly, his eyes never leaving his instruments. “Doesn’t look like standard NATO gear to me though…” the experienced weapons officer was working more on hunch than evidence. “Actually…the emissions look almost…Russian…” Another second and his Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) systems had the answer for him. “Definitely Soviet…!” He advised finally, neither man taking any notice of his use of a well-out-of-date name for what was now the Russian Commonwealth of Independent States. “Closest match are tracking and acquisition radars for a SA-19 ‘Grison’ mobile flak.”

“Interesting…” Schwarz muttered, alternating his gaze between his own instruments and the dark earth streaking past below them. “Wouldn’t have expected Russian equipment. We’ll have to watch that: the SA-19 carries SAMs and guns. Effective range…?”

“Around eight thousand metres for the missiles and about half that for the guns,” Hauser was stretching his memory for details he could barely remember from his pilot training.

“We’ve got a bit of time yet, then…we’ll keep to plan for the moment.” Schwarz banked the aircraft slightly to the west but held to the same low altitude as he thought back over the maps and details he’d memorised before take-off. “I’m going to take us further to the west and use the western heights of Hoy as a shield: there are cliffs along the coast there and also a couple of hills to the north-west the island that rise to nearly five hundred metres. With any luck their radars’ll be blind there: we can pop-up for our pictures and be away again before they know what hit them.”

“We’re going to be fucking close by then,” his partner countered, unnerved by the idea. “We can’t take anything for granted just because they haven’t fired on us yet! I’m working on memory for those bloody range figures…if I’m wrong, we won’t have much room to manoeuvre!”

“I know that, God damn it!” Schwarz snarled back, his own fear shortening his temper. “But if The Eagles want pictures of what they’ve got down there, I’m damned sure we’re going to get them! Those bastards took out Hans, Jürgen and the others, remember!” He reminded his partner of the friends they’d lost over Dorset the evening before. Significantly, although neither would never notice, he’d referred to Reuters’ New Eagles group as their command rather than the Wehrmacht High Command as a whole. That situation was common among those who’d arrived with Neue Adler originally but now ostensibly operated within the normal German armed forces.

“Doesn’t mean we have to end up like them as well…” the weapons officer growled sullenly, no happier than the pilot over the loss of their comrades.

The jet roared around and then up across St. John’s Head, the sheer face of the vertical cliffs invisible in the darkness but clear on their TFR systems. It took no more than thirty seconds before they were skirting the hills to the north-western end of Hoy Island, just fifty metres above the ground as radar mapped the course ahead with no need for vision. The Flanker hurtled past to the south-west of Ward Hill and the Cuilags — Hoy’s highest points — and followed a set of shallow, winding valleys east as they disappeared into ground clutter on the search and tracking systems at Scapa Flow.

“Ten seconds to window…” Schwarz announced and Hauser, no less capable at his job, prepared himself for the short ‘pop-up’ manoeuvre that would allow them to take their all-important reconnaissance pictures. “Nine… eight… seven… six… five…” as the countdown continued, he rechecked the camera pod’s systems once more to reassure himself all was working perfectly, which they were.

As the pilot’s countdown reached zero, the Flanker’s autopilot suddenly launched the aircraft into a tight climb, both passengers gasping for air as G-forces pressed suddenly down on them and their automatically-inflating flight suits fought to compensate. A second later and Hawk-3 was once more clearly visible for any radar to see.

“Search systems have us again…!” Hauser warned instantly, eyes glued to the main screens on his instrument panel. “UHF and EHF tracking have acquired us…” he advised with slow professionalism, his cool tone hiding the nervousness he inwardly felt. “They have target lock… now… now… now…!”

“Guess we’ll see what they’ve got then…”Schwarz observed through clenched teeth, mostly to himself.

The western Tunguska’s search systems had reacquired Hawk-3 the moment it climbed out of the protection of the valleys south-east of Ward Hill. The original operational variant of the 2K22 Tunguska, also known by the NATO reporting name of SA-19 ‘Grison’, had originally been fitted with eight 9M311 radar-guided surface to air missiles with a nominal effective range of around eight kilometres (double the range of the twin 30mm cannon also fitted). As the closest match available, the software of the SU-30’s ELINT systems had thusly identified the weapons on the ground at Scapa Flow.

Several years out of date by the time the Sukhois had been acquired by the New Eagles, their ELINT systems were completely wrong. The pair of vehicles Hindsight had brought with them had been upgraded extensively and were instead armed with an advanced, modular weapons system known as the Pantsir-S1, also known by the new NATO reporting name of ‘SA-22 Greyhound’. A vastly-upgraded variant of that original 2K22M, the pair of cannon remained but were now complemented by no less than twelve missiles of a newer and far more capable type known as the 57E6. Fifty percent faster than the system it replaced, the missile was also possessed of a far greater effective range: almost twenty kilometres.

Although Hawk-3 was well out of range of the Tunguska’s cannon, it was easily within the reach of its missiles. As the vehicle’s turret turned with its target, one of the six launch tubes on its right side spewed smoke and fire and a missile burst forth into the sky at incredible speed. It streaked into the night sky on a bright flare of exhaust before quickly reaching the summit of its low, fast trajectory and spearing earthward once more at lightning speed in pursuit of its target, appearing as no more than a pinpoint of light trailing smoke to the onlookers at the base. The distant horizon suddenly lit up with a spray of incandescent orange flares that followed fast behind the track of the invisible Flanker, the shuddering sound and force of the jet’s engines and sonic boom audible a few seconds later as the missile detonated downrange.

Hawk-3’s warning systems picked up the 57E6 instantly as it hissed from its launch tube and hurtled toward them.

“Missile launch…!” Hauser cried out a warning as he watched his screens. “Bearing two-nine-five and closing fast!” He rechecked his readings even as Schwarz began evasive manoeuvres and threw the Su-30 toward the safety of low level once more, flares and chaff cascading from the Flanker’s tail in an attempt to fool its automated pursuer. “Eight thousand metres’ range my arse…!”

With a flight time of just six seconds to target, the missile was already perilously close as Schwarz pushed the Sukhoi’s nose down and it bottomed out again just fifty metres above the ground, chaff and flares still pouring in torrents from the aircraft’s tail. Geography alone saved Hawk-3 in the end as it banked sharply to the south and momentarily slipped behind a group of low, rolling hills that blocked the path of the approaching missile.

With no active systems of its own and controlled by the launch vehicle’s radars, which still had a clear, clean lock on the Flanker, the 57E6 continued on its unwavering intercept course, unable to recognise that solid earth now lay directly between it and its intended target. It ploughed straight into the ground near the crest of one of the hills, just a hundred metres short of the Su-30 as the jet made good its narrow escape.

The missile exploded on impact, lighting up the sky and buffeting them with its shockwave as Schwarz kept to his southerly course. The Flanker finally left land behind seconds later and slipped out over the dark, fathomless waters of the North Sea once more, accelerating beyond the speed of sound as it returned to straight, level flight and again vanished from Hindsight’s search and tracking systems, this time for good.

“Did we get what we needed?” Schwarz enquired, breathless and tense.

“I…I think so…yes,” Hauser replied with growing certainty as he checked the readouts from the reconnaissance pod mounted below the aircraft’s belly.

“Well it’s all they’re going to get — that was close and it was as close as we’re getting unless they’re willing to let us shoot back!”

The Flanker swept across the featureless waters of Pentland Firth, south of Scapa Flow, and out across the Island of Stroma before making a wide, banking turn above the equally dark Scottish mainland. It was there they formed up once more with Hawk-4, the other remaining Su-30, which had been loitering to the east of the islands waiting for the opportunity to pounce in surprise upon any aircraft that might take off in pursuit of its colleague. They’d met with no success, and as the pair flew on across the blackness of the North Sea, they gave the Orkneys a wide berth before turning east once more and heading for the safety of the European Continent.

Jack Davies and Eileen Donelson were already approaching as the wail or air raid sirens began to wind down and Thorne and Trumbull climbed from the slit trench near the entrance to the Officer’s Mess in which they’d sought cover.

“Six-to-four, that was a recon flight…!” Davies snarled, out of breath as he reached Thorne’s side.

“Six-to-four on…!” Thorne replied, shaking his head. “No question at all. They just shot past at full throttle and fucked off again without so much as a ‘by-your-leave’. Christ, our advanced warning was shithouse: if that’d been an attack run we’d all be fuckin’ toasted by now!”

“Lucky us then…!” The American pilot was unimpressed to say the least. “They’ll know what we’ve got here, now!”

“Not yet they won’t: only way they could do a recce at this time of night is with infra red or image intensifying. They won’t have any real idea until they get that shit processed and researched by experts at the other end. That’ll take at least an hour after touch down, maybe two, and I’d give it another hour before anyone in charge like Reuters gets the disseminated information.”

“A lot of good that does us…!”

“Maybe — maybe not…” Thorne mused, going suddenly silent. Davies fixed him with an expectant stare: it wasn’t the reply the Texan had expected. Thorne purposefully made them wait for a moment as he thought things out before throwing a glance at Eileen.

“After the smacking Reuters got last night losing the first two Flankers, would you send another one this way without AWACS coverage?”

“Not likely…” Donelson replied in an instant. “No pilot with any common sense would be happy about going in blind: if I were that plane’s aircrew I’d want to be pretty certain we weren’t running BARCAP over the base prior to making any over flight. We haven’t had time to get our passive ELINT receivers properly calibrated yet, but I’d be willing to bet the systems on the fighters would be able to pick something up if they are out there.”

“My thinking too…” Thorne agreed. “I’ll give you any money you like, that Mainstay they picked up from the Ruskies is in the air right now and has this whole place under surveillance.” He turned his attention back to Davies. “The range of those ‘Vega’ systems is no better than 250 klicks — less than that if they want any kind of decent detail. What’s a Flanker’s operational radius?”

“‘Bout four hundred miles at low altitude, give or take…around 650 kilometres.” Davies answered after a moment’s thought. “They’ll probably be carrying extra tanks ‘though.”

“…And they’d have come in at full bore all the way! You know how much fuel those fuckers use on afterburner!” He indicated the Raptor parked on its distant hardstand with a cocked thumb. “Most people don’t have the benefit of ‘supercruise’! That Flanker would’ve been loaded with recon shit and missiles up to the eyeballs too if they had any sense, so I doubt those pricks will have much fuel left by the time they get back over the Channel, meaning…”

“…Meaning…” Davies continued, catching the gist of Thorne’s argument “…there might be an AWACS up there all on its lonesome…!”

Thorne gave a conspiratorial wink. “…And they won’t know what we’ve got here for at least two hours! That Mainstay they’re using is at least fifteen years old and it’ll be looking down. What do you give its chances of picking up a Raptor?” The question was close enough to rhetoric to not require any real answer, and Davies required no more incentive.

“I’m gone!” He stated, and turning he bellowed orders at the darkness in the direction of the F-22. “Duty sergeant: get that fuckin’ Raptor pre-flighted and fired up now!”

“You want me to run ‘de-fence’?” Thorne inquired excitedly as Davies began to move.

“No point, buddy…with two of us up there, we double the chance of being detected, and the moment they even sniff an enemy fighter headed their way they’ll hightail it back to Krautland so damn fast they’ll leave a hole in the air!” The Texan grinned, and Thorne saw the expected friendly insult coming. “Besides — you’d only slow me down! I’ve got ‘supercruise’, remember? Just get those runway lights on!”

“You got it!” Thorne snapped, breaking into a headlong run for the tower with Trumbull and the others in tow.

Toward the end of the Realtime 1970s, the Soviet Union developed an aircraft known as the Beriev A-50 Shmel (‘Bumblebee’, also known by the NATO reporting name ‘Mainstay’). This four-engined jet was an AWACS aircraft, the American-originated acronym meaning Airborne Warning And Control System. Based on the Ilyushin IL-76 ‘Candid’ commercial airframe, a huge rotodome nine metres in diameter containing a powerful radar transceiver was fitted to its back. Replacing the obsolete Tupolev Tu-126 ‘Moss’ in service it became, no pun intended, the mainstay of Russian airborne early warning for many years. Capable of controlling and maintaining surveillance over tens of thousands of square kilometres of battlefield and detecting aircraft at ranges up to 250 kilometres (dependent on the conditions), these A-50s were a huge benefit to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War.

The AWACS aircraft the New Eagles had purchased anonymously from the Russian Air Force, via the Chechen mafia, was an original model A-50 that’d been state-of-the-art in the late 1970s. Forty years later however, it had long been replaced in Russian service by more advanced, upgraded models. Acquiring that aircraft had been difficult enough, and it had proven impossible to locate a later model as the New Eagles would’ve preferred. As a result, although the aircraft they knew of as ‘Sentry’ was more than capable of dealing with day to day operations for the Wehrmacht against conventional, contemporary enemies on a 1940s battlefield, its relative lack of advanced avionics by 21st century standards was to eventually lead to its demise — although Jack Davies and his interceptor themselves also played no small part.

Jack Davies had travelled almost three hundred kilometres in the ten minutes since the F-22 had lifted off from the runway at Scapa Flow. The Raptor was capable of ‘supercruise’, a feature that meant it was powerful enough to travel at supersonic speed without the use of afterburner, making it exceptionally fuel-efficient. The aircraft’s comprehensive sensor suite had detected and identified the radar emissions of the A-50 Mainstay within seconds of take off, and he’d turned onto an intercept course immediately. With support for the reconnaissance mission no longer required, the Beriev was heading home in a leisurely fashion at an altitude far lower than Davies, and as Thorne had suspected, the aircraft’s systems were indeed predominantly ‘looking down’ for any threats. Under normal circumstances, that would’ve been sufficient at the altitude they were flying. Unfortunately for the Beriev, the circumstances that night were far from normal.

Radar waves occasionally swept across the Raptor’s stealthy fuselage and wings, but the Raptor’s own avionics were able to tell Davies how likely (or unlikely) it’d be for any searching systems to detect the F-22 based on the strength of emissions and the angle at which they struck the aircraft. So far, nothing he was picking up even came close to returning a signal, and with both aircraft now just sixty kilometres apart, Davies cruised on at Mach 1.8, closing fast on the Mainstay at a rate of thirty kilometres per minute. The Raptor carried up to eight air-to-air missiles internally, six of which were radar-guided AIM-120 AMRAAMs. He could fire one or more of those from a range of 40-50 kilometres and be basically guaranteed a hit, but that’d mean going from passive to active radar tracking for a few moments while his missiles acquired their targets. If that happened, he’d be detected instantly and he wanted to retain the element of surprise in case one of the remaining Flankers came chasing after him.

His other option was to use one or both of the Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles he also carried, and as their tracking systems were entirely passive, he could lock them onto his prey without it ever knowing he was there. The only disadvantage was that he’d have to close to around fifteen kilometres of the Mainstay to launch…even closer to be certain of a kill. There was also some benefit however, in that the first warning the Mainstay would have was at the moment the missiles streaked his weapons bays, leaving just a few seconds to try to evade and to locate their target. Davies himself felt quite cool and calculating about the whole thing rather than feeling any tension or excitement. He was a fighter pilot, and had been for the entirety of his career: what he was doing was as simple and straight forward to him as any training mission.

As he drew to within twenty kilometres, his passive IR systems also picked up a second aircraft, one that wasn’t radiating any electronic emissions. At first, he thought it might be the second of the Flankers, but he soon dismissed that idea as the pair were flying in a formation far too close and slow for the newcomer to be a fighter jet. He could now also see distant operating lights on the dark horizon before him — a lot of them — and Davies couldn’t believe his good fortune as he realised what was going on. Ahead of him, the A-50 was carrying out an in-flight refuelling from an almost identical Ilyushin IL-78 tanker.

The IL-78 ‘Midas’ was another aircraft the New Eagles had picked up from the disorganised Russian Air Force via organised crime connections, and the pair of them together was a multiple target far too attractive to ignore, especially as the tanker aircraft was as strategically important as the Mainstay in what it could provide in terms of extending the range of the two remaining Su-30MKs. Without tanker support, the Sukhoi fighters would need to stage out of Norwegian bases rather than from Germany or France if they hoped to mount an attack against Scapa Flow, and even then they’d be at the extreme edge of their range and wouldn’t be able to carry as great a load of weapons.

The Raptor carried three separate internal weapons bays. The primary bay beneath its belly could carry 900kg of bombs or up to six AIM-120 AMRAAMs, while smaller bays mounted at the side of his air intakes carried a single AIM-9X Sidewinder short-range missile each. Davies launched both Sidewinders at a range of just six thousand metres as he entered into a shallow dive, his targets still flying at a substantially lower altitude. It was only as its side bay doors opened did the F-22 become visible to radar for perhaps a second or two, vanishing once more as the hatches snapped shut again and the integrity of the Raptor’s stealthy fuselage was once more intact. It would take the pair of missiles just eight seconds to span the distance between the two sets of approaching aircraft.

The A-50 Mainstay was a large aircraft with a length and wingspan of approximately fifty metres each, a maximum take off weight of 170 tonnes, and a crew of fifteen. It wasn’t a manoeuvrable aircraft at the best of times, and at that moment its pilot was having trouble just keeping it flying level. The Mainstay was a notoriously difficult creature to refuel and the buffeting created by turbulence from the huge radar rotodome on its back when flying in close formation with a tanker aircraft was severe in the extreme. The refuelling hose that stretched between the aircraft was now barely visible as a twinkling line between them, shining brightly in the multitude of operating lights mounted at the rear of the leading tanker and wandering lazily from side to side in its slipstream.

Inside the A-50, its systems operators were relaxed, bored and ready to stand down for the day. It took a few seconds even to register the sudden appearance of two missiles so close off their tail, accompanied by the equally sudden appearance and disappearance of a mysterious launch aircraft that refused to be identified. The remaining seconds that followed were barely enough to even cry a warning to the pilot to carry out evasive manoeuvres. It was nowhere near enough time to actually do anything about the deadly heat-seekers streaking toward them, yet almost by instinct, the flight commander followed procedure and ‘dumped’ the aircraft’s masses of stored information and a data signal transmitted instantly back to their home base at the speed of light in a coded, compressed burst.

The pair of Sidewinders flicked downward from above at the last moment, homing in on the heat of one of the lead aircraft’s four engines. Each detonated by proximity fuse in sequence, just five metres above the IL-78 tanker’s broad back and shoulder-mounted wings. Blast shockwaves and fragmentation ripped through the aircraft, devastating its upper wing surfaces and igniting the fuel within. A minor explosion severed that wing between the inboard and outboard engines and the amputated segment spiralling away as the mortally wounded tanker began to slowly roll in the opposite direction, out of control and pulling away from the A-50 behind it.

Flame poured in torrents from the remnants of the shattered wing as the IL-78 turned onto its back and Jack Davies hurtled past just three thousand metres to starboard. In another moment it was all over and the entire aircraft became a fireball as the rest of its huge reserve of unused jet fuel detonated in a single huge, blinding explosion. There was no possibility of evading or surviving the blast for the crew of the A-50 Mainstay, following so close on the tanker’s tail as it was, and it too was engulfed in fire as thousands of litres of jet fuel went up in an instant.

Even for Davies, a veteran of 20 years service including several tours of Iraq, it was the largest single explosion he’d ever seen. People walking on the Scottish coast watched it from the other side of the North Sea and thought it to be a falling star, as did many in Belgium and Northern France. As the F-22 turned back toward the north-west, flaming lumps of wreckage that had a moment before been two aircraft holding two dozen human beings began their long fall to Earth and the water below.

“Eyrie, this is Phoenix-One… do you read, over?”

“We read you loud and clear, Phoenix-One…” Thorne’s voice came back through his helmet speakers in an instant. “How are things…over?”

“Splash one Mainstay and tanker, Ground Control. I repeat: splash one Mainstay and tanker support. On my way home now…I’ll keep an eye out for any gatecrashers…over and out.” Davies pushed the Raptor back into supercruise and began his flight back to Scapa Flow at almost twice the speed of sound as the burning wreckage continued to fall.

Standing by the table beside Reuters and Müller, it was Schiller who became the first of the men in that Amiens briefing room to receive news of the destruction of the A-50 and IL-78 tanker, the phone call coming direct from their group commander at Wuppertal Air Base in the moments following receipt of the Beriev’s final data burst-transmission. The usable data they’d received wasn’t much, but it was enough to confirm some of what they’d suspected regarding the composition of the force that had arrived at Scapa Flow.

As he lowered the phone and returned it to its cradle, Schiller was actually surprised he wasn’t more affected by the news. He’d been dreading a call of exactly that kind and was expecting at any moment, as were they all, to hear of the destruction of Hawk-3 over Scapa Flow. Yet the Flanker that had all but flown into the veritable jaws of the enemy and back was safe and on its way home to base, yet the AWACS aircraft they knew as Sentry, which had been hundreds of kilometres away from any danger — or so it had seemed — had instead been lost with all hands along with their vitally-important tanker.

The destruction of the Mainstay and Midas were far greater losses for New Eagles in a strategic sense, but it now somehow almost came as an anti-climax. Schiller felt the eyes of the others upon him as they watched in nervous silence: the expression on his face was enough to suggest he’d received news they didn’t want to hear.

“They’re lost…?” Reuters asked finally, meaning Schwarz and Hauser in the Flanker. His voice thick with tension, and the slow, lifeless shake of Schiller’s head struck at the Reichsmarschall’s heart as much as the reply that came with it.

“…Sentry and the tanker…” he took a breath before continuing, allowing the unthinkable situation to register in the others’ minds and sink in. “Wuppertal lost contact fifteen minutes ago at about the same time an emergency data-dump came through. The decoded information indicates they picked up a missile launch from close range — there was no time to react. They picked up nothing before that…no enemy aircraft at all…yet whatever it was launched from within twenty kilometres. There was a fleeting return from something at the moment of launch detection, but it was gone again before they could identify…” he shrugged. “Schenke and the rest of them at Wuppertal just don’t know. One moment, they were there… the next they were… gone…”

“Hawk-Three and -Four…?” Müller had to ask, but was afraid of the answer that might come.

“Probably landing as we speak…confirmed back over German airspace twenty minutes ago.” There was little relief in that small piece of good news.

“Should we send them back out…?” Müller ventured. “They’re already armed — they just need refuelling… they could follow back down the track of whatever it was and perhaps overhaul it…?” His gaze turned to Reuters as he voiced the idea, as did Schiller’s, and for a moment there was no reaction.

“No…” the Reichsmarschall finally stated with soft certainty as he met both men’s gaze each in turn, and then repeated with more volume and strength. “No…we do nothing… yet…”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Kurt?” Müller reasoned carefully. “They’ve hurt us badly…twice…in just twenty-four hours. If we let Hindsight keep the initiative now, we might actually end up with a real battle on our hands…”

“No, Joachim…” the reply wasn’t angry, but would accept no argument nevertheless. “Sending our last Realtime fighter jets back into danger against aircraft invisible to radar, without knowing exactly what they have, there would be playing even further into their hands. Raptor…F-35 Lightning…whatever they have there closed to within spitting distance of an AWACS aircraft with a radar antenna nine fucking metres wide without anyone seeing it. Those Flankers are multi-role fighters, not interceptors — one of them wouldn’t stand a chance against an F-35 in a stand up fight, let alone against a fucking Raptor!” He shook his head slowly, following his own instincts. “We wait until we get the images from the recon pod and we know what they have: if there is an F-22 out there, an entire squadron of Flankers wouldn’t be enough! When we know, we can plan properly…” a cold, vicious light glowed then in his eyes “…and we can wipe them from the face of history!”

It was late into the night by the time Davies had landed once more at Scapa Flow, his F-22 parked safely on a hardstand alongside the F-35E. Thorne was standing on the flight line awaiting his arrival, and accompanied the pilot on the long walk back to the barracks.

“Hell of a thing that,” Davies observed solemnly, thinking more about what he’d just done from a moral perspective now the adrenalin of combat had drained away. “A whole bunch of people just like you and me were in those aircraft. It’s been nearly ten years since I fired a live shot at anyone, and it don’t get any easier to take afterward.”

“Yeah it’s a real ‘We ain’t in Kansas anymore’ thing, isn’t it,” Thorne agreed with nod as they walked. “The crew of one of those Flankers I hit went up with their plane last night…they were the first people I’ve ever killed…” He gave a faint smile that held little mirth. “Part of me — the rational part — thinks ‘fuck ‘em!’…they were out to get me too, and they deserved what they got…” he shrugged “…but they’re still two people I just killed…” The smile grew a little as he decided to lighten a mood that was becoming decidedly sombre. “Anyway, fuck it…we should be celebrating your safe return and another successful effort at sticking it up Reuters and his ‘boxhead’ mates! You’ll feel a shitload better once you’ve got a few JDs into you!”

“I heard that, boy!” Davies agreed, honestly laughing for the first time. “Ain’t gonna be a few though!”

“I’ll say one thing: first thing tomorrow there are going to be some serious changes to the air defences around here!” Thorne added on a more serious note as they continued walking. “They could have had us on toast today!”

“Think we’re safe for the rest of the night…?”

“Probably…we managed to get close enough to an AWACS aircraft to smoke it without even showing a blip on their screens…that’ll keep them guessing for a few hours at least…and once they get a look at the images from their recon flight and they know for sure we have two stealthy aircraft here, they’ll know better than to come at us half-cocked. They’ll be back all right, but it’ll take time for them to mass an assault of any strength.” He shook his head in mild frustration. “We’re going to be prepared next time, whenever that may be: we’ll need to break out all the BRTs we have in store, including back ups, and get them positioned so we get damn sight more warning than that. Next time they come… and they will… we need to be ready to hit ‘em with everything we have! If we lose the Galaxy and Extender, we might as well just give up altogether!” He halted in mid step, catching Davies unprepared, as another idea caught him.

“You okay, Max?”

“Yeah, I’m fine…” Thorne answered after a moment’s thought. “I just remembered something I should take care of before I hit the mess.” He clapped a friendly hand on the Texan’s shoulder. “Go and get a few into you, mate,” he suggested, then added: “And make sure Alec Trumbull gets a few into him as well…he might need ‘em.” He left Davies with a quizzical expression on his face and began striding purposefully back toward the flight line.

Thorne found Trumbull in the officer’s mess an hour later, sharing a few quiet drinks and some lively discussion with Nick, Eileen and Jack. The Texan pilot had indeed managed to consume a more than reasonable amount of the Jack Daniels Bourbon he and Eileen had ‘somehow’ managed to stash a healthy supply of somewhere on the Galaxy. The Jack Daniels distillery had only just restarted production in 1938 following Tennessee’s delayed repeal of prohibition five years after the laws were lifted nationally, and in the Realtime United States, production of whiskey would again be banned between 1942 through to the end of the war. Under such circumstances, it was unlikely in the extreme that the pair could’ve secured some local stock, so smuggling some back from the 21st century was the most obvious explanation for its presence.

“And then…” Davies stated with the careful manner of someone quite drunk “…I pulled a ‘high yo-yo’, got back onto that camel jockey’s tail, and fired a pair of Sidewinders right up the sonuvabitch’s ass!” The Texan was acting out the aerial manoeuvres of the recounted dogfight with his hands in the fashion of drunk, bragging pilots the world over as the glass of spirits in his right fist wavered this way and that and threatened to spill spectacularly.

“Incredible…!” Trumbull exclaimed, the statement carrying the utmost apparent sincerity, as he had absolutely no clue what a ‘High Yo-Yo’, ‘Camel Jockey’ or ‘Sidewinder’ were. He was of course far too much of a gentleman to let on, so he humoured the American pilot all the same and listened intently.

“There y’are, Max…!” Eileen Donelson smiled as he entered and raised her own glass in recognition of his arrival. “Can I buy y’ a drink? Only the best…” Thorne could tell she was also a little drunk — he could always when she was drunk — and truth be told everyone in the room had consumed a little too much alcohol while celebrating their second victory in as many days against their enemy.

“I’ll pass for the moment, thanks Eileen, though I’ll definitely take you up on the offer later…”

He turned his attention to Trumbull as he neared the group, standing as they were by the crackling warmth of the fireplace. With a subtle nod of his head, Thorne drew the pilot aside

“What I would like to do right now is finish that conversation we were having earlier before we were rudely interrupted by the air raid…” There was a pause during which the RAF pilot simply nodded slowly in agreement, never once breaking eye contact. “What do you say, Alec?” Thorne asked finally, his voice filled with serious intent. “You with us…? You willing to be part of whatever it takes to get this job done…?”

“I’m in if you’ll have me…” The squadron leader answered without reservation. “I would be truly honoured to be part of all this and have the opportunity to make a contribution.” There was another pause, during which no one at all spoke. Instead, Thorne gave a single , silent nod and the pact between the two men was sealed.

“You’d better come with me then…” The Australian stated simply. “We’ve some business to attend to.”

“We do…?” Trumbull inquired, bemused by that remark and in a decidedly party-like mood himself when all was said and done, having downed enough of the whisky to ensure he was on a par with the rest of them in terms of intoxication. “What business might that be?”

“We’re gonna take a little trip,” Thorne said quickly, throwing a nod toward the door and moving that way himself.

“You’re not thinking of taking him through a jump while he’s half-pissed are you?” Alpert asked, mildly mortified as all of the others present realised what Thorne was up to.

“Can you think of a better way to go through it…?” Thorne replied pointedly, remembering his own experience of the day before quite clearly and almost shuddering at the thought.

“Cruel bastard…!” Davies grinned maliciously, only vaguely miffed that Thorne was taking away his new-found and seemingly attentive audience. As predicted, a reasonable amount of alcohol had replaced his reflective mood with more characteristic bravado.

“You want to see ‘cruel’…?” Thorne shot back quickly, unable to resist a sarcastic reply when Davies was involved. “Dig out a pair of laptops and fire up Modern Warfare Two, and I’ll show you cruel!”

“My ass…!” Davies retorted softly, but he made no indication he was interested in taking Thorne up on his challenge at multiplayer gaming.

“‘A trip’…?” Trumbull asked slowly at the same time, barely managing to place his half-filled glass on a table as Thorne guided him past it by the arm. “Where are we off to…?”

“Tomorrow,” Thorne answered glibly as they reached the door.

“Good luck, ‘Jimmy’!” Eileen Donelson muttered with a grimace of her own as the door closed behind them

Another twenty minutes and the still-bewildered squadron leader was being strapped into the rear seat of the F-35E once more, having been provided with an ill-fitting G-suit similar to the one Thorne was wearing.

“Have you ever been seasick?” The Australian asked as he secured the confused man’s harness.

“Seasick? No, I don’t suffer from that problem generally. Look, what’s–?”

“Good,” Thorne snapped, cutting him off. “You’re not likely to chuck everywhere if the flight gets a little rough, are you?”

“Certainly not…!” Trumbull replied with mild indignance after a pause, during which he managed to work out what the man meant by the term ‘chuck’. “A gentleman never drinks to such an excess!”

“Yeah, well you’d better not!” Thorne warned, feigning irritation in an attempt to conceal amusement and a building nervousness of his own regarding what they were about to do. “You barf in this cockpit and you’ll be cleaning it up yourself! God help you if you get any on me!”

A few moments later Thorne was also strapped into his own seat and engaged in running the Lightning through its start-up sequence.

“Look here…” Trumbull began, beginning to feel annoyed at being purposefully left in the dark. “What exactly is going on? What’re you up to?”

“Don’t get shitty,” Thorne grinned as he secured his flight helmet and the cockpit canopy began to close. “I won’t lead you astray.”

“You play things too bloody close to the chest sometimes, Max,” Trumbull observed with irritation, the fact that he’d uncharacteristically used a mild profanity not lost on an amused Thorne. The two men were fast becoming natural friends, but there was still a great deal Trumbull didn’t know about this enigmatic man from the future.

“So Jack Davies sometimes tells me…” Thorne quipped lightly as he kicked the engine over and a rumbling whine began to build behind them that quickly rose to a fully-fledged roar.

“Jack Davies likes telling me things too, but I don’t understand many of them…!” Trumbull offered in return with a wry smile, showing just a glimpse of a capacity for dry wit that he rarely displayed in public. “What are we doing?”

Thorne dismissed his question with another. “Are you really sure you want to help us here? You have to be certain…”

“Of course I’m certain!” Trumbull frowned, thinking the question silly. “All this futuristic stuff is like some kind of Jules Verne novel…and I’ll be getting a real shot at Jerry into the bargain! You couldn’t drag me away!”

“Okay then…that makes this trip necessary.”

As the cockpit lowered on them and sealed, Thorne released the wheel brakes and began to taxi the F-35E off its allocated hardstand and straight out onto the runway that lay directly adjacent, waiting just long enough to be reassured by the radar operator on duty that the sky ahead was clear before jamming the throttle forward. As there was no need for a short take off, he let the aircraft have its head and allowed it to build up plenty of speed before easing back gently on the stick. With no weapons and carrying only a partial fuel, the F-35E was quite lightly loaded, and as a result it practically launched into the sky without any need for afterburner. Within moments, Thorne was turning to the south-west, cruising out over the Pentland Firth at an altitude of 5,000 metres and continuing to climb.

“Commander Donelson is quite a beautiful woman,” Trumbull observed over the intercom after a long period of silence, trying to make a little conversation rather than resigning himself to sit pointlessly quiet in the rear cockpit with nothing to do.

“She’s certainly that,” Thorne agreed vaguely, concentrating more on his instruments and controls.

“She and Captain Davies seem awfully friendly…are they ‘going steady’? Is that what the Americans call it?”

“Eileen and Jack…?” Thorne scoffed, Trumbull momentarily obtaining his almost undivided attention with that one, and the RAF pilot noted how quickly and definitively the Australian returned his answer. “Christ, no…! They’re just old drinking buddies from way back. Within a week of meeting up at Hindsight, they discovered a similar passion for Jack Daniels and we haven’t been able to get a sensible word out of either of them since.”

“Hmm… that would explain the incoherence of Jack’s conversation earlier…” Trumbull mused, making another attempt at humour that was ignored. “She is an enchanting lady though…” he soldiered on, trying to get a reaction of some kind out of a distracted Thorne. “I’d consider courting her myself, were I a few years older… or she a few younger…”

“I’d be interested to see how she reacted to being ‘courted’,” Thorne said with a broad grin, finding that concept amusing and totally incongruous with his image of Eileen.

“She speaks very highly of you.”

“Well… she never was all that bright…” Thorne dismissed the statement, the rapport already growing between the two men ensuring Trumbull understood what he really meant. The remark was no slight on Eileen Donelson at all: it was instead a defence mechanism a humble man might use rather than risk the possibility of a compliment. Thorne let his answer go at that and went back to fiddling with the dials and readouts on his instrument panels, although the statement sounded as if there might be more to add.

Trumbull craned his neck to one side around the pilot’s seat in an effort to see what Thorne was doing. He could see the Australian punching information into buttons on the upper face of a strange, cantaloupe-sized apparatus mounted on a swinging arm attached to the cockpit canopy. Grey-coloured and with a scalloped surface much like that of an enlarged ‘Mills Bomb’ grenade, it appeared to have some kind of a tiny, rectangular readout on its top face.

“What are you doing? What’s that thing you’re fiddling with?”

“This, my dear fellow, is a Temporal Displacement Unit.” Thorne informed, punching in the last piece of data and pushing the throttle forward to almost full power as the aircraft levelled out at fifteen thousand metres on automatic pilot. “I’m just entering a new destination time.” It took a moment or so for that information to sink in, and as Trumbull began to make a protest Thorne added “Hold on!” and pressed the large, flashing green button on the TDU beside him.

It seemed to Trumbull that his whole world was suddenly turned inside out. Everything within the cockpit became a brilliant blue-white, and even with the aid of the helmet’s darkened visor that he hurriedly snapped down over his face, the brightness still hurt his eyes. His insides felt numb and strange, and a desire to retch indeed coursed through him, although he resisted it. His head began to spin and he could feel and hear a roaring in his ears as his blood pressure rose dramatically.

Clenching his teeth against the suddenly hostile environment, he screwed his eyes tightly shut as his hands clawed reflexively at the legs of his flight suit. A moment or so later, just when it seemed he could take no more, there was the sound of a tremendous thunderclap in his ears and the sickness and roaring sensation vanished. He gingerly opened his watering eyes and was presented only with the normal green glow of the instruments and the night sky around them.

“My God…” he whispered, feeling a little dazed and ill from the after-effects. “What was that?”

“That…” Thorne replied after a moment’s silence, his breathing equally heavy and laboured, “…was a temporal jump.” As he began to regain his senses fully, he then added: “Wait a minute before you start asking questions, ‘cause I’ve only got a very limited amount of time to sort a few things out right now!” He quickly dragged the Lightning into an 180̊ turn, banking and diving at a rate that made Trumbull’s stomach churn once more as they began to lose altitude quickly and descend toward the dark southern coast of Hoy below, near Tor Ness. “I’m going to have to drop you on the beach for a bit, but there’ll be someone along to collect you shortly. I won’t be able to hang about either way. I’ll explain everything when I see you on the ground, okay?”

“Do I have a choice?” Trumbull asked sullenly.

“Not really, Alec,” Thorne answered, genuinely apologetic. “Sorry, mate: I promise you’ll get the whole story when you’re back on land.”

Trumbull was standing and shivering on a deserted beach ten minutes later as the Lightning lifted vertically into the sky, quickly disappearing until only its blinking navigation lights were visible. It was just seconds later that he heard the sound of footsteps behind him in the sand, and he whirled to find himself instantly and completely bewildered.

“Glad I could make it on time,” Thorne grinned, standing before him holding a large, black torch in one hand. In his other he held Trumbull’s woollen flying jacket, and he tossed it to the stunned pilot. “I figured you might need this — it’s bloody cold out tonight.” The Australian wasn’t even dressed in his flight suit, instead wearing fatigues and his thick, blue parka.

“But you…!” Trumbull began as he slowly slipped the jacket over his shoulders, totally confused. “I just…!” He kept turning his head back to where he could still hear the F-35E somewhere above them, off to the south-west above the Pentland Firth.

“Calm down and I’ll explain,” Thorne said, raising a hand as a signal for silence as an intensely bright flash lit up the night sky somewhere out of sight beyond the line of the beach and the sound of the Lightning’s engine ceased abruptly. “You’re still going to be a bit disoriented by the jump anyway, so take it slowly and I’ll tell you what happened.” He jerked his head toward the top of the beach and the hills beyond. “Come on — let’s go for a walk.”

“That jump you experienced took you twenty-five hours into the future,” Thorne explained as they walked back toward a narrow, dirt track where an Austin Lichfield 10HP sedan sat waiting, its headlights off and its engine idling. “Twenty-five hours is the minimum time you can safely jump either way due to the one-day timeframe it takes for changes in history to take effect. That was why I had to move fast once we’d made the jump — I had to have enough time to get back within that twenty-four hour window and be here to meet you when you landed.”

“You mean…” Trumbull began, faltering, “…That…that I’ve travelled one day into the future?”

“Just over a day, but that’d be splitting hairs. I couldn’t turn up while you were actually being dropped off… I’m not exactly sure what happens when you ‘meet yourself’ in one timeline, but Professor Markowicz informs me it could be very nasty indeed. Cross-temporal paradoxes can produce some pretty volatile side effects, apparently.”

“‘Meet yourself?’”

“Yeah — it’s not on, apparently. There’s a more than a uncomfortable chance of an explosion that’d make Hiroshima look like cracker night!” In using the analogy, Thorne completely missed the fact that his companion would have no idea what significance the Japanese city of Hiroshima might have. “Anyway, the jump will help, seeing as you want to stay on with the unit and muck in.”

“May I ask why?” Trumbull inquired as the pair climbed into the sedan and Thorne slotted it into gear.

“You may. The reason is fairly simple, if major in its ramifications. When we overran the New Eagles’ Siberian hideout, we discovered a shitload of data they’d left behind concerning field research with one of their early TDUs, and some of those early tests with a prototype temporal field generator showed some interesting results. They sent single-celled organisms with a lifespan of just a few days into the future as little as twenty-five hours, as I just did with you, and discovered these organisms didn’t die at the end of their expected, normal period of life. They then tried the same thing with a couple of species of butterflies with a similarly short lifespan and found the same thing. The data they collected suggests that living organisms removed from their correct temporal setting don’t age the way they normally should.”

“You’re saying that you and the others — myself also, now — won’t age in the same way we might in our own times, even if I’ve been ‘displaced’ — as you call it — by only twenty-five hours?”

“I see you’re beginning to catch on.”

“How long…?”

“‘How long’ what…?”

“How long did those test specimens survive beyond their expected lifespan?” This question caused the Australian to pause for a moment before continuing.

“Indefinitely,” Thorne finally answered. “At the time of our departure from Realtime those initial test specimens we discovered in their laboratories were still in existence and showing no side effects. To all intents and purposes, we may all be immortal.”

“Live forever?” Trumbull was aghast. “There’s a terrible thought. Can the process be reversed?”

“Certainly… any specimens returned to their own time died normally. We’re also all still susceptible to accident, injury and/or foul play, although displaced specimens also appear to be impervious to introduced infections.” The sedan trundled slowly along a track that led back to the base via a kilometre or so of low, scrubby grassland and low hills, its headlights masked into narrow slots in deference to the dangers of air raid.

“So once our job is finished, you just return me and yourselves to our rightful times and we’ll continue to live as before — like normal?”

“Yes…” Thorne said slowly, but his words seemed almost evasive. “Yes, something like that.” Trumbull could see there was something Thorne wasn’t saying, but he could also see in Thorne’s eyes a look he’d seen before: one that indicated situations where there was no way the Australian was interested in elaborating. He’d broach the subject at some later stage perhaps, but Trumbull let the matter drop for the moment. As they continued on, the Australian took a folded mass of white cotton from where it had been tucked inside his own jacket and handed it to the squadron leader.

“What’s this for?” Trumbull inquired slowly, unfolding the object to discover it was a large cotton T-shirt. There was a strange design on the front that was barely discernible in the minimal illumination inside the vehicle. He was also still a little dazed by the jump and the information Thorne had given him, and couldn’t for the life of him make out what the design was.

“It’s kind of a memento — a token of recognition if you like.”

“A memento…? Recognition of what…?”

“Of your jump…” Thorne explained slowly. “All the guys who travelled here with Hindsight have one. We have a few spares left over due to a couple of last-minute withdrawals, and I figured you probably deserved one now as much as any of us. Call it an initiation into a very exclusive, potentially immortal club!”

“What on earth is the design on the front?” Trumbull asked, intrigued, and Thorne offered over the torch with his left hand. Trumbull laid the shirt out on his lap and turned the beam of the torch upon it, completely taken aback by the fantastic style of the illustration he found. The title above it read in a rather unusual style of printing:

‘SOMEWHERE IN TIME’ TOUR

Below the picture in a smaller but similar font, more printing appeared thus:

Hindsight Interception Unit

The illustration itself was something else entirely. From what Trumbull could make out, the main character was some kind of demon or devil garbed in the ragged, mid-eighteenth century uniform of the British Light Horse. It was brandishing a blood-drenched sabre over the bodies of numerous vanquished enemies, and Trumbull realised that those enemies were Wehrmacht infantry complete with field grey uniforms, Mauser rifles and stahlhelm ‘coal-scuttle’ helmets.

“What in God’s name is this supposed to represent?” The squadron leader was a number of decades too early to understand the ideology behind ‘rock concert’ tour promotions, or the humour of the parody involved in the design of the T-shirt he held.

“You probably won’t get the joke… the picture’s a reproduction of artwork from a musical group of the late Twentieth Century. It’s been modified a bit through artistic licence — not particularly legally, I might add — and it was put together by one of the guys as something Hindsight could wear that was unique. It was to be something like a ‘theatre of war’ medal in a weird kind of way — something worn only by people who’d be making the jump.”

The idea had been thought up early into the creation of Hindsight, and carried through by a British SBS officers assigned to the unit. One of the man’s favourite bands was the heavy metal group Iron Maiden, and he was also a great fan of the artwork of Derek Riggs, the artist who’d designed most of that group’s album covers and promotional posters. It was Riggs who’d created the character depicted on the T-shirt Trumbull held: the rather imposing-looking antihero, ‘Eddie’, who appeared in his various guises composed entirely of skinless sinew and muscle, exposed bones and skull with glowing, crazed eyes and a ubiquitously enraged and malevolent expression.

The picture chosen for parody was that from one of Iron Maiden’s earlier songs called The Trooper — the same song Thorne himself had been playing in the F-35E the day before — and took inspiration from the famous British Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. The picture had originally showed ‘Eddie’ as a Light Brigade trooper, sabre-in-hand and surrounded by dead Russian soldiers, and it ‘d been a reasonably simple exercise to produce a design that could be easily screen-printed in full-colour upon a clean, white T-shirt. Although certainly to the fine standard of Riggs’ original works, it’d been done well enough and had captured the hearts and minds of most of the Hindsight members.

“What kind of musical group would use a design like this?” Trumbull grimaced as he turned the shirt around and found further printing on the back:

Hindsight World Tour

‘Somewhere in Time’

England Nov 2010

England June 1940

Space had been left beneath the first two ‘tour’ listings for further entries if required, although Trumbull couldn’t have guessed at the logic behind that.

“The group…?” Thorne asked absent-mindedly, a little vague, “…the group was called Iron Maiden. They’re a heavy metal band.”

“‘Heavy metal’…?” Trumbull repeated dubiously. “Is that anything like that racy, ‘Glen Miller’ stuff?”

Thorne grinned widely — he almost laughed. “No…” he chuckled “…not really…”

7. Preparations & Developments

Orly Airfield

Paris, France

Tuesday

July 2, 1940

Carl Ritter walked alone near the taxiways of Orly Airfield that morning, tension mounting within him as he awaited the expected arrival of Reichsmarschall Reuters. As his path took him toward the planes and the main buildings, he took a moment to marvel belatedly at the new aircraft they were about to be trained in an attempt to divert his mind from his concerns. The aircraft were brand new, and ZG26 would be the first land-based geschwader to receive a complement of these new production models from Messerschmitt.

The Löwe (‘Lion’), known by military classification as the S-2, was the largest single-engined plane Reuters had ever seen. As large as the twin-engined J-110 it replaced, it could carry twice the offensive load of a Heinkel B-111, but for all that it was no bomber: this aircraft was known by a different name, and the ‘S-2’ designation was a shortened version of ‘Schlachtflugzeug Model Two’. The S-2D’s that ZG26 were about to be trained on were dedicated ground-attack and close support aircraft, and to that end the aircraft was also fast for its size. It was as fast as the RAF’s Hurricane fighter, and much faster than either the Heinkel B-111 or the Junkers B-88 that were the Luftwaffe’s main bombers. The S-2 was also much faster than the S-87 Stuka, Germany’s only Realtime close support aircraft of that period.

While fighting in the Spanish war four years ago, Ritter and his fellow pilots had been amazed at the new developments German science had given their fledgling air force, and they were now once more being amazed by new technology. Within the last six or seven months, six new types of aircraft had been introduced to the pilots of the Luftwaffe and although they’d only been tested in small-scale engagements and situations so far, their performance and capabilities foretold great things for the future.

His ears picked up the sound of distant engines, and glancing up he suddenly spied the unmistakeable bulk of an Arado transport circling in from the east on the distant skyline. As his path took him past the end of the runway, paralleling its course, he followed the aircraft’s progress with his eyes. For a while he walked carefully backward, watching as the plane turned on to a landing approach a kilometre or so west and came in low over the rooftops of Paris. Deciding he’d seen enough of the big airlifter, he turned to face forward once more, preferring to keep an eye on where he was going.

In a few moments the faint rumbling of the Arado’s powerful engines had grown to a clattering roar, and it passed above the runway as it drew level with him, the deafening sound accompanied by the buffeting backwash of the two engines’ propellers. Ritter was forced to hold on to his cap as the stench of exhaust filled the air about him for a few seconds. The aircraft’s main wheels reached gingerly for the runway surface, then touched down with the yelp of abused rubber and a puff of bluish smoke, and he instantly noted a change in the tone of the engines as the props altered pitch and they began forcing air forward to slow the Arado down. It taxied sedately to the far end of the strip, gliding between the rows of fighter-bombers to come to a halt on a large concrete hardstand outside an iron-sided hangar.

The Arado T-1A Gigant (Giant) was another of the new aircraft that had only begun to appear within the last year or so, and had only begun to frequent the front lines during the last few months. A wonderfully capable aircraft, its cargo carrying abilities far outstripped those of the venerable old Junkers tri-motor it had replaced. Not only could they carry far in excess of the ‘Aunty Ju’ over far greater distance and at much higher speed; they could also easily load and unload items as large as small vehicles or field pieces via the broad, flat loading ramp in their tail. The Arado could also carry up to forty fully equipped parachute troops, although that particular aircraft carried just a few men that morning: this was the same Arado transport that normally sat parked in the field by the Wehrmacht’s forward HQ near Amiens.

As he drew closer to that end of the strip, he watched the aircraft’s rear loading ramp begin to open. Awaiting exit at its top, four grenadiers waited patiently armed with assault rifles, and as more light began to spill into the Gigant’s interior he could also see Reuters standing behind the quartet of men, Generalleutnant Schiller beside him. Ritter was just a hundred metres away as the whining of the hydraulic ramp ceased, the lower end touching the concrete of the runway hardstand. The pair of radial engines — more powerful versions of the same type fitted to the S-2D — were silent now, their propellers feathered and motionless as the troop of six men walked briskly down the ramp and out into the morning sunshine.

It took a moment or so for the converging groups to cover the distance, Ritter’s mind spinning wildly as the moment of truth drew ever closer. His point-of-no-return was truly past, and as the four guards separated and fanned out to assume points of surveillance covering 360º, Ritter found himself confronted by an extremely dour Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht. The Commander-in-Chief wasn’t in a particularly pleasant mood, the loss of two Flankers and the Mainstay and tanker aircraft over the previous few days having contributed primarily to Reichsmarschall Reuters’ foul temperament.

These were the foremost subjects dominating Reuters’ thoughts as he and Schiller halted before Carl Ritter in the middle of that concrete taxiway, although their meeting that morning was nevertheless causing some emotional discomfort. Reuters remained mildly aloof, something clearly noted by Ritter, and stood a pace or two behind Schiller. Carl came to attention as they met, presenting a stiff, regimental salute that the generalleutnant returned.

“Oberstleutnant Ritter,” Schiller acknowledged in greeting, extending his hand in a forthright manner that belied the nervousness and tension behind the action. As Ritter accepted the hand immediately, he failed to notice the apprehension on Reuters’ face as he watched intently for some sign of a similar reaction to that which he’d experienced shaking the pilot’s hand two days earlier. None was forthcoming, the contact being completely normal, and both of the New Eagles commanders were quite relieved. Schiller almost sighed visibly as a release of tension.

“I must apologise for this unorthodox request; I realise the pressure this places the Reichsmarschall under. I don’t doubt there must be many things of national importance which require his attention this morning.”

“More than you could imagine, I think,” Schiller added wryly, the irony of the statement lost on Ritter, although it caused Reuters to smirk slightly despite himself. There were many times he’d told Schiller that the man’s sense of humour was far too irreverent, and there were equally as many times that sense of humour had been invaluable during moments of great stress or tension. “The Reichsmarschall is required at Berchtesgarden this evening for an important meeting with The Führer — it’s taken some serious replanning for us to come here to speak with you. As a result, it’d be appreciated if we could take care of whatever it is you require immediately.”

“Of — of course,” Ritter began, stammering slightly. Dealing through Schiller rather than directly with Reuters was unexpected and somewhat difficult. “If the Reichsmarschall will remember, I spoke to him yesterday of the incident at the farmhouse near the St. Omer airstrip. I informed him that a boy living at the house was still missing at that time.”

“I’ve been acquainted with the situation,” Schiller nodded slowly, feigning neutral disinterest.

“Well, sir — the boy’s been found. I have both he and his infant brother in nursing care at present, and I must ask a favour of the Reichsmarschall in providing identification papers and citizenship for them both. It’s my intention to send the boy to Köln to live in the custody of my wife until such time that a suitable family can be found for him.”

“You’ve called me here to help you adopt the children of a French Resistance agent?” Reuters demanded angrily, suddenly involving himself directly and completely in the discussion. He came forward to draw level with Schiller, spitting the words out with such speed and vehemence that Ritter was almost forced to take a step backward in surprise. “You demand the attention of the Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht in order to help two orphaned boys?”

“The — the boys have no other family, close or otherwise,” Ritter shot back, becoming instantly defensive and a little angry. “His father — now his mother, too — have been killed by ‘the Nazis’, as he called them: killed because of the Führer’s war…because of your war…” he paused for a moment, fury rising in his eyes as he stared down the highest-ranking officer in the Wehrmacht “…killed because of our war…!” Reuters was forced to glance away at that remark, the fire in his own eyes diminishing as the pilot’s words hit home. “You told me there was a place for honour in Germany! If there’s honour anywhere, then help me do this! How should you feel if this boy were your son? What would your feelings be then? Were it my own son, I’d ask for no less!”

Upon hearing these words, Reuters turned sharply away with a gasp, as if struck. He sagged back, taking a few steadying paces while regaining his composure.

“A moment of privacy if you’ll indulge us, Herr Ritter,” Schiller said softly, placing a hand on the pilot’s shoulder.

“Of course,” Ritter nodded curtly, turning and stepping back a few paces. Schiller also turned, moving to his commanding officer’s side.

“You’re all right, Kurt?” He placed an arm about the man’s shoulders as he spoke. “That was an unfortunate remark, to say the least.”

Reuters shook his head slowly. “How could he know?” He reasoned softly, his voice thick with emotion. “That pain is many years away in a future that’ll never exist. Many things may not happen now in the future we’re creating for our country. Neither of us may be born in this new world.”

“Perhaps a good thing,” Schiller chuckled under his breath. “Do you think even the Wehrmacht could cope with two of me?” As he gained a strained laugh from his commander, he added: “I think it’s better if you do this thing for him. It’s unorthodox to say the least, but he’s right in the end. We’re not Nazis, Kurt, despite what those shits from the UN Security Council labelled us with. I saw how much releasing that SS bastard, Stahl upset you! At least let Ritter do this for the children. Where would you have been if old Heini hadn’t taken you out of that boys’ home after your mother died?”

“All right — all right…!” Reuters growled, straightening. “You’ve made your point. Müller warned me how fucking crazy this place was going to become once we started screwing about that saying the Americans used to have? I think they called it ‘SNAFU’…” Schiller mused rhetorically, thinking for a moment and switching to English f to gain full effect. “‘Situation Normal — All Fucked Up!’!”

“Amen to that!” Reuters agreed in German, turning back toward the waiting pilot and calling him closer with a gesture of his hand. “Herr Oberstleutnant…”

At mention of his name, Ritter whirled and faced the Reichsmarschall, decidedly less angry and again more concerned over how the OdW would react to his insubordination. He took four long strides and returned to his original position before the men.

“I’ve considered your request, Herr Ritter and have decided to grant it. You’ll keep the children with suitable nursing staff on base for the moment. I’ll have the details taken care of, and make the requisite paperwork available within a day or so. Included in this will be travel permits and papers for your wife to come to Paris and collect the boy. How long is it since you’ve seen your wife?”

“It — it’s been some time, sir,” Ritter answered hesitantly, a little shell-shocked by the Reichsmarschall’s complete turnaround, “…almost a year, now.”

“It’ll be good for you to see each other also, then. I’ll arrange a week’s leave for you to enjoy the sights of Paris — I don’t expect there’ll be any great need for your unit during the next month.” Even as Ritter struggled to assimilate this incredible information, Reuters added: “I must also apologise for my earlier reaction, Herr Oberstleutnant: the outburst was uncalled for and unbecoming an officer of the Wehrmacht. If you’ve nothing further to add, I must now take my leave of you — I now have a great deal more to do this morning than I’d originally planned.”

“No, sir — there’s nothing else I require…I cannot thank the Reichsmarschall enough for what you’ve done already.”

“In that you’re probably correct,” Schiller observed with quick certainty as Reuters began to walk back toward the transport, deciding to at that point make an important statement regarding the pilot’s currently precarious position. “You realise that you could quite easily be court-martialled for what’s occurred here today?”

“Yes, sir — I’m aware of that.”

“Very well, then: I suggest you keep that in mind. The Reichsmarschall is a generous man at heart and it’s my job, as his aide, to ensure that’s not taken advantage of. I’d like it understood that in my opinion, your ‘quota’ of favours with the Reichsmarschall is, for the moment, run quite dry. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir — quite clear…”

“Excellent! Let’s leave it at that for now. Oh yes,” he remembered suddenly, “the boys’ names?”

“Of course: Antoine and Curtis St. Clair…five years of age and approximately eight months respectively.”

“Very well, then. Good day, Oberstleutnant Ritter…” Schiller saluted formally, bringing the pilot to attention before him. He turned and left the flier where he stood as he returned the salute, the four grenadiers moving to follow immediately.

That left Ritter standing by himself in the middle of the concrete runway, arms hanging loosely by his sides as he attempted unsuccessfully to make head or tail of the Reichsmarschall’s strange behaviour. Of the man’s military genius there was no doubt — the current spate of victories across Western Europe and in Poland were witness to that — and Ritter could only assume that with that kind of genius there also came a certain ‘eccentricity’. For a moment he thought about the children that currently lay sleeping in his quarters, and as he began to walk slowly back toward the main dormitories and mess buildings off to the north he could have no idea of what enormous events that would occur as a result of the path in history he’d unsuspectingly begun to carve for himself.

As the Gigant thundered skyward once more a few moments later, Reuters sat in silence in his specially-fitted office at the front of its spacious cargo bay. His comfortable, well-padded chair carried a seat belt and was fixed to the floor of the plane, but it also doubled as an executive chair for the large, wooden desk bolted down in front of it. Schiller sat in one of the equally-comfortable flight chairs on the other side of the desk, regarding his commander and friend with a concerned eye.

“It appears that we’re not in Kansas any longer, little Toto…” he observed, using a little more depth of understanding than he usually felt necessary as his mind drew on the same metaphoric saying Thorne had alluded to a few nights before. It was a few seconds before Reuters, lost in another world within his own mind, realised someone was speaking. His eyes refocussed on the man before him.

“Hmm…?” He asked finally, shaking his head a little to clear his wandering thoughts. The office area was well soundproofed, and they were able to speak at a comfortable level. “Yes…” he added thoughtfully. “We are, it also seems, about to experience our first taste of real opposition.”

The reconnaissance pod Hawk-3 had brought back to Wuppertal had indeed taken some excellent pictures — pictures that had provided Reuters, Schiller, Müller and others with rude and unwelcome confirmation of exactly what they’d feared. From those photographs and what little information had been gleaned from the last data-transmission of the Sentry, they’d been forced to reassess the nature of the threat that Hindsight posed.

“Pre-programming the TDUs and providing the pilots with no prior knowledge of the destination time obviously gave us a little breathing room, otherwise we’d have come across them before now,” Schiller observed thoughtfully. “Fortunate indeed those things were designed to automatically clear their data after a jump.”

“We’ve been sloppy all the same,” Reuters snapped, more than a little angry as he considered the loss of four irreplaceable jet aircraft. “We’ve had seven years of getting things our own way, and that’s suddenly and quite unpleasantly changed in an instant. We — I — didn’t take that into consideration and I should have. Because of my failure, we’ve lost vital resources we can ill afford to lose, and I’ll guarantee you it’ll seriously weaken our position with The Führer.”

“With all we’ve already done for him?” Yet Schiller’s voice carried no conviction; he knew as well as Reuters of Adolf Hitler’s fickle accordance of trust in those who failed him, even slightly.

“And what about the Flanker crew that ejected over Dorset?”

“We’ve a good system of agents throughout the British Isles, and have done for some time. The pilots know that and they’ll head for the nearest pick up zone as their briefings instructed in the ‘unlikely’ event of them being shot down,” Schiller shrugged, deciding there was no point in worrying about events that couldn’t be altered. “Our operatives will either extract them, or dispose of them if extraction isn’t a viable alternative…” His voice trailed off momentarily as he caught his friend’s attention waning, Reuters’ eyes losing focus once more. “But that’s not the issue right now, is it, Kurt…?”

“No…” Reuters answered after a long pause, unwilling to admit the truth. “I suppose it isn’t…”

“We discussed this aspect of the mission before displacement, Kurt…many times. We always knew these kinds of anomalies were possible…even probable.”

“I always thought extraterrestrial life was possible, Albert, but that doesn’t mean I’m prepared to meet a bug-eyed monster this very afternoon!” The Reichsmarschall countered with a slight, ironic smile. “What the hell’s going to happen now? General Wever died in an air crash in ‘Thirty-Five in Realtime, and the Luftwaffe’s strategic bomber program was basically terminated as a result. We made sure he didn’t get on that bloody plane, and he dies in a car crash anyway, almost to the hour. We’ve replaced Fritz Todt, hoping Speer can perhaps get things moving more efficiently and a lot earlier, but will Todt also still die next year in the same way he did in Realtime?” There was a pause as he took a breath. “What the hell will happen in four years time when men like…” he halted, unable to speak the word that was his first choice “…men like Ritter… or Von Stauffenberg… originally found it necessary to take such drastic action? Will these men of the ‘Forty-Four bomb plot still be desperate enough to try and assassinate The Führer if Germany is winning…if we’re still winning by then?”

“Of course we’ll be winning, Kurt. Stop being such a bloody pessimist and get a grip on yourself!” Schiller gave a chuckle at the negative streak his friend almost always fell prey to in moments of indecision. “This’ll all be over in Europe by the end of the year, mark my words! Give us a few years beyond that to stabilise and reinforce, and we can seriously take a crack at the Bolsheviks on their own as Hitler really wants, with the help of the Japanese from the east. Russia’s already a pariah in the West because of their treaty with us — no one’s going to come to their aid when the time comes…” he grimaced, adding: “…assuming of course that we can stop the Japs from fucking things up by starting a war in the Pacific…”

Albert Schiller released his seat belt and stood, moving to the desk and placing both hands upon it as he leaned in toward Reuters. It aided the exorcising of his own personal demons while helping his friend and commander banish his.

“What happened ‘Before’ no longer exists, Kurt! Think of it! The Cold War, The Wall, Glasnost, Perestroika and all that shit’s gone, now! No more Khruschev, Kennedy, Reagan or fucking Gorbachev! They don’t exist…we don’t exist anymore! Consider for a moment how liberating that is!” Schiller grinned with his characteristically irreverent humour, squashing the fears and pain that tried to rise in his heart and forcing himself to believe what he was saying. “The moment we landed here all those years ago, everything changed. Nothing of what we knew from the future exists anymore. All these things and people may look and sound like the ones we knew or read about in school, but they’re all different somehow because of us.” He threw an outstretched and accusatory finger in the general direction of Carl Ritter and the airfield they’d left behind as his next words struck right at Reuters’ core. “That man back there is never going to try to kill the German Chancellor…and he’s no longer your father, nor will he ever be…!”

HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Morning broke in relative quiet over the Home Fleet anchorage and the inland Hindsight airbase complex to the south-west. No air raids disrupted the ongoing preparations being carried out, and in spite of their own wishes, Davies and Thorne were allowed to sleep in. In light of how much all had eventually drunk the night before, it was something for which they were ultimately grateful, and it was past ten by the time Thorne was shaken awake by Trumbull.

“Trouble…?” He asked groggily, sitting up and struggling to open his eyes.

“That depends on your point of view,” the squadron leader countered with a smile, shaking his head. “We had another arrival a few minutes ago carrying a message from Whitehall.”

“They took their time about it,” Thorne observed grumpily, finally awake and ruffling his hair. “Nick’s been expecting an official response since we bloody-well landed. Have you seen the message?”

“I — I suppose I have, yes…” Trumbull admitted, but his uncertain tone misled Thorne as to the reason behind the feigned concern: exactly what Trumbull was mischievously after.

“Well, what did they have to say?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Trumbull mused as the barest hint of a smile began to creep across his features. “Perhaps it might be better if you asked them yourself!”

“What…?” Thorne felt the nasty tingle of apprehension rise at the back of his neck. “What’re you talking about?”

“Take a look, Max…” Trumbull explained, gesturing to the window by Thorne’s cot, and the Australian quickly leaped across to it, his breath instantly catching in his throat in surprise.

Attached to the eastern side of the mess, the officers’ quarters were built to house close to thirty men, although they barely held a dozen at the present time. The windows Thorne were staring through looked out across the runway from the inside of the ‘reversed-L’ shape of the building. A hundred metres away, he could see a De Havilland Dragon Rapide short-range airliner parked at the near end of the runway, dwarfed by the giant aircraft in the distance. It sported the standard RAF Temperate Land Scheme of large dark green and dark earth camouflage patches, and in the foreground beside it, no more than thirty metres away, eleven people in various uniforms stood clustered together. Four of the group were Alpert, Green, Kowalski and Eileen Donelson, however it was the other seven present that caused Thorne to draw a sharp breath, and he recognised each and every one of them.

“My God,” Thorne whispered softly as he realised the desperate importance of the next few hours. He’d be meeting some of the greatest figures in history itself and would be expected, to all intents and purposes, to deal with them as something of an equal.

“Brigadier Alpert and Commander Donelson are escorting them to the Officer’s Mess, so I expect you’ll have enough time to put something on over your underwear,” Trumbull observed with amusement as Thorne continued to stare out through the window. Only as Thorne glanced down in reaction to the pilot’s words did he realise that he was wearing just the silk boxer shorts he’d slept in. He also realised how cold the morning still was in spite of the pot-bellied stove crackling softly at the far end of the bed-lined room.

“Uh, yeah…” he agreed sheepishly, blushing slightly. “Yeah, good call!” He turned to reach for a robe hanging by his bed as Trumbull frowned at the terminology he’d used. “Guess I can’t meet the most notable English political and military figures of the twentieth century without my gear on, eh?”

“Yes,” Trumbull mused thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “I expect that should be an extremely…bad call?” He met Thorne’s glance at the use of the unfamiliar paraphrase with a single raised eyebrow and they both grinned.

Thorne knew he was holding things up as he finished dressing himself twenty minutes later. He was as nervous as he’d ever been in his entire life, knowing that the decisions made that day were in all likelihood going to effect the lives of every one of the personnel who’d arrived in that era with the Hindsight Unit, not to mention the entire population of the United Kingdom and to the rest of the world in a long term sense. As he stood in front of the mirror in the tiny bathroom attached to his quarters, Thorne almost gave a grimace at the uniform he wore. It was quite old — something he’d not worn in fifteen years — but it was immaculate and in fine condition nevertheless, and he was quite inwardly proud that in his mid-forties he could still comfortably fit into it. As a final touch, he snugged the officer’s cap down over his old RAAF Squadron Leader’s dress uniform and nodded approvingly to himself.

The seven men who’d arrived on the aircraft outside were standing by the fireplace and engaged in conversation with the six ‘officials’ of the Hindsight unit as Thorne entered the mess a few minutes later, and if any of his colleagues felt the same nervous terror he was feeling within, they were doing a fine job of concealing it. All eyes turned in his direction as he entered, causing him to halt momentarily before stepping forward to join the group. Each of the eight men present were vital to Hindsight’s continued existence and ultimate success in their own way, and Thorne recognised and revered each and every one of them as the significant figures in modern history (as he knew it) that they genuinely were.

Standing to one side of the group were three tall men, each representing one of the services of the British Armed Forces. Wearing dress whites was Admiral Sir John Tovey, commander of the Fleet Home Forces and the man who’d commanded (Was yet to command? Thorne’s mind threw in to be difficult) the successful pursuit and subsequent destruction of the Bismarck — something that was now extremely unlikely to happen at all under current circumstances. Fifty-five years of age, he was a tall, solid man with a serious face, sharp eyes and a shallow, greying widow’s peak of hair above a broad forehead.

In the middle of the trio stood General Sir John Dill, Chief of Imperial General Staff, ADC to the King, and military commander of the British Army. Born on Christmas Day of the year 1881 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, he’d set his sights on a military career from a very early age. Following attendance at Royal Military College Sandhurst, Dill had received a commission as a second lieutenant in 1901, just in time to see action in the Second Boer War. Well-respected in Britain and abroad, he was a capable officer with a gifted ability for instruction and had served the army well for almost forty years.

Standing beside Dill was a man as recognisable to Thorne as any in that room. Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding remained almost aloof from the proceedings, turning to utter a word or two here and there as conversation was directed his way, but seeming to have a barely-disguised desire to be ‘somewhere else’. Thorne suspected that was more than likely: a hero and inspired leader in the eyes of many historians of Thorne’s time, ‘Stuffy’ Dowding had made few friends with the superiors of his own time. On more than one occasion he’d gone so far as to alienate Churchill himself in pursuit of a course of action he believed correct.

At the beginning of the war, Dowding had already been under extension of planned retirement due to the emergency at hand, and in an unaltered historical timeline he’d subsequently be vilified by the RAF hierarchy and summarily dismissed following the end of the Realtime Battle of Britain. His huge contribution to the defeat of the Luftwaffe over England would go largely ignored and pushed aside in Government publications following the Battle, and in this almost criminal treatment of the man who more than any other had single-handedly masterminded the aerial defence of the United Kingdom, Churchill must’ve been at least sympathetic if not directly involved. It was said that due to Dowding’s abrasive and cautious nature he wasn’t well liked by the Prime Minister, and the fate of those Prime Minister Churchill disliked could at times be all too final and abrupt.

Indeed, Sir Winston Churchill seemed to be barely tolerating the Air Chief Marshal’s presence as he stood close by with the remaining three arrivals. Thorne almost laughed in disbelief at the reality of a man so similar in appearance to the caricatures of history. Even though he wore an army Field Marshal’s uniform rather than his usual suit and hat, he was ‘in character’ with the half-chewed cigar clenched between his teeth. The uniform, although of note, didn’t surprise Thorne. It was well known that Churchill liked to consider himself the overall ‘Chief’ of the war effort, often using the uniform of one of the three services to illustrate that point, and in a way it made the Australian a little relieved: it indicated the Prime Minister was taking the whole thing quite seriously indeed.

Beside Churchill and slightly to the rear of the group was Brigadier Stewart Menzies, the Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service and often referred to only as ‘C’ in official circles, the letter being the traditional codename for the head of MI6. Also in his fifties, he was a man with intense and intelligent eyes, receding dark hair and a trimmed moustache. A man who in his youth had excelled at hunting and running in addition his studies at Eton, Menzies had joined the Grenadier Guards straight out of school and served in France during the First World War. Seeing combat in numerous engagements, including the First and Second Battles of Ypres (during which he was wounded for a second time in a gas attack), he’d received the Distinguished Service Order from King George V personally.

Almost side by side with Menzies and seemingly as comfortable in remaining detached from the rest, Sir Richard Trumbull KCB, KCMG, MC appeared just as happy to remain an observer rather than contributor to the conversations going on in the room. Although a good half-head shorter than Alec and far more heavyset, Thorne could nevertheless clearly see the resemblance to his son. British Under-Secretary of State for War, Richard Trumbull was also a close personal friend of Churchill’s and had historically been considered one of the Prime Minister’s most trusted personal advisors and confidantes. Upon his original arrival in 1939, Nick Alpert had brought with him a reel of film intended purely for Richard Trumbull’s viewing: a film that the 85-year-old Laurence of 2010 had also had a hand in preparing. It had been instrumental in Alpert’s securing the attention and support of the man who held influence over someone soon to become Prime Minister in that first desperate year of war, and had paved the way for provision of the facilities they were now using as a result.

The last of the newcomers present had caused the most consternation among those of the Hindsight team present, and indeed also created a great deal of excitement for the ground crew attending to the aircraft they’d arrived in. At forty-six, he was the youngest of the group by a number of years and looked it. Perhaps not quite as tall as most of the others, he was nevertheless a tall man who stood straight and strong in a beautifully-tailored Savile Row suit jacket and trousers. Despite his age, there still seemed to be a youthful, almost boyish innocence in the man’s features, although Thorne also thought he could make out a deep sadness in the man’s eyes. Considering what he’d learned from Nick following his arrival, he could understand the source of the melancholy, and truth be told, Max Thorne could empathise all too well.

He pushed dark thoughts of his own past aside in that moment however and stepped forward to officially greet King Edward VIII.

“Your Majesty,” he spoke the soft reverence one would expect in meeting a monarch, and as he drew near, Thorne lowered his head in a gentle bow.

“Please, Mister Thorne…no need for formality here,” Edward replied immediately, raising a hand dismissively. “It’s we who are your guests here, and you honour us with your presence today.” There was honesty and directness in the man’s voice and eyes, and his manner instantly put Thorne at ease, making his job substantially less difficult. “From what Brigadier Alpert has been telling us over the last year, you’ve all come a terribly long way in more ways than one, and the amazing aircraft you have outside clearly confirm that.”

“That’s certainly true, Your Majesty,” Thorne nodded, managing an almost-relaxed grin, “and we’re grateful for the warm welcome! Has everyone been properly introduced?”

“Although we’ve all spoken briefly, we’ve been awaiting your arrival to begin official proceedings… please, dear fellow, feel free to take the conversation in any direction you choose: after setting our eyes upon the technology you have out there, we’re all eager to learn more.”

“Of course, Sire,” Thorne nodded once in recognition of the gently worded directive, and extended an encompassing arm as a gesture to all. “Your Majesty, Mister Prime Minister, General Dill, Air Chief Marshal Dowding, Admiral Tovey, Lord Trumbull, Brigadier Menzies: my name is Max Thorne, and as designated commander of this unit, I thank you all for the support you’ve provided in what we have here at Scapa Flow.” He moved around the group, all turning with him, and moved across to join his own team, singling out each one in turn. “Brigadier Alpert you already know, of course. May I also introduce Commander Eileen Donelson, Royal Navy; Colonel Robert Green, Australian Special Air Service; Doctor Hal Markowicz PhD, nuclear physicist; Captain Jack Davies, United States Air Force; and Colonel Michael Kowalski, United States Marine Corps. Between us, we constitute the ‘officer cadre’ of the Hindsight Interception Unit.” He took a deep breath. “Now, if everyone has a drink, shall we all sit down and have a little chat?”

With a single, silent nod of approval from The King, they all took chairs and formed a large circle at the centre of the room around several low tables, some of the Hindsight group sitting in a second row behind.

“Our unit…” Thorne continued, Alpert and Donelson seated at his left and right, “…was brought into being by the United Nations’ Security Council in August of the year Two Thousand and Nine AD. The United Nations of our era is an organisation not unlike your League of Nations, and came into being following the successful conclusion of the Second World War.” That information was received well by their guests, and he went on after a pause and a breath. “This unit was specifically created and sent back to your time to combat the intentions of a group of Neo-Nazis from the beginning of our new century who wished to change the course of history. As you can gather from the appearance of the aircraft we have out there…” he gestured again with a sweep of his hand, this time toward the mess windows facing the flight line “…the technology of the Twenty-First Century is far in advance of that of this era. Since our arrival we’ve already discovered in just a few days that this organisation of Nazis — called ‘New Eagles’ — has indeed begun to upgrade German military technology and alter the course of history.”

There was little surprise at that, as all the men present had been briefed on what to expect, and Churchill’s eyes fairly gleamed as Thorne spoke these words. It’d been he who’d secretly proposed the backing of Alpert’s operation when the man had first been brought before him by Richard Trumbull a year earlier. Fantastic as the man’s story had been, it’d been convincing enough for a soon-to-be Prime Minister faced with a seemingly unstoppable enemy to take a chance. He was now incredibly relieved that the story had been borne out by the unit’s arrival.

“Mister Thorne…” The Prime Minister cut in, dragging the cigar from the side of his mouth and silencing Thorne instantly. “The primary question on all our minds here today is quite straight forward…may I ask you, sir: will the Germans invade Great Britain?”

Thorne paused. “…In my world? No, sir — they did not. Operation ‘Sealion’ — as it was called — was delayed numerous times and eventually postponed indefinitely on the 17th of September of this year. Air Chief Marshal Dowding’s fine air defence strategy, sir, along with the good fortunes of war itself ensured that RAF Fighter Command was never beaten.” Dowding allowed himself a thin smile as he heard those words. “With the RAF triumphant, defeat of the Royal Navy or the subsequent safe transit of German landing craft couldn’t be guaranteed, and Sealion was never realised.” He continued quickly as Churchill made as if to speak once more. “Unfortunately, sir, the problem is that this is no longer the course of history as my men and I were taught. It seems that the RAF is indeed on the brink of defeat as a fighting force due to the new tactics and technology brought to the Wehrmacht by this New Eagles group. Reuters and his boys’ll be making sure Germany wins, this time.”

“‘Reuters’, you say?” Dowding inquired slowly, thinking carefully over the statement. “Would you mean Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters — Commander of the German Armed Forces?”

“Yes sir, I’ve been informed that’s indeed his rank within the Wehrmacht , and understandably so considering the impact he’s had and will have on the course of an entire world war.” He grinned as Dowding nodded imperceptibly. “In our correct version of history — what we call ‘Realtime’ — it was Göring who was promoted to that rank following the end of the campaign in France.”

“Are you saying, Mister Thorne, that you expect the Germans to invade England?” That was from General Dill, and again Thorne was forced to pause, unhappy with the answer he truthfully had to give in this case.

“Yes sir, I believe that’s a certainty. As you’ll all see in the film documentaries we’ve prepared, the failure of the Wehrmacht to conquer the RAF and subsequently invade Great Britain was probably the one mistake — in my opinion at least — that cost them the war more than any other…save perhaps an premature and ill-advised invasion of the Soviet Union in the middle of 1941.” Alpert had been sparing in his provision of information on the future, and that statement raised an eyebrow or two. “There’s no way Reuters will allow them to make that mistake, this time.”

“Do you, as a group, intend to stop these New Eagles and save the British Empire?” Tovey spoke this time, leaning forward in his chair and asking the most difficult question so far.

“In an immediate sense, Admiral, I’m not certain there’s anything our unit can do to stop Operation Sealion going ahead should our enemy be sufficiently determined. In truth, it was quite likely the Germans could have taken England anyway in Realtime, should they have established a beachhead here. With hindsight and improved technology handed to them from Reuters and his men, there’ll be no way we could hold them off.”

“Are you telling me the aircraft out there with their obviously incredible capabilities could do nothing?” The admiral was more than a little annoyed at the answer he’d received — indeed none of the seven had liked hearing their greatest immediate fears affirmed by someone purporting to have knowledge of the future.

“Sir, I’m sure you’ll be able appreciate the problems we have before us. Certainly the two fighters — the Lightning and the Raptor — could inflict heavy damage upon any invasion force…but at what cost? As advanced as they are, any aircraft is vulnerable to sufficient volumes of anti-aircraft fire.” Thinking of the example of the RAF’s Tornado pilots who’d flown in Desert Storm, Davies nodded at the truth of that from his seat behind Alpert. British aircraft losses had been dramatically higher than those of the USAF purely because no matter how fast the aircraft or how good the pilot, flying at 200 feet rather than 40,000 meant there was nothing one could do when flak flew up in front of the aircraft.

“Also, sir…” Thorne continued, “…despite these aircraft’s great technological superiority, a sufficient number of conventional Luftwaffe fighters would still be able to overwhelm and destroy them. With a combat wing of either aircraft type we might defend England quite comfortably — provided the support systems were available, which they’re not — but two aircraft would at best prolong the inevitable…and not prolong it all that much. It’d be a terrible waste of those aircraft to lose them in such a futile gesture.”

“What do you suggest we do then?” The King asked that simple question, drawing all attention to him immediately.

“For that answer, I’ll pass you over to our resident weapons and engineering expert — Commander Eileen Donelson. Commander…”

Eileen had spent her entire adult life in the service of the Royal Navy, and during that time she’d studied extensively in the fields of engineering, mechanics and design. Her speciality was military hardware of all types, and there were few people of either gender who knew their stuff better. That fact was well known to Thorne, and he’d been a very close friend for some time. It’d been Thorne who’d personally demanded her inclusion on the Hindsight team.

The appearance of a woman in full naval uniform — not that of the WRNS (the Women’s Royal Naval Service) — had initially created mild interest among the men, particularly Tovey, but Donelson had consciously ignored it. Even in her era she’d been accustomed to some degree of discrimination lingering within the armed forces, and she’d been fully briefed on what to expect regarding attitudes to women in general in the 1940s.

“Gentlemen…” she began seriously in her Glasgow accent, ignoring the almost derisive expressions that momentarily spread across some of their faces. “As Mister Thorne here has already told you, my name is Commander Eileen Donelson. You may all be a little surprised at my uniform, so allow me to explain. In my era, women in the armed forces of the United Kingdom — as in many other ‘First World’ countries — are expected to serve in exactly the same roles as their male counterparts. We serve in combat situations and operate at every level as would any man. At the point in which we left the Twenty-First Century, women fly combat aircraft. One is executive officer on the carrier Illustrious. I can assure you, gentlemen, that I can perform the duties as well as any equivalent male in the Royal Navy, if not better.” Her prepared, ‘equality speech’ delivered, she got down to business before the shock wore off and they began throwing questions at her.

“Your Majesty, Mister Prime Minister, gentlemen…we’ve a very serious problem confronting us in regard to defence against probable invasion of Great Britain. As Mister Thorne’s pointed out, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to prevent the Germans landing on English soil. I’d also point out to you that should the Wehrmacht establish a solid beachhead anywhere on the English coast, there’s very little chance Britain could be saved from being conquered utterly.” This statement caused something of a small uproar among the military men as they voiced their disapproval of the words simultaneously. Only the Prime Minister and the King remained silent, both watchful and deep in thought.

“Gentlemen, please!” Donelson continued with a confident firmness that didn’t go unnoticed by Churchill or Edward. “As unpleasant as the idea is, all of you must accept the strength of the German War Machine. The total destruction of the French and the capture of Lord Gort’s forces at Dunkirk should be evidence enough. If they do come, all we can hope to do is prolong the inevitable as long as possible, and give them a damned good bloody nose in the process!”

“Exactly how do you suggest we do that, my dear?”

“Mister Prime Minister, in the cargo hold of one of those aircraft out there is a device known as a computer. If none of you are aware what that is — and that’s more than likely — then I’ll explain. The Oxford Dictionary of our time defines a computer as an ‘automatic electronic apparatus for making calculations or controlling operations that are expressible in numerical or logical terms’. What they actually do with varying degrees of capability and efficiency is process commands and information at speeds far beyond the abilities of human beings. They can’t make decisions, but when given a set of parameters within which to operate and sufficient information, they can work out all kinds of mathematical and logical problems in a fraction of the time it takes people to do the same task. The one we’ve got in the cargo hold out there is basically a repository for a huge amount of technical data.

“We’d originally hoped to arrive in your time just before the New Eagles in order to intercept them prior to them making contact with the Nazis here, but it’s turned out this hasn’t been possible. As a contingency plan to counter this exact eventuality, we’ve been provided with selected pieces of technical information — basically blueprints and plans of key pieces of technology — and have them stored on the hard drives of our computer. It’s kind of a scaled-down version of what the New Eagles will have done for the Germans, although we believe they also took back quite a number of actual examples, something that would’ve sped up the development process substantially in some areas. Some of us believe we’re wasting our time here, and that we should relocate immediately to somewhere safe, but a few others, myself included, feel differently about that. If the Nazis give us a bit o’ time, gentlemen — enough time to get a few bits and pieces into production — then we might be able to do a fair job of slowing ‘em down a little.”

“Might we ask what sorts of ‘bits and pieces’?” General Dill was beginning to warm to the subject.

“Gentlemen… no doubt you’ve already heard reports from the French, and your own forces in France regarding the German infantry’s use of a new type of rifle. We believe these sturmgewehrs — assault rifles –Nick has told us about here are definitely a development based on technology from our era. Infantry units equipped with these types of weapons would be able to lay down huge amounts of fire, far in excess of that of the existing British Army’s squad-level Lee Enfield rifle and Bren Gun combination.”

She paused, then directed a question to none of the men in particular. “You’ve all perhaps noticed the unusual looking rifles one or two of our men near the aircraft were carrying?” They all nodded. “Those weapons are of a type known as a Kalashnikov AKM, and were originally a design of the Soviet Union from the late 1940s. The weapon weighs less than a Number Four rifle when fully loaded, carries 30 rounds of thirty-calibre ammunition, and can fire either single shots or fully-automatic at a rate of 600 rounds per minute. It’s also a weapon that can be manufactured much easier and faster than a Lee Enfield. As I understand it, Brigadier Alpert has already been working with the Enfield Arsenal regarding the production of prototypes and ammunition, and we should have operational units in the field within a month or two.

“On the subject of heavier armaments, I can assure you the Germans have also moved ahead in this field. From what Nick has been able to show us already, the Panzer Model -Two and -Three tanks used in Poland and in France so far are completely different to the types we knew of by the same names in Realtime. We can expect more to come… a great deal of the technology the New Eagles brought with them from the future involved advances in the field of armoured vehicles, and they’re unlikely to rest on their laurels with what they have already.

“It appears the current tanks the Wehrmacht is using have been around for several years now, and that’d suggest upgrades or outright replacements aren’t far away. When the next generation does arrives, I can say with some certainty that the two-pounder gun arming British tanks at present will be worse than useless. Even the QF six-pounder I know is in development right now will in all likelihood still be ineffective, and development of a conventional type of tank gun of enough power would take some time. Even if one were available, there’s no way the current crop of Matilda II or Valentine tanks could be modified to carry the weapon quickly, if at all.

“We do have an alternative in the short term however. Without getting too specific on the science, we can offer a weapon that can be fitted into a Matilda or Valentine — and we know that because we tailored it specifically, using examples of those tanks we had left over from this war. The weapon, which uses a method of operation known as a ‘High-Low-Pressure System’ and produces less recoil force than a conventional two-pounder gun, will also fit onto the same sized turret ring.” She took a deep breath and a wry grin. “Quite ironically, the technology for this weapon was originally developed by the Germans, late in the war.

“I think with a little effort we can probably have those tank guns coming out of factories within a month or two. I also have a set of direct-fire sights we’ve developed for the 3.7-inch AA gun which, given an appropriate armour-piercing shell, would turn it into a devastating anti-tank weapon more potent than the Germans’ infamous eighty-eight millimetre flak gun.

“I don’t have lots of highly advanced plans and things to give you gentlemen — things like the aircraft outside would take decades to develop, even with plans already in existence. What I do have are a number of smaller but far less ambitions advances — a new and easy to make rifle; a different kind of cannon shell; newer and more advanced tank gun designs; perhaps an improved engine for the Spitfire and a set of faster-firing, more powerful cannon to arm it. Smaller things like these will on the whole take only months to develop rather than years and will cumulatively add to the fighting capabilities of your armed forces greatly.” A pause followed, during which it became clear that Donelson’s part of the discussion was finished for the time being.

“On behalf of all of us, I thank you for that most enlightening talk, young lady,” Edward began, his gaze then turning directly on Thorne. “Now that we’ve been given an example of how you can help us…” he said thoughtfully“…how can we help you?”

“Well, Sire…” Thorne began slowly, considering the problem seriously. “As we’ve already said, there’s every chance Britain will be invaded and that we’ll eventually have to leave this base. That being as it may, until an invasion actually happens, the greatest danger to this unit is aerial attack. Most of the combat aircraft we believe New Eagles have brought back with them from the future have already been destroyed, and although those remaining do represent a threat, it’s one our own fighters can probably deal with well enough, given enough warning. More of a potential danger however is a massed conventional attack by the Luftwaffe : an air assault of sufficient numbers would certainly overwhelm us.

“What we need is at least a fighter wing for air cover as soon as possible — preferably Spitfires, although I know that may be difficult the way things are at the moment — and a good deal more anti-aircraft capability down here on the ground. The pair of flak vehicles we have with us are probably quite sufficient for low-level raiders, but we’ll need a fair brace of Bofors guns and 3.7-inchers for use against the higher-flying stuff. The 3.7- and 4.5-inch weapons in fixed emplacements around Proserpine Naval Base pack a reasonable punch, but we really need some serious strength of that type around this area as well. We could also do perhaps with a credible security presence here — say commandos or some other equivalent elite force. We’ve only limited personnel here, and even an extra handful of experienced personnel would make a huge difference.”

“Prime Minister…?” The King referred the issue straight to Churchill, who in turn passed it on to the staff officer seated beside him.

“General Dill…?” Churchill directed to his Army Chief of Staff, turning his head.

The officer gave a faint shrug. “The guns shouldn’t present too much hardship: we can find a battery of each within a week or so, although the ammunition might be more difficult to acquire. The personnel should be no problem at all…I would think our paras or commandos would leap at the chance to work in this environment — the potential for exchange of experience would be huge. I’ll have a list of acceptably-cleared personnel drawn up for your consideration.”

“Excellent,” the Prime Minister nodded. “What about those fighters, Air Chief Marshal?”

Dowding shook his head slowly — he wasn’t so certain of his available forces. “Perhaps two squadrons of Spitfires are all the RAF would be able to spare, and we’d have to bring them mostly from Twelve Group as it is, stripping the rest of Britain’s northern defences into the bargain.” Staying true to form, the man was reluctant to place the rest of the country’s defences in jeopardy. “We can supplement them with a squadron or two more of Hurricanes, but we still have many other installations that also require protection.”

“Fair enough, sir,” Thorne nodded. “We’ll make do with whatever you can give us.” He turned his gaze back to the King. “Your Majesty, you’ve all already helped us a great deal just by having all this prepared for us. We’ve jet fuel and sufficient stores of cannon ammunition for our aircraft, and we also have avenues of flight if that becomes necessary. What I’ve already mentioned are our most important needs in the short term, and there’ll no doubt be strategic issues I’ll need to discuss with you all at length, once we’ve a better picture of the overall situation, but right now these things are all we basically need…” he gave a shrug as something else occurred to him “…apart perhaps from the usual stuff like food and supplies. Standardised uniforms for the men might be nice too: something to make them feel more like a real team and an integrated part of the military rather than standouts in a variety of disparate combat gear.

“You can rest assured we’ll get about those things you’ve requested right away, Mister Thorne, however there’s one thing that has occurred to me in all of this…” as he spoke, Edward cast his thoughtful gaze across the faces of the Hindsight group. “There are a large number of Americans and Australians in this unit…a greater number than Britons, it appears…”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Thorne nodded, explaining. “That was a conscious decision on our part: we required men we judged would be loyal to the task of standing against Germany, but whose judgement wouldn’t be unduly influenced by those loyalties in the event of an invasion. For similar reasons, we purposefully excluded anyone from European armed forces or from the Japanese Self Defence Force, although the Japanese Government was eager to provide personnel along with the huge amount of technical expertise it did supply. Americans and Australians were deemed to be preferable choices due to their unique positions as relatively isolated ‘Western’ allies.”

“For whatever reason,” Edward continued, conceding to Thorne’s knowledge of 21st Century politics, “these are the citizens of sovereign allied and neutral nations, and the governments of the countries involved will need to be advised regarding what’s going on. I know that Brigadier Hore-Ruthven, the Australian Governor-General has been bombarded with continual questions from Prime Minister Menzies over the last twelve months, ever since the RAAF began constructing a two-mile-long concrete runway in the middle of the Australian bush at our request. It will be nice to be able to explain to him what this has all been about…” he gave a thin smile “…even if he may initially think the King of England to be as mad as a hatter!”

“I think that would be a good idea, Sire,” Thorne agreed. “The sooner the other Commonwealth Countries and the United States are also provided with some of our technological assistance the better… particularly the Americans with their incredible manufacturing capabilities. In a year or so — perhaps even sooner — there’s a very good chance we’ll also be at war in the Pacific against the Japanese.”

“At any rate,” Churchill interjected, recognising that time was getting on, “that’s neither here nor there at the moment although, we should do well to discuss it at a later date. One more point, by the way,” he added, turning back to Thorne. “When I was first presented with your colleague, Nicholas Alpert, he so impressed me that I organised a commission as a brigadier with the army to aid him in getting things done. As things now stand, I’m heartily glad that I did so. To that end, this unit will require a higher commanding rank now in order to maintain the priority it will require. There are a lot of people in places of authority who will not know of the truth behind this place, and who will not be likely to listen to someone of so ‘low’ a rank as a brigadier.” He threw a quick glance at Dowding, the man giving an imperceptible nod. He understood immediately what the Prime Minister was getting at, and in this case seemed to be in complete accordance. “I understand that where you came from, Mister Thorne, you were a squadron leader with the Royal Australian Air Force?”

“That’s correct, Prime Minister…or at least, I once was…” Thorne conceded, uncertain of what was coming.

“Well, my good fellow, the fliers of the RAAF serving with us have already certainly proven their ability as pilots and leaders, and I have seen no reason to believe you to be any different — particularly with the glowing praise Brigadier Alpert here has heaped upon you during these last twelve months. Air Chief Marshal Dowding, I think, will support me in this: I wish to offer you a commission in the Royal Air Force at the rank of Air Vice Marshal, effective immediately.”

Thorne was dumbstruck. His mouth dropped slightly open as his mind seized up while trying vainly to think of something appropriate to say. He’d never envisaged leadership of the unit as entailing these kinds of side effects.

“I think you should say something, Max,” Eileen Donelson suggested softly in his ear, smiling. “You’ll be catching flies, soon!”

“Will that be satisfactory for your needs, Air Vice Marshal Thorne?” The Prime Minister inquired, beaming over the minor spectacle he’d orchestrated.

“Uh — uh yes… Y–yes, sir, thank you — that would be more than sufficient!”

“Excellent!” Churchill declared. “You can expect the requisite paperwork to arrive within forty-eight hours.”

“Have Brigadier Alpert pass on your measurements this afternoon, and I’ll personally ensure a set of uniforms down here by the end of the week,” The King added, also smiling faintly. “I’m sure my tailors will be happy to run them up for you.”

At the request of The King, the entire Hindsight group stood at attention on the flight line an hour later, masked from the cool, morning sunlight by the shadow of the huge Galaxy. Most of the forty personnel present wore their respective 21st Century dress uniforms, resulting in a rather diverse appearance that was somewhat out-of-place. A large wooden crate was all that could be found at short notice, and it was this that Edward VIII stood upon to address the men before him as the rest of his entourage, Prime Minister included, stood respectfully in a line a metre or two behind. The King’s outward physical appearance was unremarkable in his grey, tailored suit, however all present knew who they were listening too and the tension in the air was palpable as he prepared to speak.

“Members of Hindsight…” he began slowly, his tone strong and filled with camaraderie. “Welcome guests from Britain, Australia, the United States of America… and the future. As you are no doubt aware, the free world and the Empire currently face the most dire emergency in history. You who stand here now before me have given the greatest sacrifice any might give, save that of their own lives, in a valiant attempt to reverse this savage violation of history that Nazi Germany has forced upon the planet. For this, and on behalf of the government and people of Great Britain and the Empire, I thank you. I also thank you on behalf of the colleagues and good friends I have in President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Menzies: although they are yet to be made aware of your existence, I can say with some confidence that they will be in complete agreement with the sentiments expressed here this morning.

“You are a group of hand-picked, dedicated men — and, of course, Commander Donelson also…” he added quickly, gaining a general chuckle and an embarrassed smile from the quickly-reddening naval officer in question “…who have given up everything of the world you’ve left behind in order to save it from total annihilation.” He paused to add weight to his slow, thoughtful speech. “This valour shall not go unrecognised or unrewarded. As King of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Empire, I welcome you all and offer you this new, grateful home with open arms!” As he spread his arms in illustration of the last line, a general cheer rose among the men of the Hindsight Unit accompanied by raucous applause. Those words directly addressed fears many had been harbouring since their trip ‘back’ and did much to assuage feelings uncertainty and unease.

The Berghof

Berchtesgaden, Germany

A bare hint of cloud glistened above jagged mountain tops on the western horizon as the summer sun set that afternoon over the Berchtesgaden Alps. Part of the greater Northern Limestone Alps, the mountain range was bordered by the Salzach and Salaach Rivers to the east and west respectively and was home to both the Konigsee, Germany’s third deepest lake, and the Watzmann, the country’s third-highest peak, standing at 2,713 metres. Rocky summits rose from fir-covered mountainsides all around to tower above deep, sweeping valleys as far as the eye could see.

Just 120 kilometres south-east of Munich, holidaying Germans had visited Obersalzberg in both summer and winter since the 1800s, and in 1916, a businessman from Hamburg by the name of Otto Winter built the small Haus Wachenfeld at nearby Berchtesgaden. The chalet might well have passed unknown into history had it not been for Herr Winter’s widow renting it in 1928to a man named Adolf Hitler. So taken with the beauty of the place was Hitler that in 1933 he purchased it outright with funds raised from the sale of his political manifesto, Mein Kampf.

Renamed the Berghof by Hitler, a massive refurbishment and reconstruction followed in several stages between 1935 and 1939, and what had once been a simple holiday chalet grew to become a huge complex of estates for high-ranking Nazis such as Göring and Bormann, along with a large landing strip and security barracks, tunnels and bunkers for a large contingent of the 1st SS Shock Division, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (Hitler’s Bodyguard).

Many guests visited the Berghof in the decade leading up to the outbreak of war, including such notable figures as former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the Aga Khan, Chancellor of Austria Kurt von Schuschnigg, and the then current British PM, Neville Chamberlain. All had graced the great halls and surrounding countryside at one time or another, although these facts gave little solace to Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters as he and Albert Schiller accompanied The Führer on a walk through the mountain countryside that day between the main buildings and the Mooslahnerkopf Teehaus, just a kilometre or so away across a small valley.

The afternoon stroll was an almost daily event for the Chancellor as part of his fitness regime whenever staying at Berchtesgaden, and the man had no intention of letting Reuters’ arrival gets in the way of his enjoyment of it. It was under those circumstances that the Reichsmarschall and his aide found themselves sitting with The Führer on a wooden bench, part way along the walk at a scenic point overlooking the entire valley.

Numerous political discussions had been held at that lookout over the years, and today was no exception as a quartet of heavily-armed SS guards watched the entire proceedings from barely out of earshot. First and foremost on the agenda that evening was of course the unexpected the arrival of the Hindsight group at Scapa Flow, along with the resultant loss of the majority of the New Eagles’ jet aircraft.

It was painfully obvious to both that The Führer was mightily unimpressed, and they were well aware of the reasons why: the Wehrmacht — Reuters’ Wehrmacht — had been presented with its first outright defeat. Admittedly, the setbacks were minor in terms of the progress of an entire war, but they’d been the first nevertheless, and there was now a look in The Führer’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. Trustworthy and able as Reichsmarschall Reuters was, he’d now also been shown to be fallible.

Adolf Hitler was characteristically a man of unshakeable faith in himself and extremely little faith in others, one of the reasons behind his failure during the latter part of the Realtime war to place any significant trust in his subordinates. It’d taken Reuters all seven of the years since their arrival and a spate of uncontested victories in Poland and in the West to obtain the Führer’s complete trust, and that’d only been accomplished in the face of heavy opposition from Hess, Göring, Göbbels and Bormann.

It was also true that the Chancellor’s trust in others could be unpredictably fickle, particularly in the face of even the smallest of failures, and that problem was often exacerbated when the situation in question that had gone awry hadn’t been a plan of his own devising. Many ideas and projects Reuters had wanted pressed forward had already been forced ‘underground’ by the Führer’s prejudices and apprehensions.

In his hands, Hitler held a folder filled with black and white photographs of the airfield at Scapa Flow. All four aircraft — the F-35E, F-22, Galaxy and KC-10A — were clearly visible, and the fact that the F-35 Lightning and F-22 Raptor were the only two dedicated air combat jets in existence on the planet hadn’t slipped past the German Chancellor.

“You say, then, Herr Reichsmarschall, that this will not alter the strategic situation?” His voice carried an almost nervous tone.

“Mein Führer, this alters nothing…” Reuters lied outright. “They have only two combat aircraft. Although it’s true these aircraft could outfight the remaining jets we possess or any other fighters we might throw against them in a fair fight, we still need to keep in mind that no matter what their incredible capabilities, they are just two aircraft and we will not provide them with any opportunity for a ‘fair fight’. Should they be used in regular offensive operations against us, they’ll eventually be shot down — that’s a certainty — and I doubt that they’ll ever be risked for that reason.”

“Exactly what and who are we up against?” The Chancellor found personalities important in leadership — something he’d used to immense effect in his own rise to fame and power — and he placed a lot of stock in what kind of people he was up against as an enemy, even if they were ‘of course’ ultimately inferior.

“Mein Führer, it appears we’re faced with a task force sent from our future much as the New Eagles were,” Reuters began, reaching out to draw a particular picture from the collection inside the folder and producing an extremely grainy, many-times-enlarged shot that was still obviously of Max Thorne’s head and upper torso. “I’d hazard a guess the unit’s commanded by this man — Maxwell Thorne. Once a pilot of the Royal Australian Air Force, and also a member of the British Secret Service from my time, he was also involved in attempts to prevent us from carrying out our original mission to return to this era. He’s a dogged and resourceful man; extremely capable in his duties and vehemently opposed to National Socialism.” Reuters was no true Nazi himself, but he was happy to use any tool to sway the support of the Chancellor.

“This is the man who represents the most danger to us?”

“There’s no direct danger, Mein Führer: their forces are much smaller than ours were originally, and we’ve also had six years of relative peace in which to prepare for this war. These new enemies will have none of these advantages. Their historical knowledge may assist them initially, but consider how history has already changed: reality and their understanding of the ‘old’ past grow further apart with each passing day. After Seelöwe, they’ll be stranded and left without a safe haven in the Atlantic, and I guarantee you they’ll not reach America, or anywhere else!”

“On that note, Herr Reichsmarschall, what further information do you have for me concerning plans for Seelöwe?” This was another matter that left Hitler feeling a great deal of apprehension. Although initially almost certain in his own mind that Britain would sue for peace following the demise of France and the Low Countries, he’d finally been convinced otherwise by Reuters and by the continued aggressive stance of Great Britain herself. There was also reluctance on his part regarding the dangers of an amphibious operation against the British, and as Reuters had now been shown to be fallible, what was there preventing this idea from failure also?

“Most of the planning has been underway on a theoretical level for a very long time as you know, Mein Führer. The conversion of dozens of merchantmen and seaworthy barges into landing ships is well underway already, along with the construction of specialised assault craft for the initial attack waves. Our thoughts are that mid-to-late September would be the optimum time for an invasion.”

“The exact date…?”

“The seventeenth of that month seems most appropriate: Herr Müller, our chief technical advisor assures me that the weather patterns should remain the same regardless of how we change history, and we should be guaranteed ten full days of clear weather from the 16th of September. That’ll be more than enough to establish a solid beachhead that can be resupplied: the RAF is practically destroyed, and without the RAF, the Royal Navy will be massacred if it tries to interdict our forces.”

“This will be a difficult operation?” A foot soldier during the First War, The Chancellor was largely ignorant of naval matters.

“Not particularly difficult, Mein Führer, in terms of seaborne operations… although no seaborne invasion is truly simple: most of our forces are required to cross less than forty kilometres of Channel, although some bound for the Portsmouth area and The Solent will have a bit further to go. All of that will be under the cover of naval guns and air power: both Bismarck and Tirpitz are already operational, as will be Derfflinger and Von der Tann by then. With the capital ships we already have, their added firepower should be more than sufficient to create havoc on the defending beaches. We also have attack aircraft from the carriers Graf Zeppelin, Seydlitz and Hindenburg available to strike where land-based aircraft cannot effectively reach.

“There are more than one hundred thousand men available for the initial assault, including twenty thousand fallschirmjäger to take key defensive positions such as bridges and airfields in Kent and Sussex. Two complete panzer divisions will also have been completely re-equipped with Panther tanks for the invasion, along with the 1st and 3rd SS Shock Divisions. Our kampfgruppen will be hitting their supply bases, railheads and fuel dumps in rear echelon areas and all over Britain, and we can bring England completely to her knees within a few days once the full power of the Wehrmacht is unleashed. The moment that Britain is ours, Mein Führer, the security of Grossdeutschland will be truly assured for a thousand years!”

Hitler nodded slowly, still vaguely dubious but somewhat mollified…perhaps the loss of these few jet aircraft was really not so bad after all. “Very well, then,” he said finally as he closed the folder in his hands. “Barring accidents or unforeseen problems, we shall set the date for Seelöwe as September Seventeen.” He nodded sagely at his own final decision. “Begin final build-ups and planning for that date.”

“With regard to these newcomers, I leave things to you for the time being, Herr Reichsmarschall.” He added darkly with a deadly serious gaze. “I’m sure you can see as well as I, the necessity of destroying this enemy completely… I trust that you’ll take to that with requisite endeavour and remove this minor problem from my mind…” That statement chilled both men present to the core: it was a very thinly-veiled warning that The Chancellor didn’t expect to need to hear about the problem again.

8. Reality Checks

Luftwaffe airfield near The Berghof

Berchtesgaden, Germany

Tuesday

July 2, 1940

A small, private room was fitted into Reuters’ converted T-1A transport between the cockpit and the Reichsmarschall’s ‘office’, and inside that room were four folding cots, a small refrigerator and basic cooking facilities for the preparation of tea and coffee and simple meals. It was upon two of those cots that Reuters and Schiller reclined later that evening, preferring the privacy of their own aircraft to the more comfortable quarters (and obligatory political machinations) on offer nearby at the Berghof.

“He’s very unimpressed,” Schiller observed softly in the faint illumination of a single, low-powered lamp fitted above the bulkhead door to the cockpit. He picked his words carefully despite their relative privacy… it never paid to assume other ears weren’t listening this close to The Führer: one never knew who might be listening, after all.

“I expected no better,” Reuters admitted sourly, “could’ve been a good deal worse in fact. The important thing now is that we make sure Thorne and his cronies are no longer problem.”

“The remaining Flankers…?” Schiller theorised, thinking as he spoke. “They could lob-toss some thousand kilogram bombs in from low-level before their point-defence weapons could react…”

“No,” The Reichsmarschall replied quickly, cutting off his train of thought. “We’re not going to risk the rest of the jets just yet… with any luck we won’t have to… and any air attack would be a very bloody affair regardless of whether we go with conventional aircraft or the jets — or both, for that matter. In any case, a lob-toss attack might not be accurate enough.”

“‘Not accurate enough.’?” Schiller repeated the words with mild disbelief as a question. “You do remember what a tonne of high explosive can do, don’t you? Remember those poor old army beginnings and those nasty old live-fire exercises?” The light sarcasm in the so-called ‘questions’ raised a broad and somewhat exasperated grin from his friend and superior officer.

“Yes, Albert, I know what a thousand kilogram bomb can do to a target… and yes… we could probably drop them onto the correct end of that runway without a great deal of difficulty. Getting the Flankers out afterward might be more of a problem however,” he added pointedly, “and if the targets we want aren’t there at the time…?” He left that question hanging for a few moments as it hit home. “We know what they have there now — the aircraft and some of their air defences at least — but when we do spring our next attack we’ll also need to know exactly what’s going on there on the ground at the time.”

“And how do you suggest we manage that?” Schiller enquired with a smile. “Scapa Flow’s the Home Fleet’s home base, and thanks to our ‘friends’ at Hindsight, it isn’t the easy pickings it should’ve been this early into the war. There are regular anti-submarine patrols by air and sea, and the Royal Navy’s use of sonar is a damned sight better and more frequent than it should be, too! Even with one of the new Type-Tens, we’d be lucky to get a U-boat within visual range of anything on that base, and I wouldn’t fancy being a member of the aircrew on any reconnaissance aircraft trying to get within range either — not for the five seconds they lasted, anyway…”

“Then we have to get someone in there on the ground,” Reuters replied simply.

“That’s easy to say, but not quite so easy to do.” Schiller pointed out, shaking his head as much at the audacity of the idea as any negative opinion. “It’d be easier to get at Churchill than get someone through the security they’ll have there!”

“Maybe we could get some inspiration from Jack Higgins, Albert?” Reuters chuckled softly, alluding to the author of one of his favourite novels (The Eagle Has Landed) about a WW2 plot to kidnap or kill Winston Churchill.

“Yes, they’ll have top class security…” he conceded, becoming serious again in an instant “…and we’ve had seven years. You both know how much effort we put into building the strength of the Abwehr right from the start… and there are other things I also recall from my younger days with the Bundeswehr: the rather nasty lessons that our new-friends who used to be Soviets taught us in the ‘bad old days’ regarding deep-cover intelligence operatives for example. I think perhaps it’s time to activate an asset or two.” The other man’s faces lit with understanding as he caught what Reuters was alluding to — assets Schiller had completely forgotten existed.

“Oh, that’s nasty, Kurt,” Schiller almost chuckled at the thought. “That’s really nasty…!”

Any further chance of conversation was interrupted by an unexpected knock at the bulkhead doorway that led to Reuters’ travelling office and the rear of the plane. Both men immediately rose to their feet, and the Reichsmarschall took a few seconds to straighten his uniform before bidding entry with a single word.

“Come…” he called in a serious voice, and the hatch opened inward to reveal one of the Wehrmacht grenadier guards that travelled in Reuters’ entourage.

“My apologies for the interruption at so late an hour, Herr Reichsmarschall, but I have two men from The Party waiting to see you: Herren Zeigler and Strauss.” It was implicitly understood that the soldier meant the NSDAP when referring to ‘The Party’, and the two men mentioned were high enough in the Nazi Party hierarchy for the guard to recognise them and accord them a reasonable level of fear and respect accordingly.

“It’s quite all right, Rudi: let them through,” Reuters directed with a wave of his hand and a resigned sigh. The pair weren’t exactly what he would’ve classed as welcome guests at the best of times, however he also wasn’t exactly surprised by their presence.

The pair that entered the small room a moment or two later were as disparate a pair as one might be likely to see. Both were men in their early sixties, and both were well-dressed in dark grey tailored suits, and at that point any similarity ceased completely. Oswald Zeigler was a thin, frail-looking man with hawkish features who stood well over 180cm tall, while his companion, Dieter Strauss stood at least a full head shorter, was stocky to the point of being quite rotund, and had a full, round face that falsely promised open friendliness and belied the cold and calculating intellect Reuters personally knew lurked behind the man’s smallish brown eyes.

“Herr Reichsmarschall,” Zeigler began with an obviously false familiarity. “How kind of you to take time out of your busy schedule to see us…”

“A pleasure of course, Herr Zeigler, as always,” Reuters countered with an equal lack of sincerity as he accepted the offered handshake. He gestured to the empty cots with an outstretched arm. “Please… take a seat…” He almost smiled. “I’ve no alcohol here, but I can offer tea or coffee…”

“Nothing for either of us, thank you,” Zeigler countered with a dismissive wave. “We’ll not keep you long.”

“How can we be of assistance this evening?” Reuters got straight to the point as each of the four took a cot and sat down.

“The rest of the ‘Eagles have asked Dieter and I to have a quiet word with you regarding the arrival of these fighter jets at Scapa Flow,” Zeigler’s tone was soft, sibilant and well-suited to his almost reptilian coolness.

“News travels fast from the front these days,” Reuters observed with a faint, dry smile. He’d known for years that there were intelligence leaks in his administration but had never been able to pinpoint the exact source.

“It’s in everyone’s interest that we keep our fingers on the pulse, Kurt,” Strauss countered without any humour whatsoever, “and without our own avenues of gathering information, we’d be completely in the dark about the course of this war! It’s been weeks since we received anything official from your office, and every request for an audience is refused!”

“You’ll excuse me if I prioritise the prosecution of a world war over sending you a weekly ‘newsletter’, or inviting you all up to the front for tea and cakes,” Reuters retorted unapologetically.

“I’d hope there’s no need to remind the Reichsmarschall that none of this would’ve been possible, had it not been for the initial inspiration and financial backing of the Neue Adler ‘Board of Directors’?”

“No need at all,” Reuters responded after the barest of pauses, his thin smile becoming tight-lipped and distinctly grim at the obvious insult. “Just as I’m sure there’s no need to point out that as Reichsmarschall and Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, I now answer directly to our Führer, Adolf Hitler.” He changed tack before the heating discussion degenerated into full-blown conflict. “I’m also certain that you two didn’t come over here so we could all argue about ancient history.” He forced a conciliatory smile back onto his face and made it almost believable. “You’ve learned of the arrivals at Scapa Flow… what else did you need to know?”

“The Directors want assurances that this change in circumstances won’t affect the timetable of our conquest in the west.”

“If that’s your greatest collective concern, Oswald, then I’m more than happy to assuage it right here and now: on the subject of the upcoming invasion of Great Britain, we all appear to be in agreement. I can guarantee you there’ll be no delays to Unternehmen Seelöwe as a result of this minor glitch in our planning.” That news produced an almost visible sigh of relief from both men.

“That is reassuring,” Strauss conceded, almost managing a smile of his own. “Unlike the Führer, we clearly recognise the necessity of removing Britain as a threat prior to any move against the Soviets.”

“That’s something we all recognise,” Reuters agreed without reservation. “Please advise the rest of the ‘Board’ that these newcomers present no further danger to us, and that there are already plans in place to deal with them.”

“Glad to see we’re all on the same page on this,” Zeigler said finally as he rose from the makeshift seat, Strauss following his lead as he forced a smile that was as insincere as Reuters’. “We’ll bother you no longer tonight then.”

As Reuters and Schiller also stood, the pair made a move toward the bulkhead hatch. Zeigler halted at the opening, turning for a moment to add: “In future, Herr Reichsmarschall, the Directors would appreciate it if you found a little more time for us in your busy schedule: that might go some way toward removing the necessity of unannounced visits such as this evening.”

“Duly noted, Mein Herren…I’ll do my humble best to comply…”

Outside the aircraft, Zeigler and Strauss climbed into the rear of their waiting Maybach limousine, their faces grim as the driver selected first gear and the huge black sedan moved away from the airstrip and back up the mountain toward the nearby market town of Berchtesgaden and their exclusive chalet accommodation.

The Maybach — a Zeppelin DS8 model with an eight litre, V12 engine — belonged to Strauss, and had been his preferred mode of transport since he’d bought the luxury sedan brand new in 1934. Weighing close to three tonnes, the huge machine was nevertheless still capable of over 160 kilometres per hour on a good stretch of flat road.

Oswald Zeigler and Dieter Strauss were both filthy rich. Both owned the rights to numerous worldwide patents for a whole range of industrial and commercial products and inventions that had allowed both men to amass huge fortunes in the years since the end of the Depression. Both were members of a group known as the New Eagles ‘Board of Directors’: a group comprised of seven men who were all equally wealthy and prominent pillars of German industry. Like Reuters and Schiller, both men (and indeed all seven) were also originally from the future.

The Directors had been the group who’d financed the New Eagles’ accumulation of technology and equipment in preparation of the group’s return to the past to change the course of history. It had been the business and scientific connections within the group that had made possible the disappearance of physicist Samuel Lowenstein, along with the bulk of his research notes, and had ultimately brought about the creation of the device known as the temporal displacement unit as a result. An unlikely collection of individuals with quite differing personalities and demeanours, all were bound together by two significant things in common: an unfailing belief in National Socialism and an unquenchable greed.

It was this group of men who’d originally conceived of the incredible idea of travelling back through time and of a triumphant Nazi Germany. It was these men who’d recruited General Kurt Reuters of the Deutsche Bundeswehr, forced into early retirement by the tail-end of a downsizing trend that had swept through armies right across Western Europe in the years following the collapse of Communism and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. It was these men who’d provided the bitter and disillusioned Reuters, an orphan and a product of a Germany shattered by the aftermath of the Second World War, with a new drive and purpose: the opportunity to erase a childhood filled with a nation’s shame and humiliation at the hands of uncaring Allies, along with the oppression and separation of half the country by the Soviet Union.

“He’s progressively becoming a greater liability,” Strauss observed with soft bitterness as the sedan cruised smoothly along the dark, narrow mountain roads.

“He always was a liability, Dieter,” Zeigler countered evenly, more thoughtful than disapproving, “but a necessary one: we could never have accomplished all this without him.” He gave a non-committal shrug. “Of course, no one can ever be considered indispensable. If this war progresses to the successful conclusion we expect, I can easily foresee a not-so-far-off future in which we’ll no longer require the services of our friend, the Reichsmarschall.”

“I think I should very much like to be present when that time comes,” Strauss growled in a decidedly evil tone.

“I’m sure we can work something out, my dear fellow,” Zeigler grinned wryly. “Consider it my gift to you…”

“I feel like I should be carrying a crucifix and hanging garlic from the walls,” Schiller shuddered openly once the pair had gone, only half joking. “It’s like being too close to a pair of hyenas at feeding time whenever they pay us a visit.”

“Fortunately, this aircraft does have a shower,” Reuters added, joining in on the attempt at humour to release the tension he’d repressed throughout the meeting. “I may well avail myself of it shortly.” He gave a faint snort of derision. “With all the dubious alliances I’ve had to forge with Nazis in this era, I regret none of them as much as the unpleasant necessity of dealing with those ‘creatures’ from our own time!” That in itself was a significant statement, and he grimaced as he recalled memories long past. “The number of times we’ve sat through their ‘When We Rule the World’ speeches over the last decade!”

“They’re not going to like it when they find out you’ve talked to The Führer about postponing Barbarossa: they’re as fixated with the idea of invading the USSR as he is.”

“Of course they are, and for the same reasons, albeit on a far smaller scale: Russia’s where they’re all going to build their personal little ‘empires’… as if the fortunes they’ve amassed here in Germany aren’t huge enough already.” He let out another derisive snort. “Fortunately, we are in the business of making decisions based upon sound tactical and strategic principles rather than irrational actions born from an overwhelming desire for economic gain.”

“And they’re just going to take that lying down are they?”

“Oh, I suspect they’ll probably try to have me killed… you too, most likely,” Reuters replied with a cheery, matter-of-fact tone that did nothing to make his friend feel any better.

“Well, that’s something to look forward to,” Schiller observed sarcastically with a grimace.

“I did say ‘try’,” Reuters countered with a genuine smile. “What’s the point of having a very close relationship with the Reichsführer-SS if you can’t make use of the resources he has at hand once in a while.” His smile became thin and quite evil as he spoke. “We’ve already compiled enough evidence on the personal activities of four of them to have them shot, and guilt by association should well be sufficient to take the rest of them along for the ride.” The Reichsmarschall shrugged. “They’re support and their money are both vital to Germany’s industrial capabilities at the moment, and that in turn makes them indispensable… for the moment. That’s not going to go on forever, though, and it’d take just one word in the right ear and the whole lot would be rounded up within twenty-four hours, should the ‘Directors’ decide to make themselves too much of a problem.”

“It’s such a pleasure to watch you work sometimes, Kurt,” Schiller observed with a sly grin of his own, shaking his head at his superior’s growing talent for backroom wheeling-and-dealing. “I’m just glad I’m on your side! It’s the Brits I truly feel sorry for…”

Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ

Amiens, Northern France

Wednesday

July 3, 1940

A few minutes after midnight, and stars filled the dark, cloudless sky over Northern France. Although a relatively mild night for the middle of summer, it was still warm enough to move about quite comfortably outside without need of a jacket. There was still activity at the mansion outside Amiens, even so late into the night: a military headquarters never really slept, and the movements of security guards and men manning the surrounding anti-aircraft batteries was matched by the unloading of supply trucks at the kitchen doors of the main building. It’d only be a few hours before the catering staff awoke before dawn and began baking bread in preparation for the morning breakfasts.

Just a few dozen metres away at the rear of the mansion, the stables had become a quite serviceable guardhouse for the Wehrmacht security force billeted in the servants’ quarters nearby. A long, narrow structure of white-painted wooden planks and beams, a low-set thatched roof covered the lot and did a good job of keeping out the elements. Beneath that roof, the majority of the building was designed with a wide, central ‘aisle’ running down the centre, off which were six individual horses’ stalls, three to a side. The far end held a large hopper for hay, and food for the horses on one side of the aisle, while on the other was a small room that’d originally been intended as a changing area for riders.

The room had been easily converted into a makeshift quarters for the single prisoner currently being held in the guardhouse. A basic but nevertheless quite comfortable wooden cot with a straw mattress lay against one wall, while a small table and two chairs were positioned against the other, and a small cast iron stove provided ample heating in cold weather at the far end of the room, its chimney pipe rising straight up through the roof above. A small book case had been squeezed in against the wall between the cot and the doorway, and was filled almost to overflowing with text books of a variety of sizes and bindings.

The guard on duty made no effort to challenge Joachim Müller as he arrived at the entrance to the building at that time of night. Müller was well known, as was his proximity to the Reichsmarschall, and they’d all become accustomed to his regular visits at the guardhouse in any case. The single prisoner they held within had arrived with the HQ group, and had remained there with them the whole time, during which he’d been no trouble whatsoever and had actually become quite friendly with most of the guards.

The door to the small room at the far end of the stable was open, but Müller waited and knocked anyway as a matter of course. Inside, the single occupant lay on his back on the cot, staring at the ceiling. He’d heard the man’s approach, but only looked up as he’d heard the knock at the door to catch sight of the Müller silhouetted in the opening.

“Does it really serve any purpose to knock?” He asked with a tired voice, only the faint hint of sarcasm in the soft tones. “I’m hardly in a position to refuse.”

“It costs nothing to retain good manners all the same,” Müller countered with a genial smile. “I’m not disturbing you?” Both men spoke in English, and the prisoner’s Cambridge accent clearly indicated he as a native Briton.

“Well, I was thinking of taking a nice walk, and perhaps a boat ride across The Channel, but with the weather and all those guards, I decided to stay in instead… come…” he added finally, a wave of his hand bidding the other man to enter. As Müller stepped into the room and turned on the light switch near the door, before moving across to sit at one of the chairs by the table. At the same time, the man he’d come to visit sat up, turning about on the cot until his legs were hanging over the side and they were facing each other.

At fifty-eight years of age, Samuel Michael Lowenstein had dedicated more than three decades of his life to research into physics and quantum theory, prior to his disappearance late in Realtime 2009. With piercing, pale blue eyes and a rough-hewn beard and moustache of around two months’ growth covering the lower half of a weathered and knowledgeable face, Lowenstein stood at just average height, although he was nevertheless somewhat taller than Müller.

His hair was as grey as his beard, and was generally thick and unruly, although a thinning section at the crown of his head threatened the likelihood of eventual baldness. Having been transported back in time with the New Eagles group however had of course removed that danger as he was now as impervious to ageing as any of those who’d come from the future with him.

“It’s been a while, Joachim,” Lowenstein observed softly, watching the other man with subtle intent. “I’d started to think you’d finally forgotten about me.”

“It’s been crazy, Samuel,” Müller replied, almost sounding apologetic, “so much organising still to be done, and none of it made easier with a war going on.”

“Yet still you find time to come and visit a humble man such as myself… I feel honoured.” The remark contained more bitterness than Lowenstein had actually intended, and he immediately relented somewhat. “Don’t mind me,” he added with a dismissive wave of his hand, nevertheless noting that the words indeed seemed to have hit their mark in the guilty reaction on Müller’s face. “That’s just the boredom talking…idle hands and all that. I can see you’ve come for a reason, Joachim. What do you wish to ask me?”

“Just a chat, Samuel… just a chat…” Müller shook his head, relief clearly evident on his face that the ice had finally been broken. “For all my abilities, I’ve never come close to attaining a fraction of the understanding you’ve gained of temporal displacement over the years. It’s me who’s honoured to have the opportunity to talk to so knowledgeable a man as yourself.” Although there was no hiding that there was an as yet unspoken agenda in Müller’s presence, that statement was also the truth. “I never seem to spend time with you without learning something knew about the processes behind what we’ve accomplished here.”

Lowenstein almost found that remark almost amusing. Müller had used the pronoun ‘we’, and had actually included him in that statement. It was a somewhat ironic concept for a man whose entire initial involvement in assisting the New Eagles had only been secured through the use of kidnapping, brutality and torture. He recognised that Joachim Müller hadn’t personally been involved in any of that — he’d been brought in as technical advisor to the project quite late — yet the man, pleasant as he was, was still a member of the same despicable group that had subverted his legitimate research and used it to bring about what might eventually prove to be the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe.

Born and bred in Southern England, Sam Lowenstein neither sounded nor looked anything like the stereotypical caricature image of a Jew that many less tolerant beliefs espoused. His Cambridge accent and almost Celtic appearance gave no real indication of the Judaic heritage that his surname suggested and he fiercely adhered to.

Fifth-generation English, his ancestors had nevertheless suffered more than their fair share of anti-Semitic discrimination and abuse from fellow Englishmen and Europeans alike in the generations who’d lived prior to the Second World War. Even after the end of the war that had supposedly ended the Nazis’ reign of terror in Europe and their attempted extermination of the Jewish faith… even after the creation of the State of Israel and the Jewish homeland… the persecution and discrimination around the world continued, albeit in a far more subdued fashion that was– for the most part at least — considered to be unacceptable by a larger part of the Western World.

Lowenstein had met fellow researcher, Hal Markowicz, while still finishing his PhD at Cambridge, and the pair had instantly forged a close professional relationship and personal friendship that would see them both working together for the better part of the next three decades.

“Have the guards been treating you well, Samuel?” Müller ventured softly.

“Well enough, Joachim, aside from the whole ‘not allowed to leave’ part of the deal,” Lowenstein gave a wry smile. “They’ve been kind enough to allow me the small luxury of my reading collection,” he added, extending a hand to the nearby bookcase. “I believe I also have your good self to thank for the books, and they’re mightily appreciated.” The thanks were genuine on that matter: about the only thing that had managed to keep him even halfway sane through almost an entire decade of solitary imprisonment was the reading material Müller had ensured he was given access to.

“It’s the least we could do,” Joachim replied with a humble shrug, unconscious to the fact that the statement was true on a number of levels, some less pleasant than others. “Your work was the foundation stone of everything we’ve accomplished, and I know that you were subjected to terrible conditions prior to my coming on board at the end of ‘Oh-Nine.” Müller was a gentle man by nature and his disgust was genuine as he shook his head in recollection of finding Lowenstein that first day in his cell, the man a battered wreck both physically and psychologically. “I would never have allowed that kind of treatment, Samuel.”

“I know that, Joachim,” the other man assured, an involuntary shudder coursing through his body as he also remembered the torture committed against him far more vividly. He also couldn’t resist adding silently in his own mind:…and without ‘that kind of treatment’, none of you would’ve gotten a fucking thing out of me in the first place! “How’s the family?” He asked aloud instead, hiding the darkness of his thoughts with all the expertise of one well-practised.

“Very well, thank you,” Müller smiled genuinely. Lena is five now and will be starting school next year…and we’re expecting our second now…Hanna’s twelve weeks along now and doing nicely.”

“My congratulations, Joachim… wonderful news…” Lowenstein made a great show of stifling a yawn and covering his mouth with one hand. “Please excuse me… it’s late and I’m well past my bed time. Forgive me if I come to the point now, but what’s the real reason you’ve come to see me at such a late hour?” There was no malice in the man’s tone, but there was also a suggestion he was done making pleasant small talk.

“We’ve been presented with an interesting theoretical question by the Nazi Party hierarchy,” Müller lied with conviction, having prepared his story in detail before the visit. “Hitler, Hess and the others are paranoid that if we could come back through time to assist them to victory, then there remains the possibility, no matter how remote, that our enemies may manage to do the same to counter us.” He took a short breath. “As a hypothetical question, I was hoping you’d perhaps be able to run through any scenarios you could possibly come up with in which such an unlikely event might threaten our position…” he shrugged “…apart from the obvious answer of bringing with them a plane load of nuclear weapons, of course…”

“Of course,” Lowenstein agreed dubiously, his eyes narrowing as he considered the premise. “It’s an interesting but not altogether unreasonable question.” He shrugged noncommittally. “Any force would have their job ahead of them unless they did come loaded with nukes, and the temporal distortion wave would leave them only twenty-four hours in which to cobble something together…”

“And the distortion wave is a constant?” Müller queried eagerly.

“As far as we were able to ascertain, it was: there was only limited time for testing available to us before New Eagles…‘acquired’ the research…” Lowenstein intentionally chose a less inflammatory phrase to describe his kidnapping and subsequent torture for his own reasons rather than any interest in protecting the other man’s feelings. The physicist thought silently for a few moments before wincing visibly and rubbing a hand roughly across his face as if in an attempt to refresh himself.

“Excuse me again, Joachim,” he offered in a softly apologetic tone, “I’ve been having difficulty sleeping the last few weeks, and it’s starting to take its toll: I’m not my best after midnight these days.”

“Of course, Samuel,” Müller nodded with understanding. “I’ll let you get some rest, of course.” He rose and moved to the doorway, halting for a moment and turning back as the other man spoke again.

“Come and see me tomorrow afternoon and we’ll talk some more on it, Old Man,” Lowenstein suggested. “Bring me a pen and some paper and we’ll make some notes for you to take back to your superiors.”

“Thank you again, Samuel,” Müller smiled, switching off the light once more. “Get yourself some rest.”

Lowenstein waited a full twenty minutes in the darkness after Müller left before daring to rise from the cot and move across to the loaded shelves of books. Lighting a small candle sitting in a brass holder atop the bookcase with a match taken from a pack beside it, he crouched down in the dim, flickering light and searched through the bottom shelf for one of the oldest books he possessed.

“Joachim, my old ‘friend’, if you were half the liar I’ve learned to be, you’d still be completely transparent!” He muttered softly to himself as he found the volume he was looking for and drew it from its niche, the plain, bound cover carrying little more than the title: Über die Spezielle und die Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie, Gemeinverständlich. Lowenstein, already possessed of a rudimentary ability in German prior to his kidnapping, had been forced into a steep learning curve with the language since, and he could both read and speak it quite fluently if he chose to, which was seldom.

The book he’d chosen was by Albert Einstein, and was a 1918 publication that in English translated as On the Special and General Theory of Relativity (A Popular Account) — 3rd Edition. He’d read the work several times, however in this case it was something else inside the book that he was seeking: something hidden ‘in plain sight’ between the pages within.

“‘Hypothetical question’…!” He declared with uncanny certainty as he found the item he was seeking and pulled it gently free. “What sort of fool do you take me for?” Standing once more, he placed to book on top of the shelves, close to the flickering candle, and opened the single, folded piece of flimsy paper he now held in his hand. He studied it with a dark intensity for a few moments before moving back to the bed and sitting down, his eyes never looking away.

“They’ve come! They’ve come!” He whispered with soft intensity. “I knew you’d never abandon me, Hal,” he muttered as he lay down in the cot once more, head turned toward the candle’s faint illumination and his features contorting into an almost maniacal smile. “All these years, and I knew you’d come for me one day: I’ve kept it all this time, knowing one day you’d need it.”

The ragged sheet of paper he’d unfolded was most of the front page of an issue of the Berliner Tageblatt newspaper, most of the text printed on it fading now after seven years clamped between the pages of Einstein’s work. The headlines and articles were of little consequence in any case; the only real significance lay in the fact that the newspaper it had been torn from had been given to Lowenstein by Joachim Müller on the afternoon of the day they’d returned from the 21st Century. It’d been handed over as an afterthought… a small kindness to their prisoner in providing something for him to read as the New Eagles’ ‘arrival’ carried on around them.

“Eight years! Eight years!” He whispered as he lay there, staring unfocussed at the ceiling beyond the paper he held. “Müller doesn’t understand, Hal… none of them understand!” He paused for a second as the wild, hysterical grin returned. “But I do, Hal… I do! Only one thing that can fix it all… only one action that can put it all right, and I’ve been waiting all this time… waiting for just this day!”

Samuel Lowenstein had somehow held onto his sanity for the entire length of his captivity. Throughout all the initial beatings and torture, and the years of solitary confinement to follow, he’s clung to his reading, and his regular talks with Müller and his guards, and somehow he’d managed to skirt around the boundaries of madness. Part of that very conscious process of maintaining control over his own thoughts and emotions had, ironically, been the unequivocal recognition that his own situation was completely and utterly hopeless.

He was a single prisoner — a man who technically had no identity in that era and simply didn’t exist — trapped in a time many years in the past and held captive by an ascendant Nazi Germany that was now no longer destined to lose the Second World War. There was no possibility of escape, for there was literally nowhere he could escape to, and there was also no way as a single individual he could have any chance of reversing the changes to history his captors had created through the terrible perversion they’d perpetrated on his own life’s work.

Yet somewhere, deep inside his subconscious there had also lived that small, ridiculous belief that there might still be a chance… that in the 24 hours left of Realtime after the New Eagles had departed the 21st Century, Hal Markowicz and the governments of the Earth had somehow managed to prepare a counter-attack. No one on the planet, either living in the 1940s or from their original era in 2010, understood the concepts behind temporal displacement research as completely as Samuel Michael Lowenstein: no one understood as instinctively and completely as he that there was only one possible way the damage the New Eagles had wrought upon the history of the world itself might be reversed. No one except — perhaps — for his colleague and friend, Hal Markowicz.

It’d originally been an unconscious whim upon which Lowenstein had decided to keep the piece of newspaper clipping; he’d swear before God himself that there’d originally been no thought in his mind of rescue or escape at the end of that first day, when he’d folded the newspaper and kept it with him rather than simply throwing it away. Yet as the years wore on and he spent the greater majority of his time in solitude thinking about his own predicament, and that of the planet as a whole, he quickly came to realise that if there ever did exist the slightest possibility of returning history to its rightful course, then there was just one possible way that might be achieved.

“And I have it right here…” he stated with soft certainty, once again focussing his eyes on the piece of newspaper he held before him. The headlines and articles might’ve been smudged and worn away, but there was one piece of information that could still be clearly read. In the top, right corner of the page, directly beneath the last five letters of the Berliner Tageblatt masthead, the day and date was there for all to see: the exact date that the New Eagles had arrived in that era from the 21st Century.

For the first time in almost a decade, the cold, hopeless resignation had lifted from Samuel Lowenstein’s eyes, replaced by a sharpness and intensity that had been absent for many years. The reality behind Müller’s lies was obvious to him, and that meant that somewhere out there beyond the borders of Grossdeutschland, others from his world and his reality had arrived to do battle against the New Eagles and Nazi Germany. They’d need his help… would need the information he held in his hands… and for the first time in many years, the despair within his soul had been supplanted by hope and the possibility of rescue.

Sitting up, then rising to his feet once more, Lowenstein folded the newspaper clipping once more and returned it to its ‘hiding place’ within the pages of Einstein’s book. Carefully replacing that where it’d come from on the bottom shelf, he took out some blank sheets of paper and a ball-point pen he’d kept secreted in the same area above his books and carried them across to the small table, the flickering candle in his other hand.

In the dim candle light, he began to write notes on everything he’d seen and learned over the last seven years that he’d spent captive in 1930s Germany: every important piece of information he could think of pertaining to his captors and their activities that might possibly be of use to an allied force was committed to those pages in a hurried, almost illegible scrawl. He worked long into the early hours of the morning before exhaustion finally forced him to rest, seeking much-needed sleep as dawn finally broke over the French countryside with the chirping of birds as his restless lullaby.

He awoke late into the next morning with a sense of drive and determination he’d not felt in many years, his mind and body rejuvenated by the new and very real hope, no matter how slim, that there might possibly be a way to put an end to the New Eagles and their perversion of history. He made more notes… pages of them… and kept them well hidden inside and behind his collection of books, taking care to ensure neither Müller nor any of the guards saw him write a single word. The time to act was coming, and he’d need to be prepared… Samuel Lowenstein had no intention of allowing that opportunity to slip by unrealised.

Pas-de-Calais near Sangatte

Northern France

Thursday

July 4, 1940

Even by comparison to landing a flying boat, the Opel trucks provided an uncomfortable ride in Edward Whittaker’s admittedly biased opinion as they pulled into the armed compound. In the five days since being dragged out of the Channel by an enemy E-boat, he’d spent time in three different cells with three of the four main arms of the Wehrmacht: Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and SS in that order. All in all however, he couldn’t claim to have been treated particularly badly, all things considered. The guards had been generally terse, and as he didn’t speak German and almost none of them spoke any English, there were occasions when some pushing and shoving had been used to pass on instructions, but overall he’d so far been given little to complain about.

On the third day, he’d been thrown into the back of a large truck with a group of fellow British and French prisoners-of-war and delivered to a newly-constructed POW camp a few kilometres north of Boulogne-sur-Mer. The amenities were sparse and primitive, but the dormitories themselves were all new and the Luftwaffe guards seemed at worst to be neutral rather than outwardly hostile. They’d been ‘welcomed’ by the colonel in charge and had the camp rules read out to them: the camp was for officer POWs only, with all of the hundred or so already present therefore of commissioned rank. As a result, the regimen was a little more relaxed than Whittaker presumed it might’ve otherwise been for enlisted me.

Those facts made the arrival of the SS convoy early that Thursday morning even more unusual. They’d been roused unexpectedly and assembled in the pre-dawn darkness as a staff car and a dozen open-topped trucks were driven into the compound, a pair of half-track APCs loaded with troops travelling at the head and tail of the procession. Even more unusual was the fact that the trucks, APCs and the troops inside them were all Waffen-SS rather than Luftwaffe. They’d been ordered up onto the trucks, although Colonel Scammell, the ranking captured officer had protested strongly to the camp’s commandant the entire time. Those complaints had fallen on deaf ears however, and off they’d gone in the trucks in the cold darkness of that early morning.

It’d been a forty minute drive or so north along the coast from Boulogne-sur-Mer, and had the circumstances — and the comfort of the trip — been better, Whittaker might well have found the whole thing quite enjoyable. The Route de la Motte du Bourg carried them through village after village as it wound its way along the French coast, quite close to The Channel throughout the majority of the journey. The sun rose over the French countryside to the east during the drive, the golden light streaming down across the huge expanse of water and the indistinct English coastline beyond… a coastline Whittaker and most of the others in those trucks would much rather have viewed from a good deal closer.

The sun had well and truly risen by the time the convoy turned off the main road at the small village of Escalles and headed north-east toward La Haute Escalles on the Route de Peuplingues. Just a kilometre or two beyond the village, all could easily see a massive construction site being cut into the green countryside as it rose into low, flat hills between the township of Peuplingues and the coastal village of Sangatte, just a few kilometres north.

The compound they eventually arrived at was truly huge, with the twin, parallel chain-link fences topped with coils of barbed wire stretching out in either direction from the side road through which they entered. There were towers inside the fence by the main gate, and also further along at regular intervals, the muzzles of a pair of heavy machine guns clearly visible protruding from the upper platforms of each of the nearer ones, and there was no reason to imagine the rest would be any different. A pair of squat, concrete pillboxes also sat athwart the road outside the gates, the long muzzle of an anti-tank gun protruding from the darkened firing slot of each.

A single railway line approached from the east, passing close by the northern side of Peuplingues and running parallel with the road for a kilometre or so as both followed the site’s southern perimeter fence, the newly-constructed track running about three thousand metres east to join up at with an existing French railway line near Fréthun. By coincidence, the majority of the new line’s layout almost exactly mirrored the positioning of what fifty years later in Realtime would’ve become the entrance to the Channel Tunnel.

The road and rail links converged as they approached the site and entered side-by-side through the same wide, double gates. The convoy drove on through as those gates opened before them, the guards waving them through, and Whittaker and the rest of the prisoners could see that there was already quite a bit of work going on.

Construction equipment was in operation all around, and Waffen-SS troops armed with assault rifles and submachine guns were everywhere also. Another thing that didn’t go unnoticed were the large number of anti-aircraft emplacements spread around the area: light 23mm guns in twin and quadruple mountings were numerous, with lesser numbers of medium 37mm and 50mm automatic cannon accompanying them.

Batteries of the ubiquitous Flak-36 88mm — equally adept at dealing with aircraft and armoured vehicles — were placed at strategic points around the compound perimeter, while heavier 105mm and 128mm high-altitude weapons were also visible in single gun emplacements here and there, also on the perimeter and usually set up close to clusters of the smaller guns.

The trucks finally came to a sudden stop near the end of the parallel railway track — a track that seemed far from complete. The earthworks and the bedding for further new track continued on much further, curving back around to the west and then to the north-east, the layout almost perpendicular to that coastline that was at that point probably no more than three kilometres away.

They were ordered off the trucks and lined up between the road and the railway line in two ragged rows of fifty men. Piles of digging equipment — picks, shovels and such — lay nearby in large, lidless wooden crates, and as SS guards piled out of the APCs they began to order the POWs to take up those tools in both German and broken English.

The orders were received with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, and the officers refused outright, quite unused to being treated or spoken to in such a manner. Colonel Scammell, close to Whittaker in the front row, was one of the most vocal in his objections, being the ranking officer, and he immediately broke ranks and sought out the nearest armed SS trooper.

“You will work!” The lance-corporal directed angrily, a little flustered at the unexpected questioning of his authority and gesturing once more at the tools.

“Article 27 of the Geneva Convention — of which Germany is a signatory — prohibits officers from being forced to engage in manual labour!” Scammell snarled in return, equally infuriated as the grey of his large moustache and hair contrasted dramatically with the beet coloured fury spreading across his features. “This is a direct contravention, and there is no way these men will be taking part!” The NCO, who fortunately did have some understanding of English, wasn’t really programmed to consider higher issues such as International Law, and that statement left him stymied for a moment or two: there was a pause as he considered the ramifications of whether his duties as a soldier might indeed answer to a higher code than his orders alone.

The captain in charge of the work detail came storming down from his staff car at the head of the convoy at that moment, pistol already in hand and looking none too pleased at the disruption to work that should have already been started.

“What the hell is holding these prisoners up?” He demanded loudly, directing his query at the SS NCO. “Why are these men not working?”

“Their ranking officer, sir,” the man replied instantly, inwardly relieved the situation was now no longer his problem. “He claims that ordering officers to work is prohibited by the Geneva Convention, and that they will not do it.”

“You say you will not work?” The captain demanded, turning to Scammell and switching to reasonable English.

“These men aren’t lifting a finger!” The British officer shot back in instantly, repeating what he’d said to the NCO, and there was a moment’s silence as the two men’s eyes locked, neither ready to back down. The German suddenly turned slightly, addressing his next question to the rest of the men lined up there.

“This is true?” He shouted the words, the tone indicating that the question was completely rhetoric. “Because of the Geneva Convention, you will not work?” The SS officer took a step backward and lifted the pistol without any warning, shooting Colonel Scammell through the chest. The sound caused many to jump in fright, and there was nothing but surprise on the British officer’s face as he stared down for a few seconds at the crimson spot suddenly spreading across his tunic. It was only another moment or two before the man’s eyes glazed over and he toppled to the ground, the rest of the allied prisoners riveted to the spot in shock.

“Yes!” He bellowed as they stood there, mute and terrified. “Germany has signed the Geneva Convention…!” Every word was a stab of pain as Pieter Stahl screamed at them. The movement of his mouth threatened to open up the stitches in his cheek, but he wasn’t about to moderate his actions all the same… not for a moment. “As this officer has just learned, however…” he gave Scammell’s corpse a savage kick “…the SS has not!” He began to pace along the line of men, pistol waving about as he continued his rant at full volume. “You men will work here, just like everyone else! ‘Conventions’ and treaties have no place here — the only rule you need to know is ‘Work or Die’!” He almost managed a smug grin in spite of the pain. “You are no longer officers or gentlemen… all you are now are prisoners: failures of dead empires!” At a whim, he raised the pistol once more and shot another man through the head, this time a French air force pilot. The man crumpled to the ground, already dead, as the men around him leaped aside in horror.

Stahl was still filled with an incredible amount of repressed rage over his injury and humiliation at the hands of the Luftwaffe officer, Ritter, a few days before — something the constant pain wasn’t helping — and he had no qualms over expending that rage on his prisoners. Because of the injury and for other, more political reasons, he’d been reassigned for the duration of his ‘convalescence’ to an SS work gang, and he intended to make certain the work was completed to schedule if it killed him…or others, which was far more likely. He cast an evil eye across the whole group, pistol held outstretched and seeking out each in turn as a terrified target as his aim swept along the line of men.

“Think carefully on your actions from now on, for the next time anyone fails to obey an order, I will personally shoot four prisoners!” Spittle flew from his lips as he spat the words out at full volume and surveyed the scene before him. “The next after that and it will be eight… the next… sixteen!” The mental calculation somehow came to him in just a moment. “So you can either obey my orders, or do me the favour of disobeying them five more times, in which case there will be none of you left alive to waste my fucking time!”

There was just one more moment’s silent pause before Flight Lieutenant Edward Whittaker joined in as readily as the others in hurrying across to the piles of tools and reaching out for the nearest shovel.

L’Hôtel de Crillon, Place de la Concorde

Paris, France

Maria Ritter had married at just twenty years of age. Almost as tall as her husband when wearing high heels, she carried a slender and willowy figure with a fine waist, long graceful legs and alabaster skin that perfectly complemented high cheekbones, an exquisite nose and wide, blue eyes. When not held in place by what was usually a complex combination of clasps and clips, her golden hair fell in long tresses on either side of her face and down as far as the middle of her back.

Maria never failed to attract the attention of men when she was out in public. In any setting, she’d be considered at the very least an extremely attractive woman. On occasions such as cocktail parties, Regimental Dinners or similar official functions where some preparation might be expected in the way of make up and such like, most onlookers male or female would concede that in an evening dress or ball gown, Maria Ritter was a stunningly beautiful woman.

Carl Ritter, nearing the end of his second year at university, had been at a loose end one Friday evening in September of 1925 and had decided at a whim to attend a play at a theatre not far from the his apartment and the campus. The performance itself was barely memorable — an avant garde new director’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet — however for the young Ritter there was one single, significant moment to be taken from the show that night.

As a condition of the Treaty of Versailles, Cologne had been occupied by the British Army of the Rhine and would remain so until 1926. Although an unpleasant situation, the English troops generally acted honourably and displayed fairness in their dealings with the local population, and the occupation for the most part was without incident.

As a result of this, and the fact that the play was being performed in English, the two hundred seat theatre that night held a significant number of British officers and enlisted men in its audience. The group was mostly quite well-behaved, save for one incident early in the performance: the initial entry on stage of Juliet. The first appearance of the female lead drew a number of loud and not altogether pleasant cheers and wolf-whistles from some of the British troops present, although several officers among them quickly silenced the men’s outbursts.

Resplendent in a long but nevertheless quite revealing contemporary cocktail dress of bright red — all the players were in modern dress as part of the director’s ‘vision’ of the performance — the stunning vision of young Maria Planck on stage captured the attention of all present, men and women alike. Herself a second year university arts student at the time, she’d also had a lifelong love of acting and the stage, and had already participated in several local theatrical productions.

Carl Ritter was as captivated by her as the rest, and found that he couldn’t take his eyes off the beautiful woman on stage before him. The rest of the crowd, and most of the performance itself ceased to exist in his mind as he followed her movements around the stage, jaw hanging slightly as if in outright shock.

After the performance, Ritter somehow managed to find somewhere nearby where he could purchase a huge bunch of red roses, and he returned to the theatre in a rush to join a small group of hopefuls of both sexes at the stage door, all desperately waiting to meet the cast as they left the building. The young man had never believed there was a chance the beautiful young actress might consider him worthy of her attention, yet as she stepped out through the stage door that night wrapped in a long, ladies’ woollen overcoat and fur hat, her eyes met his and everyone else around them was forgotten for both.

Carl and Maria were engaged soon after and were married in the spring of 1929, just six months before the Wall Street Crash. Carl didn’t think much of the idea of ‘love at first sight’ — he was a practical and logical man after all — and he was also well aware of the old English proverb that concerned ‘Gift Horses’ and the dangers of inspecting their teeth. He was happy to simply accept his excessively good fortune in the unfathomable fact that the lovely Maria was as head-over-heels in love with him as he was with her, and leave it at that.

Ritter sat on the queen-sized bed in their hotel room and stared down as his wife as she slept, arms instinctively cradling the baby boy he’d rescued from the farmhouse the weekend before. As Maria lay there beside him, she was as beautiful to him as she’d ever been, and their meeting at Paris’ Gare du Nord railway station earlier that day had been a happy one indeed after so many months apart.

The luxury suite he’d booked for the next week in one of the oldest, grandest hotels in Paris was large and beautifully appointed. The main bedroom they were currently in held that huge bed and a collection of antique Louis XV furniture that included a dressing table, armoire, secretary desk/cupboard and several chairs. The adjoining bathroom and living room area were proportionally as large, and were decorated with a similar opulence. More than enough money had changed hands to ensure there was no problem for the hotel staff to place an extra single bed in the main living area, in which Antoine also currently slept.

Dressed in just his uniform trousers and an undershirt of white silk, Ritter rose from the bed and moved silently across to bedroom windows that stretched floor-to-ceiling before him. Beyond those windows, a spacious terrace area overlooked the city from the top floor of the building, and the mild night air was soothed by a cool breeze as he opened the glass double doors and stepped outside.

Taking a soft pack of unfiltered Gauloises and a box of matches from his trouser pocket, Ritter picked one out and lifted it to his lips. The match flared and died, and as he leaned forward over that fourth floor balustrade and stared out at the city, the faint, intermittent glow of the cigarette itself was the only visible indication of his presence looking up from the street below. Ritter didn’t smoke often, and never smoked while on duty. The strong, overtly French brand was his personal favourite, and one small benefit of the occupation, on a personal level at least, was that they were far more readily available in France than they’d ever been back in Germany.

Directly below him, the Place de la Concorde spread out to the south, its pair of fountains as stunning in their copious floodlighting as the 23-metre tall Luxor Obelisk that stood at its very centre. The square was the largest in the city, and during the French Revolution, at which time the site had gone by the earlier title of Place de la Révolution, the city’s guillotine had for some time held pride of place where that red granite monument now stood.

He took a long drag on the cigarette and savoured it, smiling to himself in the recognition that things could be a lot worse than the situation he was in at that very moment, and finally released the smoke from his lungs in a long plume that was instantly carried away on the breeze.

The Hôtel de Crillon was positioned at the north western end of the square, and was one of the oldest in the city. One of two identically designed buildings set side-by-side along the northern boundary of the Place de la Concorde, the hotel had actually been temporarily occupied and used as a headquarters by the Wehrmacht , following the declaration of Paris as an open city. Following the cessation of hostilities between France and Germany and the creation of the Vichy government however, the OKW had decided to move further west and set up camp at the mansion neat Amiens, where it had stayed ever since.

The move had been Reuters’ own decision, the Reichsmarschall preferring to remain closer to the coast and their main adversary, Great Britain. He was also of the opinion that his headquarters staff and attendant support troops would be better able to concentrate on their work and generally keep out of mischief well away from the bright lights and distractions of Paris… and from the prying eyes and ears of any potential spies or resistance agents.

During that short period as a HQ, the luxurious reputation of the Crillon had spread throughout the Wehrmacht nevertheless, and it was on that knowledge alone that Ritter had spent a sizeable amount of the money he’d saved from his last three months’ pay on one of the premier suites in the building. From that penthouse terrace, he could see right across Paris’ southern hemisphere — a view that included the magical beauty of the Eiffel Tower, near the banks of the Seine and just a few kilometres to the south-west. If he leaned far enough over the balustrade, he could also look straight down the Champs Elyseé and see the impressive majesty of the Arc de Triomphe an similar distance to the west.

“It’s just beautiful, isn’t it?” The unexpected sound of his wife’s soft voice was a welcome surprise, and he turned to find her standing just outside the glass doors to the suite. Her sheer, summer night dress of fine silk was almost see through, and did nothing to hide her fine figure as dim lighting from the suite behind her left her silhouetted in the open doorway.

“A city that just became a great deal more beautiful,” Ritter observed with an appreciative smile that bordered on the positively lascivious.

Maria walked slowly across the terrace to join him with a crystal flute of fine champagne in each hand, offering one to him as she drew near. As she approached, he instinctively stubbed the half-burned cigarette out on the balustrade and flicked it over the side to fall downward to the street. Maria had never made an issue of his infrequent smoking, but he nevertheless knew full well she didn’t approve, and out of respect for the woman he loved he’d developed a habit during their years of marriage of putting his cigarettes out while she was around almost by reflex.

“Prost…!” She declared in a soft toast, which Ritter repeated, and both drank from their glasses as their bodies pressed together in simple enjoyment of each others’ proximity. Maria moved to lean over the balustrade beside him, and as he turned, he reached out and slipped his free arm around her waist, drawing her close and resting his head gently on her shoulder as they both stared out across the city lights.

“They seem to trust us, at least,” Carl observed softly, turning his head slightly to place a gentle kiss upon his wife’s bare shoulder.

“After what they’ve been through, I’m surprised they’d trust anyone,” Maria replied, her face contorting into a momentary frown as she recalled the story Ritter had told her of what had transpired at the St. Omer farmhouse five days before. He’d carefully omitted many of the more unsavoury details, but what he had revealed had been more than enough to fill her with disgust. She’d also been no less affected by the loss of their own child five years ago than had been her husband, and as a result she’d been just as deeply affected by the plight of the two children that now slept inside the suite.

“I… we… have custody of them both until a suitable permanent home can be found,” Carl began, unsure how Maria might react to that news.

“How long to we have?” She asked immediately, standing back just enough to enable her to turn and look into his eyes with a direct and quite intense stare that clearly told Ritter she was already thinking things through in her mind.

“The paperwork comes signed from the office of the Reichsmarschall himself,” he shrugged. “I should think we’ve as little or as much time as we like.”

“Then I see no reason at all for us to give those beautiful children to anyone else,” Maria shrugged also, the declaration quite matter-of-fact in her own mind.

“My thoughts exactly,” Carl agreed, allowing himself a relieved smile and seeming almost taller as a huge, mental burden of uncertainty lifted from his shoulders. He’d come to feel the same over the last few days, and had been terrified that his wife might have reacted differently, in spite of his own instincts. He was now filled with relief that she had indeed come to a similar conclusion independently from any outside influence. “Antoine tells me his brother’s name is Curtis, but I’ve shortened it to ‘Kurt’ for the sake of the official papers.”

“My father’s name,” Maria beamed.

“My thoughts exactly at the time,” Carl nodded with a wry smile, “but also convenient to perhaps let the Reichsmarschall think it’s in his honour. I doubt it’ll make much difference, but it never hurts to have one’s bases covered… perhaps only for the sake of what others may think…”

“Should we be concerned about the SS…?” Maria asked suddenly, another frown creasing her fine features as she considered the ‘others’ Carl might’ve been referring to. “They’re not known to take kindly to being opposed, or at being made fools of…” The reputation of the SS was well known in Germany, and as a long-serving officer’s wife, she was no fool either when it came to understanding the political and personal dangers of making enemies within the Schutzstaffeln.

“I think we’re fairly safe for the time being,” Carl shrugged with a grimace after giving the question some thought. “Never pays to take things for granted of course, but I doubt they’d dare try anything, now that Reuters has become involved…” he paused, then continued quickly as he saw the next question before Maria asked it, “…and no… I’ve no idea why the Reichsmarschall has chosen to personally involve himself in my affairs. I admit the personal interest is a little disconcerting, but it’s also allowed us the luxury of this time together and has cleared the paperwork for us taking custody of the boys, so I suspect we should remain thankful and not ask too many questions for the time being…”

“I shall need to move back with mother in Berlin, I should think,” Maria mused slowly, accepting Carl’s reasoning and already turning to the practicalities of the situation.

“A relatively small sacrifice for all concerned,” Ritter grinned mischievously.

“You be nice!” Maria slapped him lightly on the shoulder in mock admonishment. “She thinks very highly of you!”

“I sincerely doubt that, my darling actress extraordinaire,” he chuckled softly, “but I do appreciate the amount of effort you just put into that lie to protect my feelings.”

He could’ve kissed his wife in that moment, and seeing no reason why he shouldn’t, he in fact did exactly that. Touching his fingers lightly to her chin, he gently lifted her face upward and leaned forward, their lips barely brushing for a moment.

“I take it we feel the same about this then?” She asked softly with a loving expression and a faintly wry smile as both placed their champagne flutes upon the top of the balustrade, the drinks instantly forgotten. Reaching up with her free left hand, she curled her fingers through the hair at the back of Carl’s head and drew his face down to hers once more, the second kiss longer, deeper and far more intense. It had been several months since they’d been together last, and the great love they felt for one another was matched by an equally strong physical attraction that had never lessened or faltered throughout their years of marriage.

“I’ve missed you…” she whispered in his ear, her voice softly hoarse with sudden, building desire. “Missed you holding me… your hands touching me…” They kissed for a third time, and she released a low, muffled moan of pleasure as their lips and tongues met passionately and his arms drew her body tightly to his. She could feel him against her, already hard through the material of his trousers, and the sensation only served to increase her own arousal even further.

Pushing him gently back, she took his hand and led him across to a Louis XV-style chaise longue that stood on the outside wall of the suite beside the double doors, under cover of the short overhang of the eaves above. In one fluid movement, she pushed him down onto the seat, drawing the nightdress up around her thighs as she straddled him and their lips met passionately once more. She began to grind against him as the kiss continued, moaning loudly this time as she felt his hands exploring her body. For the next few hours at least, the rest of the world around them would temporarily cease to exist.

HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

His breath caught in the chilly air, clouds of condensation swirling about his face as they walked toward their car along the Soho back street. The show had been a good one: ‘Phantom’ had always been one of his favourites, and that particular offbeat production had collected some excellent reviews in its thirteen-month run so far.

Anna had never seen it — something he’d been surprised to learn in their first months of marriage — so they’d gone that wintry Friday night, and as he’d suspected, she had loved it. Just after midnight on a very cold, very early Saturday morning they were now walking arm in arm back to where he’d parked the Monaro, concerns that the big coupe might’ve been stolen or vandalised no more than a vague unease in his subconscious.

They didn’t notice the emptiness of the narrow lane until they drew within a few metres of the waiting Vauxhall, and by that stage it was far too late. Despite more than a decade in London, as a relative newcomer to the city itself, he was unaware that the West End’s reputation as a centre for theatre and entertainment was matched, particularly in Soho, by a reputation as a centre for the sex industry. Anna had no experience of London at all, being originally from Portsmouth and having lived in London for a far shorter period than he.

Neither were fully aware of the fact that some of the more ‘out-of-the-way’ backstreets of the borough could be home to some undesirable types and activity as a result, or of the inherent dangers involved in allowing yourself to be caught alone in some of those areas after dark as a result.

The trio had been following them for some distance and were just a few metres behind them as they realised there was someone else there. For all his training, he and his wife were far too caught up in their own company: after just four months of marriage, the honeymoon feeling and the ‘magic’ of their love for one another still hadn’t worn off.

The late calling of sixth sense finally prompted him to turn around just as the hand of the first youth had been about to descend on his shoulder. Instinctively, he pushed Anna to his rear, away from the group, and his new wife’s face was full of fear and surprise as she clutched her woollen winter coat about her.

They said something to him at that point — one of them did, anyway — as another smiled at his wife and made some kind of low, lewd remark. Skinheads they were — shaved skulls, tattoos and Nazi regalia adorning their skin and wretched clothing. In years to come, as he analysed the event time and time again, and tortured himself over it, he came to believe it was the suggestive remark about Anna that had snapped his temper in that sudden state of high tension.

He pushed the first of them in the chest… hard… and drove him back a few steps before blocking a punch thrown at him in retaliation, returning with his own left cross to the thug’s cheek. He sent the youth reeling with a split lip and several loosened teeth, drawing a gasp as the punch also broke one of his fingers against the man’s face. The fiery pain in his own fist was ignored as he turned to the next attacker, using all of what little combat skills he’d so far been taught with the SIS, and mixing them with half-remembered, rare lessons of self defence training from his days with the air force.

Anna screamed sharply in fear as the second ‘Skin’ charged him, but the thug was all brute force and no finesse and was no real problem. He merely waited for the man to come on and stepped nimbly to one side, presenting the side of the man’s head with his elbow as it passed. The stunned attacker sprawled flat on his face and would play no further part in the action, blood oozing from his right ear. That left just the two of them: the one with the split lip who was now wild with anger, and a third youth who’d as yet neither said nor done anything, instead merely waiting patiently a few metres back from the action.

Even as a knife appeared in his hand, the one with blood streaming down his chin from his injured mouth was no longer all that dangerous — he was too enraged to think clearly. The blade flashed in the dim street lighting, but he dodged it easily as it cut the air where his face should have been. Ducking under the swing, he presented the wielder with a hard jab to the stomach. As the man was bent double by the impact, he followed up by sending his left forearm into the side of the man’s already injured face. With a dazed wail, the skinhead sagged to the ground, the strength draining out of him.

It was at that moment he caught a flash of movement from the third man out of the corner of his eye. Whirling, Thorne attempted to gain some fighting room and remove himself from the proximity of the thug he’d just poleaxed, but the last attacker was far too quick to allow that. A fist crashed against his temple before he had time to duck, sending stars and fire coursing across his mind and eyes.

He staggered backward and crashed to his knees, thinking groggily that he heard Anna screaming again. Trying to turn his head in her direction, he barely caught sight of the Doc Marten as it arced in toward him. The impact fractured his skull and dropped him completely to the hard cobblestones in a daze. The doctors would tell him later he was lucky: another inch or so the wrong way and that boot might’ve crushed his skull, such had been the force of the blow. ‘Lucky’… for a few years he’d actually believed that.

He could hear his wife wailing for help now, and he knew the last one had caught her before she could run. If she’d left him the moment they’d attacked, she’d might’ve had a chance, but the thought of abandoning him had never entered her mind. He tried to move, but his limbs refused to respond and the world kept spinning round and round his unfocussed eyes. It was the screams that’d drive him very nearly mad for years afterward. It was her screams that night that he’d hear in his head and continue to tear at his heart and mind, long after his wife’s eventual death.

When he’d first recovered from his injuries, and Anna had been waiting for him outside the hospital, he’d agreed with the doctors that he’d been lucky, really… he’d heal okay… and as for his wife… well, Anna was a strong woman, the psychiatrist had told him. As it was, they hadn’t really hurt her very much physically, apart from the rape itself, of course, and hopefully the mental anguish and feelings of violation would subside with time, given enough love and support.

That was how it’d seemed at the time, at least, and it’d be four more years before they found out the doctors had all been completely and utterly wrong. He’d carried a picture of his wife in his wallet in the years after, yet the only image of her he could ever recall was that of her on her deathbed, her skin ashen and drawn tight upon frail bones and a shattered body. In the end he was happy for her: happy that her suffering was finally over.

Thorne woke up in tears as usual after the nightmare, although it’d been the first time he’d experienced it so badly since they’d made the jump. During the preceding nights he’d only suffered through unnerving ‘snippets’ of the dreams, which had been a marked change in comparison to the constant night terrors he’d suffered through in the twelve months or so leading up to Hindsight’s displacement.

In the two years following her death, his ongoing erratic behaviour led to continuing speculation at MI6 that he’d be replaced as head of the investigation he’d been directing into advanced Neo-Nazi activities within Britain and Europe in general. It was only after the abduction of Samuel Lowenstein and the realisation there was something far more serious and sinister in the wind, that he’d finally managed to bring his life under control once more. As the United Nations came on board and billions of dollars of funding began to flood in, the Hindsight Interception Unit was officially born and, on the surface at least, it appeared that Max Thorne was finally on the road to recovery. He’d told no one during that time of the existence of the recurring nightmare that by that stage he’d been experiencing regularly for almost three years.

The luminous hands on his wristwatch informed him it was 3:35am. He groaned and sat up in bed, staring about his quarters in the darkness and glad he didn’t share a room. Groggy at first, he slipped slowly out of bed and pulled a pair of track pants and T-shirt over his shorts and bare chest. Opening the door and checking that the hallway was empty, he slipped silently out, instinctively knowing what he needed to help him sleep.

He ignored the biting cold as he stepped from the barracks and walked gingerly along a path of crushed gravel in bare feet before entering the nearby officers’ mess, attached as it was to the far end of the same building. He moved silently for all that, and if any of the nearby night piquets saw or heard him, none raised any alarm.

There were still embers enough left in the fireplace inside to ignite a newly placed piece of wood, and with the blinds all drawn as per blackout regulations there was little likelihood of anyone from outside noticing the glow of the small fire.

A quick search behind the bar located what he was looking for. The fiery rum burned his throat as he drank straight from the bottle, but it made him feel a little better. Bundaberg Rum it wasn’t — not even up to the standard of Bacardi as far as white rum went — but it’d do the job well enough in an emergency.

The orderly assigned to him would find him asleep in that armchair two hours later and help him back to bed before he was missed. A dyed-in-the-wool military man of twenty-eight years service, the dour corporal would never countenance the idea of reporting the event to anyone or of mentioning the half-bottle of rum he found by the CO’s chair. It was replaced behind the bar before the cleaners arrived that morning.

9. Taking Care of Business

HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Monday

July 15, 1940

Kransky hadn’t been given much time to rest upon arrival back in England, and by and large he was fairly happy with that. He was a man used to being in action and on constant alert, and extended periods of time alone with his thoughts wasn’t something he actively pursued. He was quite pleased to discover that SOE already had an assignment waiting for him upon arrival as he stepped off the boat in Dover, accompanied by a commission into the British Army at the rank of major. He’d requested immediate embarkation, happy to have anything to keep his mind active, and Army GHQ were equally happy to oblige: they sent him north.

His first suspicion that something unusual was going on at Scapa Flow was as his Dakota transport began its final approach. While circling the remarkably large base on Hoy Island below, he caught sight of several things he at first felt certain must have been a poor attempt at deceiving the Germans. Two massive aircraft sat on concrete hardstands near the hangar end of the main runway, aircraft so large they initially seemed too huge to be anything but fakes… phonies set up to perhaps frighten or confuse an enemy’s reconnaissance aircraft or intelligence services. However as they drew closer and came in for landing, Kransky was ultimately forced to throw out the notion of decoys: not only did they seem far too detailed and well-made to be false on closer inspection, but something in the back of his mind also suggested it made no sense for someone to create ‘fakes’ that were so patently unbelievable.

Yet he was also stunned to consider these planes could possibly be real, something that’d also occurred to the other nine passengers on the DC-3 that afternoon. All of them stared out through the plane’s side windows as they came in, only forcing themselves back to their seats in the last moments before landing. All present were either officers or high-ranking NCOs — warrant officers and sergeants — and were all British Army. The general discussion on the flight up from London had revealed that none of them actually knew exactly what they were being sent to Scapa Flow for, other than that it was to become part of the security detachment for a new base there, and that there’d be the ample opportunity for all of them to further their own combat and field craft skills at the same time.

In Kransky’s estimation — and his judgement was usually exceptional — most of the men were highly-skilled indeed, if perhaps lacking in actual combat experience. They’d certainly been eager to hear of what he’d seen in China and France, and had listened intently to everything he was willing to tell. Their unwavering interest and constant urging had prompted him to be more forthcoming than he might normally have been, and it’d helped pass the time in any case.

From the moment they’d appeared over HMS Proserpine and the Hindsight base however, the conversation had centred solely on the incredible aircraft below, although with no air force officers being present, nobody could manage anything beyond pure speculation. Kransky suspected, looking at those aircraft, that perhaps the average RAF officer mightn’t be much more help anyway.

Fifteen minutes later, the men had disembarked from their aircraft and stood in line on the runway, their duffel bags piled at their feet. They were met on the flight line by two officers, an army brigadier and an RAF air vice marshal with an Australian accent, and it quickly became apparent that the latter of the two in charge.

“Welcome to the Hindsight Interception Unit, gentlemen: part of the HMS Proserpine naval anchorage…” the Australian began, waving away their attempts at coming to attention. “At ease… at ease… you’re not here to brush up on your drill.” He smiled as they relaxed, some a little reluctantly. Kransky, who’d never once stood at attention in his life, remained casual throughout it all, but nevertheless watched every movement with interest.

“My name’s Max Thorne…” the man continued. “I’m the ranking officer in this area of the base. I don’t intend to throw my weight around all that much unless absolutely necessary, but I thought you should all know that straight off the bat. My colleague here is Brigadier Nick Alpert of Army Intelligence — he’s one of my far-too-many executive officers and advisors here on base…” the remark raised a grin from Alpert “…and it’s he who’ll mainly be in command of liaison and security matters here at Hindsight. This unit’s quite separate from the rest of the Scapa Flow Naval Base, you’ll quickly see: it’s a tri-service establishment, which countenances no favourites or seniority among any of the services… the only seniority here is me…” He grinned again, the expression making it fairly clear that wasn’t going to be an issue for many.

Thorne then made his way along the line, individually greeting each man and speaking a few words before moving on to the next. As he reached Kransky, he took a few more moments than with the others: the name ‘Richard Kransky’ was one he’d recognised from the list of prospective security personnel the moment it’d been presented to him.

“Major Kransky… I’ve heard a great deal about you,” Thorne began with a slightly guarded smile, shaking the man’s hand.

“Nothing too bad, I hope,” the American replied with a broad, lopsided grin, while totally and purposefully ignoring correct protocol in order to gauge the man’s reactions.

“All good, I’m pleased to report,” Thorne replied without a blink, ignoring the deliberate faux pas with equal intent. He knew the man by historic reputation and was very pleased to have him on board. He wasn’t going to start dragging him across the carpet for matters that Thorne himself cared little for. “You’re excellent reputation as a field operative precedes you: we’re grateful to have you here with us. You’ll be heading up the security team these boys’ll be putting together, and as such I’ll expect you to work closely with me and Nick here while we’re at it.”

“Sure it’ll be a pleasure, sir,” Kransky replied, deciding this time to show at least some deference to rank, now the Australian had passed his unofficial ‘test’. He could assess a lot in the first few seconds of meeting a person, and he could already see the man had a few problems judging by the condition of — and look in — his eyes (not to mention the whiff of alcohol on his breath at close range). Thorne also appeared to be under a lot more pressure than he was probably used to, but the man also gave every indication of being a straight-up kind of guy. On the face of it, he certainly seemed unlikely to be a hard-ass as far as regulations were concerned, and those were the types of men Kransky liked working with: men who cared about what was important rather than the pointless minutiae that many ranking military officers seemed preoccupied with. “Sure it’ll be a real pleasure,” he repeated, and actually meant it.

Curragh Internment Camp

County Kildare, Ireland

Wednesday

July 17, 1940

Cold wooden barracks, damp earth, icy winds and barbed wire: if ever a single, short sentence could describe the Curragh Internment Camp, that would’ve been close in Eoin Kelly’s informed opinion. He was certainly in an excellent position to pass judgement, having been held now for six months, and Kelly had to admit there were tougher prisons on the face of it — Portlaoise, Arbour Hill or Mountjoy in Dublin, to name a few — but the worst part of the Curragh wasn’t necessarily the conditions.

Kelly was a man in his mid-forties, of barely average height and sporting a shock of unruly red hair that refused to turn grey. His face was generally nondescript, other than a completely winning smile that perfectly complemented his affable and slightly roguish nature. His personality and powers of persuasion had been of great use to him both personally and professionally over the years, although ultimately even he had to admit they hadn’t been sufficient to prevent him ending up at The Curragh.

Special Branch’s Broy Harriers had picked Kelly up on a frosty afternoon in December of 1936 as he walked along Dublin’s Cloniffe Road, minding his own business. At the time, he’d been working under Seán O’Brien, the newly-appointed Intelligence Officer for the Irish Republican Army Council, and had been sought by the Special Branch for some time as a result of his activities within the IRA. Although there’d been no real offence for which he could be officially charged, that was a minor detail that mattered little to the Special Branch of the day when dealing with the Republican Army. His apprehension alone had provided them with an appropriate charge in any case: illegal possession of a handgun.

He’d been carrying an old Webley .450 revolver in his jacket pocket at the time of his arrest, and he was subsequently charged and found guilty under the 1925 Firearms Act. Kelly was sentenced to three years at Mountjoy in Dublin, and although the conditions were bad enough, there was again far worse to be found elsewhere. Stories of some prisoners’ treatment at Portlaoise Prison in County Laoighis, for example, were sobering indeed — men kept in solitary confinement for years on end, forbidden to speak and with no contact at all with the outside world. It was rumoured the guards even wore rubber-soled boots so as not to break the total silence in which the incarcerated men were kept… by comparison, Mountjoy didn’t seem so bad at all.

Kelly had made sure he kept his nose clean in prison, and had served his time staying out of any trouble. Not surprisingly however, his good behaviour had nevertheless had counted for little in securing his actual release. His immediate transfer to The Curragh following the completion of his sentence hadn’t been any real shock, as the practice was common at the time under Eamonn de Valera’s Fianna Fáil Government. Nevertheless, it was still a cruel blow to a man’s spirit, and some of the men interned there had been detained indefinitely, without any formal sentence or charge, supposedly held and at the Irish Government’s leisure due to an ongoing ‘state of emergency’. The authorities knew how highly-placed Kelly had been within the Army Council, and that made it unlikely he’d be walking free any time soon.

Kelly had spent most of that morning and afternoon so far doing exactly what he’d done most days since his internment at ‘Tintown’… nothing. The concentration camp had been expanded in a rush amid an unexpectedly huge influx of political detainees, brought on by the Emergency Powers Act of January 4, and the overloaded facilities were sparse and primitive to the point of almost non-existence. Most men there spent their days aimlessly wandering about or talking, and most tried to stay out of trouble: the threat of a visit to the ‘Glasshouse’, where troublesome internees were taken to have the error of their ways ‘explained’, was incentive enough to keep most on the ‘straight and narrow’.

“Thought you’d be at one o’ the lectures, Eoin,” Tomás Glynn observed beside him, the usual hint of mischief in his light voice. “Difficult to decide which one to choose: Martin teaching Gaelic, or German with Seamus — German should come in handy, all right! Or, we could sit about and watch our two brilliant commanding officers argue as usual.” While Kelly was thin and wiry, Glynn was somewhat taller, five years younger, and somehow managed to remain moderately overweight despite the poor standard and amounts of food with which they were provided at the camp. Like many there at the Curragh, Glynn had ostensibly been sentenced by Military Tribunal for simply ‘refusing to answer questions’, but that in itself meant little — it was unlikely any of the men there would see freedom again until the government decided that the current ‘emergency’ had subsided.

“Oh yes, that sounds far too hard to pass up, doesn’t it now!” Kelly shot back with even sarcasm. “I already speak Gaelic, as I’m sure you’ll notice, and I’m sure I don’t need to watch Mulligan and Grogan in their daily pissin’ contests either!” He gave a snort of derision. “I wouldn’t be thinkin’ there was much use in learning German either, if I was you — they’ve not proven to be much use to The Cause so far!”

“They’d be mad not to help us — when the British Empire’s done with, it’ll give them some friends in the Republic.”

“‘The Republic’…?” Kelly’s tone wasn’t as confident as he’d have liked. “I’d not be so damned confident that the English will fold up so easily, or that the Republic will follow as a matter o’ course either,” he snorted angrily. “The Germans have been next to bloody useless so far, anyway — two of their agents picked up within days of getting’ here, and the new fella hasn’t had much luck so far either, other than stayin’ one step ahead of the Garda.” He shook his head, frustrated by life, and the times in general. “It’s not like the old days, Tomás: even if the Germans do get their act straight… would they want to help us?”

“What’re y’ talkin’ about, Eoin?” The man was genuinely stumped by Kelly’s statement as they stood in the lee of a barracks wall, sheltering from the wind.

“Doin’ bank raids now…! For the love of God, Tomás, I know the money from America’s dried up because of the war, but we never had to stoop that low when I joined The Cause. Things have been goin’ straight to shite since the raid on the Magazine Fort, man! They’ve been rolling us up all over the country, and we’ve been losing supply dumps from here to Tralee and back to the point where the Council thinks they’ve got back more ammo from us than we actually took at the Fort! There’s more of us in Mountjoy and Portlaoise, and here at the Curragh now, than there are out on the streets just about, and they pick more of us up every bloody day!” Kelly suddenly felt very tired — tired in spirit as much as he was physically. He leaned across, placing a steadying hand against the side of the barracks wall as his other hand rubbed nervously across his own forehead. “Twomey and Killeen and so many others stuck behind bars, while the Councils fight with each other instead of the real enemies! Seriously, man… even if the Germans do find some money or arms to spare, d’you really think we’re going to impress them enough to help us as it stands at the moment?”

“Give ‘em time, Eoin… and give us time too! Surely they’ll find something to spare for us to help with knocking off the British.”

“It’s a lovely dream, Tomás, but I’d be much happier if there was something to suggest it’ll ever be anything more than that,” Kelly observed pointedly, some of his strength returning as he spied a common enemy in the distance. He nodded in the direction of the main gates, where a pair of Austin sedans had pulled up a hundred metres away. The ramshackle lines of wooden barracks surrounded by lines of barbed wire and not much else provided little to keep the mind interested, and any out of the ordinary event tended to attract the attention of everyone within range.

“Looks like we’ve some visitors,” Glynn agreed as everyone nearby stopped to stare. They looked on as two of the men in the lead sedan climbed out and walked up to the gates, and even from that distance, Kelly recognised one of them.

“Harriers,” he observed, meaning Ireland’s Special Branch officers. “Wonder who they’ve come to see.” He didn’t add that the man he’d recognised, Jim Crofton, was one of the Republicans’ own men ‘on the inside’. That was information he’d picked up while working under Seán O’Brien, and it was something that precious few were aware of. He certainly wasn’t going to start spreading it about within the camp — never telling when an informant might be listening, after all.

“Probably comin’ for you, Eoin — Military Tribunal will be goin’ to charge you again over that ugly bloody face o’ yours.”

That remark actually got a genuine chuckle out of Kelly. “If that were the case, they’d be turnin’ up in lorries and takin’ half the bloody camp away, y’ great idiot!” The word came out sounding like ‘ee-jit’ — one of the few words Kelly spoke in English that showed more than the usually faint Northern Irish accent he had picked up from his mother’s side of the family. “There’d be bigger fish than me here for those fuckers to fry…”

Hours later, as he sat bound hand and foot in the rear of one of those same sedans, squeezed in tightly between two revolver-armed Special Branch officers, Eoin Kelly would curse those ‘famous last words’ he’d spoken to Glynn. None of the detectives would speak to him at all other than out of necessity, let alone explain where he was being taken or why. Although he was being taken alive, that was as much as could be said judging by the thorough beating he’d received from the guards at the Glasshouse before he’d been handed over: they obviously cared little for what condition he’d be in when he finally arrived at his mystery destination.

His sides and legs ached painfully where he’d been hit by their batons, and blood oozed faintly from a cut over his right eye — a cut he’d apparently collected, according to the guards at least, while ‘falling down’… several times. Crofton, in the front passenger seat of the car, hardly gave him a second look, and he was fine with that. He couldn’t expect the man to make any great effort to look into his welfare: that’d raise too much suspicion as to the man’s motives. Broy’s Harriers weren’t known for their interest in the welfare of their prisoners.

It was evening by the time they drove through the gates of Dublin Castle, and Kelly was no more aware of what was going on than he’d been as they’d left The Curragh. It was a cool, misty evening, and the dampness in the air added to the generally unpleasant atmosphere as the structure’s dark walls towered above them.

To Kelly’s surprise, an RAF officer and four British soldiers armed with Thompson submachine guns stood alongside a 15cwt truck in the middle of that courtyard, and the sight caused his stomach to churn suddenly with fear of the unknown. Although he had no idea as to what was specifically going on as he was dragged from the car, it was obvious from their stares they were waiting for him, and the involvement of the British wasn’t a good sign at all. Kelly had been involved in the 1916 Easter Uprising and numerous other events throughout his younger years that he was sure they’d be most interested in… the presence of those soldiers and the officer could be in regard to any number of incidents, and he was certain their presence wasn’t by chance.

Crofton and another of the Special Branch men engaged in a short conversation with the RAF officer, all reaching an agreement of some sort as Kelly gave the man a long, hard once over from a distance of just a dozen metres or so. He was about the same age as Kelly and of greater than average height, and although the IRA volunteer wasn’t sure of the man’s exact rank, he could tell it was quite high. The uniform itself seemed quite new, and the number of colour ribbons on the man’s chest (the ‘fruit salad’, as the military called it) seemed to be smaller than one might expect from a man who held such high rank. The officer caught his gaze and matched it with an expression that was emotionless and unfathomable… something that left Kelly feeling more than a little uneasy.

The expressions on the faces of the two corporals that moved toward him however were easily identifiable, and he instinctively braced himself as they drew near. The first of the two drove the butt of his Thompson into Kelly’s stomach, not actually hurting as much as it might’ve, but driving the wind from him all the same.

“Come on, you Fenian bastard!” One of them growled as they grabbed him roughly and started to drag him toward the truck, still bound hand and foot,.

“Corporal…!” The shout stopped all of them in their tracks, and attracted the attention of every man in the courtyard. The officer was beside them in an instant, and the expression on his face was suddenly a long way from fathomless — anger was now clearly at the forefront. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing, striking that man?”

The question left both soldiers, who’d instantly snapped to attention, completely stymied. The man was Irish, after all, and a member of the Republican Army as well — in their minds, they could see no possible reason why they wouldn’t strike him. The reaction also left Kelly uncharacteristically speechless — having officers of the British Empire take his side against their own was something he’d certainly never before experienced, even if the man was, upon hearing him speak for the first time, quite obviously Australian rather than English.

“B-but sir… he’s Irish…” while seemingly all that needed to be said in the mind of the corporal who’d struck the blow, that tentative answer was possibly the worst possible thing he could’ve said.

“And that alone makes it all right, does it, corporal?” Max Thorne snarled, deliberately emphasising the man’s lower rank. Thorne had grown up in a society predominantly based on the presumption that human beings weren’t categorised purely along lines of race, religion, sex or political leaning (in high theory at least, if not always in practice). Added to that was the fact he’d grown up and served in the military in an Australia of the late 20th Century: an island continent isolated and far removed from most of the dangers of terrorism, racial and religious schisms, social unrests and general levels of violence that were considered far more commonplace in much of the rest of the world.

That the man was Irish in itself meant nothing at all to him, and he’d grown up far enough away from the ‘Irish Problem’ of his own time to be able to put aside his own personal beliefs somewhat and recognise that whether Kelly was a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘freedom fighter’ depended as much on perspective as fact. Either way, Thorne had a pathological disgust of those who took advantage of others unable to defend themselves.

“Because he’s Irish, corporal… is that right?” The NCO sensibly held his tongue this time. “And what does that say about your opinion of me, then? I’m just a ‘bloody colonial’ after all!” There was acid in his tone now as he leaned right in close to the man’s face, the volume of his voice quite loud. “I’m not going to bother you with the moral arguments, corporal — I doubt you’d have the slightest chance of understanding them — but let me make myself crystal clear: if this man makes any legitimate attempt to escape, or to attack you in any way, you’re well within your rights to use whatever force necessary to restrain him or protect yourself. Other than that, you will keep your hands off him! Is that understood?” The soldiers could only nod in affirmation — Thorne had indeed made himself crystal clear. “Excellent…!” The word was laced with heavy sarcasm. “Now get Mister Kelly into the back of that truck and get us down to the docks now — we’ve a boat to catch that won’t wait much longer!”

The pair had no problem at all in moving an absolutely speechless Eoin Kelly into the back of the waiting truck in record time.

The boat waiting for them was HMS Arabis, a Royal Navy Flower-class corvette, and the group were heading out of the harbour and turning north-east into Dublin Bay and the Irish Sea within minutes of stepping aboard at the Dublin docks. As cold as it’d been in The Curragh or in Dublin — in spite of it nominally being summer — it was freezing out there upon open water as the choppy, black surface stretched out unbroken around them under the darkening sky of late evening.

Two of the soldiers remained with Thorne as he and Kelly sat on the corvette’s afterdeck, the central part of the decking taken up by an armoured mount sporting a pair of 20mm Oerlikon cannon surrounded by depth charges, supplies and other equipment. The naval rating manning the guns was alert despite the onset of night — there were no guarantees of safety after nightfall these days, particularly in light of the Luftwaffe’s marked aerial superiority.

Sitting beside Kelly, Thorne had donned a warm black parka with a multitude of pockets and had directed that a thick woollen pea coat be draped about the Irishman’s shoulders as the two guards stood off a few metres, nevertheless remaining alert.

“We goin’ to introduce ourselves then?” Kelly ventured with forced cheer, trying to get as much of the disrespect out of his voice as possible in recognition of the man’s defence against his assault earlier.

“I already know your name, Volunteer Eoin Kelly,” Thorne replied with a sly grin, and the obvious humour in his voice allowed the man to feel a little more at ease.

“Ahh… that you do… but you have me at a disadvantage…”

“Air Vice Marshal Max Thorne, Royal Air Force…”

“Aye, the ‘air force’ part I’d already guessed, right enough… You mind tellin’ me where we’re off to on this little adventure tonight? Normally I’d not bother you, mind, but none of the other bastards I’ve been ‘graced’ with tonight have been particularly disposed to talkin’…”

“Figured this bastard might tell you, eh?” Thorne chuckled, and Kelly could tell there was no offence taken by the extrapolation of his remark. “We’re off to the Royal Naval Air Station at Ronaldsway on the Isle of Man, Mister Kelly… from there we’ll board a plane flying north. I’ve a few things I need to discuss with you once we get to where we’re headed and we’ve have a chance to have a few drinks and get comfortable.”

“And where we’re goin’ would be…?” Kelly was wondering what possibly reason the man could have to want to take him ‘further north’ of the Isle of Man, which in real terms had to mean somewhere in Scotland.

“What… and spoil the ‘surprise’?” Thorne returned, still grinning.

“I think you’re having a laugh at me, Mister Thorne,” Kelly observed, only vaguely miffed over the fact.

“I think, Mister Kelly, that if all I’m doing is laughing at you, then you’ll probably be all right.” Thorne pointed out, realising in that moment that the man was still bound. He ordered over one of the soldiers and directed that Kelly be cut free of his restraints.

“You’re takin’ a bit of a chance there, aren’t you, Mister Thorne… nasty, dangerous criminal like me?” The words were light, but Thorne could detect the underlying questions beneath: Kelly was trying to get an idea of where he stood, and was probing Thorne’s resolve and intelligence in the process.

“Not really,” Thorne replied evenly, his right hand appearing from beneath the folds of his coat holding a large automatic pistol of a type Kelly had never before seen. “I’ve got this, after all, and the men over there are well armed and will happily shoot out your legs if you try anything. I wouldn’t rate your chances going over the side, either, considering the temperature of that water: probably wouldn’t be too long before a shark took you.” Both of those arguments seemed quite legitimate to Kelly as he mentally sized up his chances and came up decidedly short.

“You make a strong argument for us stayin’ civil right now, I’ll grant you,” he conceded as the reluctant lance-corporal took out a knife and cut his hands and feet free, keeping his own weapon well out of the prisoner’s reach.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about with me, Kelly, so calm down and enjoy the ride.” Those words surprised the man as he rubbed feeling back into his wrists and stretched his legs out across the deck.

“Aye, I gathered that back at The Castle,” his voice trailed off for a moment, and Thorne could ‘hear’ the added words that Kelly found too difficult to actually speak.

“You’re welcome, mate,” Thorne grinned, saving the man a little pride. “That must’ve been hard to almost say. Kelly, we’re not taking you anywhere under arrest — if you’ll put up with me for a month or so, you’ll be released free as a bird after that.” Those words stunned the man more than anything else so far, the expression of disbelief on his face clearly evident. “I’ll even fly you back into Ireland myself if I have to,” Thorne added, and for the first time in quite a while, Volunteer Eoin Kelly literally had nothing to say.

HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Thursday

July 18, 1940

Holding the position of Security Chief under circumstances that were far more formal than he was used to was already both an interesting and challenging experience for Kransky after just a few days. A large part of that time had been involved in organising and orienting the rest of his mixed group of officers and NCOs, although Captain Merrill and the others were experienced professionals and generally managed to get up to speed quite quickly. He’d also needed to take some time to acquaint himself with the base and the island in general, and had done a lot of walking in whatever free time he’d managed to find since his arrival. His tall silhouette had quickly become a regular sight around the perimeter of the base with the worn, dirty backpack and all his usual equipment slung over his back; equipment that including the captured German machine pistol and scoped sniper rifle.

Although there was no requirement whatsoever for him to move about armed, he’d spent far too long in areas of combat for him to feel completely safe or comfortable without some kind of firearm in his possession. In any case, he also didn’t want to become accustomed to not carrying his gear: whether the assignment there as security chief lasted a few weeks or a few months, he’d eventually end up ‘back at the coal face’ and operating in the field once more, and he didn’t wish to dull his ‘edge’ if he could avoid it.

As always, the aircraft parked along the flight line consumed his attention as he walked near the hangars and control tower that morning, dominating the scene with their overpowering size and the impossibility of their existence. He’d been introduced to the leaders of the Hindsight unit — the officer cadre — and he was sharp enough to recognise that all of them knew much more about those aircraft and the circumstances surrounding their presence on the tarmac than anyone was telling. He also knew that the officers themselves were an unusual bunch, to say the least, and there was another story to be had there potentially as interesting as anything that might explain the planes before him.

Unfortunately, no one was telling that story or any other. The CO — Thorne — was off base somewhere, expected back that day, and Kransky was hoping to finally get a few explanations upon his return. He could understand there was a place for secrecy under the right circumstances, but as head of security he had good reason to require some insight into what was going on at the base he was charged to protect. Without a reasonable working knowledge of what was going on there at the Hindsight installation, there was a potential for him to perhaps not take enough precautions to guard against an attack, either from without or within: he couldn’t protect the security of the place if he had no idea what he was supposed to protect.

As he passed neat the access ladder by the Extender’s forward loading hatch, not far back from the aircraft’s nose, he was still so enthralled by the sight of the aircraft that he rather uncharacteristically failed to take care where he was walking. He barely caught the sight of a combat jacket and short, dark hair in his peripheral vision as something jogged his right arm, and he finally dragged his attention from the huge machine above him.

“Sorry, buddy,” he began quickly as he spun around, “my fault…”

“Aye, that was never in any doubt, major,” Eileen Donelson agreed with laughter in her voice as she also stopped and turned to face him from a distance of a metre or so, his features sagging with embarrassment as he saw who he’d actually collided with. “I think we could get to know each other a little better, though, before we start being each others’ ‘buddies’…!”

“Aw, I’m sorry Commander… didn’t see you there… no disrespect.” The man found himself unusually lost for words in the presence of the female officer whom he’d just met, for the first time, earlier that same morning. He’d spent very little time in the company of women in general in the last ten years, most of that time having been taken up with fighting of one sort or another, and he found himself quite uncomfortable as a result, often stumbling over his words a little in uncertainty and embarrassment. Although he wasn’t exactly sure of the naval rank structure, he also had a sneaking suspicion that the commander slightly outranked him, making things decidedly more awkward.

“That’s quite all right, major,” she laughed again, the sound of her voice as she did so going a long way toward easing his discomfort. It was a laugh of good humour rather than any malice or mischief — she was definitely not laughing at him. “We all have our moments, I know… and the name’s Eileen, please. Max runs a fairly informal show here, as I’m sure you’ve already worked out.” She paused for a moment, cocking her head slightly sideways, as if sizing him up somehow. “That’s assuming you’ve no problem with me calling you ‘Richard’, of course…?”

“No!” He began, a little too definitively to not be embarrassed, and then continued more calmly: “No… Eileen… not at all: ‘Richard’ is just fine.”

“Going camping, are we?” She countered instantly, changing the subject as she eyed the pack and weapons slung on the man’s back. Kransky was substantially taller than Donelson and she was forced to tilt her head upward to look directly into his eyes.

“I like to keep myself used to carrying a full pack — it helps keeps me in shape among other things.”

“Looks a mite heavy to me,” Eileen replied with a friendly grimace. “I’ll stick to running, thanks all the same.”

“You like to run?” Kransky was genuinely surprised. The heavy combat jacket she wore was long and thick and gave no real indication as to her figure or physical condition — two things the man was definitely interested in seeing more of — and he didn’t remember too many of the women back home in ‘Jersey being particularly interested in exercise at all.

“Aye, I don’t mind putting in a kilometre or two in the mornings. You’re welcome to join me if you like: running on your own’s a bit boring, and the rest of the so-called ‘men’ around here are too bloody lazy to drag themselves out of bed at the times I prefer to exercise.”

“Ah… I don’t know…” Kransky began slowly, eager to say yes on a whim, but hesitant nevertheless: much as spending time with the female officer intrigued and appealed to him, he fancied his own fitness and took pride in his condition, and he didn’t think showing her up at something she liked doing would go down too well.

“Well, if you’re worried I’ll leave you behind, Richard,” she goaded, knowing exactly which buttons to push to engage the competitive nature of any man.

“No… no, that’s fine… what time?” There was only so much a male ego could take — he wasn’t going to have any woman think she was his better.

“Say… maybe… oh-seven-hundred-hours? Right here, near the tower?”

“Sounds just fine, ma’am… uh… Eileen…” He grinned, shaking his head as he corrected himself. “Looking forward to it.”

“My pleasure,” she quipped, turning to leave and then halting for a moment. “After we’re done, bring those weapons along to the workshops and we’ll see what we can do with them for you… maybe we can make a few improvements to the little arsenal you have there.” She turned and began walking this time, throwing over her shoulder: “See you tomorrow, Richard…”

There was no real point in replying as he’d need to shout far more loudly than he cared to as the distance between them increased. He instead took some time staring at her retreating form, as much intrigued as he was suddenly attracted to her. He had no qualms about that attraction, not thinking it any big thing in itself… he was a guy, after all, and a guy who’d spent a great deal of time not in the company of women at that: Commander Eileen Donelson would’ve needed to be far less attractive than his first impressions made her seem for him to not be thinking about her in the less than professional manner that he indeed was.

Her appearance from behind, despite the bulky shape of the jacket, certainly suggested her figure was one of someone accustomed to keeping in shape. He grinned and congratulated himself on his own style and ingenuity… he’d indeed make every effort to go ‘easy’ on her tomorrow morning and not get too far ahead: it never hurt to keep in the good books with an attractive woman.

All the same, although his experience with women wasn’t as great as it might’ve been, he was nevertheless a good judge of people generally and it was clear that Eileen Donelson wasn’t of a similar mould to any female he’d ever met. There were many much more subtle indicators than just the obvious one of the high rank that she held in such a conservative service as the Royal Navy, and her distinctly overt self-confidence was equally significant. He had no doubt that getting to know Commander Eileen Donelson was going to be an interesting exercise regardless of where it led, and silently reaffirmed his decision despite some protest from his ego: he would definitely go easy on her…

Thorne and Kelly arrived back at Scapa Flow not long after noon, following a long and completely uneventful flight from RNAS Ronaldsway in a Coastal Command Sunderland flying boat. A Morris light utility car had collected the pair from the docks at the naval base’s main anchorage and taken them south along a narrow, dirt track that ran up a slight rise past the Lyness Naval Cemetery. The track then ran on to the quite separate cluster of buildings and runway a kilometre or more further on that comprised the newly-constructed Hindsight base. Although he remained silent all the while, Kelly took in everything as they drove on, and his attention was suddenly and utterly consumed by the sight of two gigantic aircraft as they neared a set of gates on the northern side of the main hangar buildings and runway.

The son of an Irish farm worker, Kelly was quite well read and literate for all that, despite having been forced to teach himself a good part of his own education over the years. As Thorne’s credentials were checked and they moved on through those gates, it was immediately obvious to him that the aircraft he was staring at were far beyond the scope of anything he’d ever experienced. The IRA volunteer had seen warships at a distance, and what he thought to be relatively large freighters and ocean liners from closer up, mostly moored at the docks in Dublin and Belfast, but he’d seen no construction of man as impressive or as imposing as the KC-10A Extender and C-5B Galaxy.

“Interesting little ‘aviary’ you have up here, Mister Thorne: that, I’ll grant you,” he observed with a light tone as he peered intently out through the front windscreen over the driver’s shoulder, but there was deep interest and thought behind the words that didn’t pass unnoticed as the two men sat in the foldable rear seats of the Morris 8-cwt.

“We have some interesting toys to play with,” Thorne agreed, smiling faintly. “We’ll be able to have a nice chat about that over the next few days… and a few other things.”

“You going to keep me locked up until then, I gather?” Kelly was finding it hard to not like the Australian, but the man was the ‘enemy’ nevertheless — a servant of the hated British. He also wasn’t altogether happy with being dragged to the wilds of Scotland and beyond against his will — or at least without being asked first — despite how much the experience was arousing his ever-active curiosity.

“Well, we’re starting to understand each other all right here at the moment,” Thorne explained as the car trundled on slowly around the two transport aircraft, across the concrete runway, and on toward the main barracks and officers’ billets over open, grassed land. “I could ask you for your word that you won’t try to sabotage anything here or cause any mischief, but let’s be straight — you are a member of the Irish Republican Army, and as such you’ve sworn an oath or something similar is to fight for an Irish Republic. As such, whether I think so or not, any British target — to you — is probably a legitimate one, and I’d prefer not to test you at your word just yet… were you to waver in some way, we might just ‘spoil’ the nice rapport we’re building here. I could be wrong, but once we’ve had more of a chance to talk, I think I’ll be able to trust you not to do anything to upset me. That’s not a reflection on my opinion of you as much as it is a need to take a few precautions. That sound fair enough?”

Kelly fixed Thorne with a searching gaze and stared long and hard at the man, trying to find anything other than honesty in the man’s face. He gave the Australian’s remarks a good deal of consideration and could find no real fault in the logic or good intention at face value.

“Fair enough,” he agreed finally with a shrug. “I’ll thank y’ for not asking me to fight against temptation then, and we’ll wait and see.”

“You may not believe this, but the way things stand at the moment, your goals aren’t much different to what mine are almost certain to become — something that I’ll be talking about very soon. Rest assured, I’m as interested in seeing a free and liberated Ireland as you are… although I think perhaps we see enemies from different directions.”

“You have an easy way of getting a fella to listen to you there, Mister Thorne, although I’m interested to see you convince me of what you’ve just said. Don’t leave me too long waiting for that ‘chat’, will you?”

“No — I won’t,” Thorne promised with a grin.

As the vehicle pulled up at the main admin buildings, the brig and adjacent security offices behind, the driver climbed out and held the door open as his passengers dismounted by clambering around the forward-folding front seats. Eileen Donelson and Nick Alpert had been expecting their arrival and stood close by, accompanied a pair of armed SAS troopers. The men carried automatic rifles that seemed utterly alien and deadly to a very interested Eoin Kelly.

“I see we rated a welcoming party,” Thorne called from a few paces as they began to walk over. “Nice of you all to stop by.”

“We thought we’d bring some ‘friends’ along to keep an eye on our guest, seeing as you insisted on coming back with him alone,” Eileen explained, her voice cold as she eyed the Republican volunteer with quite obvious distaste. Kelly returned her gaze with one that was equal parts self-confidence and lasciviousness as he overtly studied her up and down, probably the worst thing he could have done under the circumstances.

With the sun above shining through light, patchy cloud that afternoon, the temperature was climbing to close to 14-15 degrees centigrade and was warm enough walk about without the need for bulky jackets. As a result, Eileen was wearing just combat fatigue pants and a snug-fitting ‘Howard Green’ army jumper that carried her commander’s rank on its shoulder boards, none of which did much to hide her fine figure. Kelly took instant note of her Scottish accent, but spent no more than a second or two noting her rank and the rest of the time staring at her body, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the female officer and did nothing to reduce her instant dislike of the man.

“Rest assured y’ can calm yourself, missus!” Kelly began in what he intended to be a conciliatory and quite roguish Irish lilt. “A fine, young Celtic lass such as yerself has nothin’ to worry about from the likes o’ me!” Thorne winced visibly as he envisaged the reaction those remarks were likely to elicit, a sneer already forming on Donelson’s lips.

“Nothing to worry about, ‘Jimmy’…?” She snarled back at him, patting the large revolver she wore at her own hip. “Well seein’ as I’m not an unarmed civilian ye can blow up from a safe distance, I do feel fairly safe… to be sure!” Her voice was laced with a level of venom that surprised Kelly completely and forced him to take a few mental steps backward. She’d done a fair impression of his accent in the last three words of her sentence, and it was fairly obvious the intent hadn’t been complimentary.

“Max, if you’ve finished with this creature, they can take him somewhere and keep him safe and sound.” Her next words, directed at Thorne, were only slightly less angry, and although he was ostensibly the unit’s Commanding Officer, Max was also smart enough to know when discretion was the clearly the better part of valour.

“Yes, we could probably all do with the rest.” He turned his gaze on Kelly and there was a friendly warning in the man’s eyes that the volunteer didn’t miss. “Toddle along with these gentlemen here and they’ll settle you in nice and comfy… I’ve some things to get on with this afternoon, but we can have a chat tomorrow some time.”

“I’ll be lookin’ forward to it, Mister Thorne,” Kelly nodded, putting as bright and cheery a face on as he could manage after the embarrassing rebuttal from Donelson, unaccustomed as he was to having his usually-successful charm fall so flat when used upon the fairer sex. The pair of SAS troopers took position on either side of him at that point and lead him away toward the security office and its small group of cells.

“I don’t like those bastards, Max… I’m sorry, but I don’t like them!” Eileen growled darkly, her angry eyes never leaving the Irishman’s back as he was taken away and the remaining three officers gathered together.

“I think he got the message, Eileen,” Thorne grinned faintly. “He’s not a bad bloke for all that, and history bears that out. He was one of the IRA’s more vocal opponents to the unrestricted bombings and violence after the war, and he and his mates ended up doing a lot to lay the groundwork for the peace processes that Adams and Sinn Fein put in place with Britain and Ulster in 2001…”

“More than that,” Alpert added, speaking for the first time as he momentarily rested a conciliatory and friendly hand on her shoulder, “from a purely pragmatic point of view, he may be our only effective chance of getting a connection into Ireland, so we need him! I don’t particularly like dealing with the IRA either, but we all have to focus on what we’re trying to do here.”

“I know what we’re trying to do, Nick,” Eileen snapped back, calming but still annoyed. “I also know we need that bastard’s help. That doesn’t mean I have to like him into the bargain.” She decided to change the subject at that moment as another thought occurred to her. “Oh, and I’ve organised to see about getting Richard Kransky re-equipped with some decent hardware tomorrow as well, so it might be an idea to have an word or two to him about what’s going on here before then: wouldn’t exactly be fair to throw him into all this without a bit of forewarning.”

“Yeah, I’m planning to do just that this afternoon,” Thorne agreed, a vaguely mischievous grin flickering across his face. “Nothing nasty or unpleasant about ‘Septics’ you have a problem with, is there…?” In Australian vernacular, ‘Septic’ or ‘Septic Tank’ were rhyming slang terms for ‘Yank’ — for an American.

“Nothing particularly wrong with Americans, no,” Eileen conceded, forced finally to smile a little herself. “The man seemed nice enough, if a little flustered when I last spoke to him.”

“And I wonder why that could be?” Thorne laughed openly for the first time, giving her a ‘once-over’ himself that was by no means completely innocent.

“You can watch yerself too, Mister!” She shot back, giving him a light punch to the shoulder and reddening in mild embarrassment over such a remark in a grinning Alpert’s presence. She and Thorne had some ‘history’, albeit many years in the past, and he could get away with both a remark and a look like under circumstances where others wouldn’t: she knew the man well enough to know that the intent was entirely humorous.

“Well try not to damage the man too much, will you…” Thorne passed a quick wink to Alpert that she failed to notice. “We don’t need a trail of broken hearts and beds left through the Twentieth Century as well as the Twenty-First!” With that he darted out of potential reach or a swung fist, knowing Donelson well enough to know damn well he’d completely crossed the line with that remark. Eileen went after him with an indignant squeal and a vengeance as Alpert rather uncharacteristically broke down into outright guffaws of laughter.

The sight of a CO who could barely run properly for laughing, being chased by a howling dervish in the shape of Eileen Donelson, would’ve had more impact on those around the base originally from the future had it not already become an infrequently common sight for one reason or another before they’d left their own time. More accustomed to long distance running than sprints, Eileen wasn’t able to quite catch her CO as he darted across the open grassland between the billets and the flight line, and Thorne wasn’t stupid enough to slow down…

Friday

July 19, 1940

Eileen’s statement regarding others of the officer group at Hindsight being too lazy to get up early enough to go for a run with her had been somewhat unfair: most of the group, in all honesty, were often up that early… although none of them were in the slightest bit interested in running as exercise, in the morning or at any other time. Thorne and Trumbull were indeed awake and dressed by 0700 that Saturday and preparing for the squadron leader’s first official flying lesson on the F-35E, although Thorne, having suffered another long and sleepless night of unsettling dreams, would in retrospect have preferred a later starting time.

As they walked near a line of slit trenches and the roof of a concrete command bunker, heading from the officers’ billets toward the flight line across open grassland, they both caught sight of Commander Donelson doing warm-up stretches alone in the distance near the control tower’s base. Even at that distance, Trumbull could see that the light shirt and shorts she appeared to be wearing were far too brief for such a lady to be wearing in his opinion.

“A little chilly for that kind of dress, wouldn’t you say?” He observed quietly, feeling the cold through the flight suit and lined jacket he wore as their breath streamed about them in clouds of condensation on that chilly morning.

“Never bothers our valiant Commander Donelson, mate,” Thorne replied, shaking his head in mock pity as if speaking sympathetically about a ‘simple’ but nevertheless well-loved relative. “Rain, hail or shine, you can guarantee that mad woman’ll be traipsing all over the bloody countryside like a marathon runner on drugs.”

“She goes running on her own, then?”

“You think anyone else is silly enough to go haring about the place after her at this time of the morning?” Thorne snorted derisively. “No thank you, pal: I like my sleep too much!”

“Well, it appears someone is ‘silly’ enough,” Trumbull pointed out as they continued on, nodding off to the left where he’d spied another figure walking past the parked aircraft toward the commander through the foggy morning.

“Who’s that?” Thorne muttered, squinting hard. “Kransky…?”

“He’s dressed for exercise by the look of him: the commander must have made a positive impression on him!”

“Jesus,” Thorne shook his head sadly. “The poor bastard…”

“How’s that…?” Trumbull asked, curious over the man’s choice of words and tone.

“Alec, I don’t mean this as an insult, but that woman can be a real cow when it comes to sucking blokes into doing things. She used to do it back in our time as well, and the silly pricks fell for it in droves…”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Trumbull admitted with a quizzical expression.

“Look, Eileen’s an attractive woman and no mistake, and men — even in my time — tend to get bedazzled by attractive women and not look beyond their physical appearance. ‘Oh dear — pretty little thing wants me to partner her for a little run — mustn’t be too hard on her…’ They don’t see the strength and capability behind those good looks, and as a result they usually end up a bloody sight worse off!”

“You think Eileen ‘tricked’ Major Kransky into running with her?”

“Oh, if I know her, I’m bloody certain of it. There’s no malice in it,” Thorne was quick to add in explanation, afraid he might be giving the wrong impression of his friend. “She doesn’t like running on her own any more than anyone else likes doing stuff by themselves…” he shrugged “…but you tell me which you’d rather: going running with a cute, ‘defenceless’ woman who thinks she can jog a bit… or take on a fit, athletic female who regularly won awards at the naval academy for long-distance running and has an overload of Twenty-First Century ‘attitude’?”

“Eileen was a long distance runner?” That fact caught Trumbull by surprise. Although he was already seeing a good deal of the commander’s great capabilities in many areas, the idea of a woman being an accomplished athlete and the physical equal of a man was still somehow a strange concept.

“Not ‘was’ — is. In her spare time she was running the occasional marathon or ten kilometre race right up to the point we left for 1940: I don’t care how fit the bloke is in the field… unless Kransky’s been training for the Olympics, she’s going to kick his arse!”

“Poor fellow,” Trumbull agreed after a long pause, a faint smirk crossing his features as they walked on. “Poor fellow indeed!”

“Good mornin’, Richard,” Eileen called out cheerfully as the American approached, the man now feeling rather dubious about an idea that’d seemed far more appealing the day before. He wore a pair of loose-fitting combat fatigue pants and long-sleeved shirt, along with the only pair of shoes he possessed — his well-worn army boots — and he was feeling the cold of the morning more than he’d have liked. He was used to cold climates, but that didn’t mean he was altogether happy about being out in one any more than necessary.

“Morning to you… Eileen…” he said with a little hesitation as he took a good look at what she was wearing for the first time. Her dress was, as Trumbull had suspected even from a distance, far more revealing than was normal for a woman of that period when engaging in sport or otherwise. The fluoro-green shorts she wore over a skin-tight black pair of thigh-length, Lycra pants were very brief and left not a great deal to the imagination, while the plain, white T-shirt above them clearly showed off a grey sports bra beneath.

Being quite cold that morning, Kransky couldn’t help but notice that her erect nipples were showing quite clearly through the sports bra and T-shirt, and as he made a valiant attempt at not staring directly at her breasts, he discovered there was almost no part of her body he could look at that wasn’t showing either far too much bare skin or showing off undergarments far too readily. In the end he stared down at her feet, trying to ignore her toned and shapely legs and instead studied her unusual running shoes for a few moments. He wondered if ‘Nike’ was the surname of perhaps someone from whom she’d borrowed them, although it occurred to him that if that were the case, the person in question had to be very poorly sighted if they needed their own name emblazoned across the shoes in such large letters.

“It’s quite all right, Richard,” Eileen laughed lightly, noticing his consternation and embarrassed inability to look directly at her. “I’m sure this is probably ‘more’ of me than you expected to see.” She carried out a final five set of toe-touches as she spoke which did nothing to help Kransky’s mental state at all, before rising to stand completely once more, legs slightly apart and hands expectantly on hips. “We’re going for a run, for goodness sake, not a formal dance!” The grin on her face was sympathetic and showed some understanding of the man’s ‘plight’.

“I do know Max had a chat with you yesterday about what’s going on here at Hindsight,” she noted, changing the subject a little.

“It was a lot to take, I have to admit,” Kransky nodded slowly, the remark bringing curiosity to his expression and taking his mind completely away from her body for a moment or two. “It took an awful lot of convincing.”

“Well under those circumstances, perhaps you can understand that we do things a little different at the start of the 21st Century.” She held her arms out at her sides in indication of her own attire. “For a start, male or female, we tend to wear things for practicality rather than purely for modesty. Shall we…?” She added, making movements that suggested they get started on their run. “I was thinking we could head east along the perimeter fence and then down to South Walls and back.”

“What would that be…?” Kransky began, drawing on what he’d learned of the island’s topography and working it out in his mind “…maybe six miles each way…?”

“Perhaps a bit more than that, but not by much: thought we’d go easy for your first day.”

“Nah, that’s okay, Eileen: just go as far as you want — don’t worry about me,” he countered, not outwardly displaying any of the smug confidence that suddenly resurfaced at the back of his mind. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay then, mister: let’s be off!” She stated simply as she turned and began to jog away toward the northern side of the runway and hangar buildings and the nearest set of gates beyond that led out through the two-metre-high fence surrounding the installation. He hesitated just a moment or two before taking off after her retreating form, thinking that despite his own ego, leaving his pack and equipment behind mightn’t have been a bad idea after all.

Almost two and a half hours and more than twenty kilometres of solid, paced jogging later, Richard Kransky had given up all thoughts of ‘going easy’ on anyone and was concentrating on nothing more than keeping up. As they made their way back along the perimeter fence toward those same gates once more, Donelson was a good ten metres ahead and he no longer regarded the shapely figure running before him as anything more than an incentive to keep going, despite the constant protests of his back, feet and legs… and the rest of his body for that matter. The bright, fluoro-green shorts were all he could focus on, and he used them as a beacon to drag himself onward as his ego forced him to continue, determined to at least finish the run with her, even if it killed him.

He didn’t turn his head as he passed a group of Australian SAS troopers, engaged in setting up equipment on the open ground beside the runway on the other side of the fence to his left, but he could hear their laughter and less-than-sympathetic remarks regarding his worn-out appearance. He wasn’t entirely sure what a ‘Septic’ was, other than the obvious dictionary definition, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t complimentary. The few Australians he’d come across in his life had proved to be excellent fighters and hard workers, but they were a strange lot into the bargain and were possessed of a sharp and caustic sense of humour that perhaps reflected the harsh nature of the country they’d grown up in.

Invariably behind Donelson for the entirety of the run, he’d spent the time thinking about many things, not the least of which was the incredible story Thorne had told him the day before regarding the origins of the Hindsight Interception unit. It’d been difficult to accept what Thorne had revealed to him initially, but the man had produced enough evidence — in light of the existence of those four jet aircraft particularly — to eventually convince him. He was looking forward to getting the chance to work his way through some of the files and information that Hindsight had brought with them: to learn more about the world that the unit had left and the way the one he lived in should be.

In retrospect, he did wonder why Thorne had been so quick to trust him with the true nature of the Hindsight unit — it was something that was obviously of the highest security after all and should be — and he had the distinct feeling that perhaps Thorne somehow already knew him, or at least knew of him… something that wasn’t at all impossible considering they’d all come from the future. The man wouldn’t elaborate the few times Kransky had asked however, and it was a singularly bizarre and unnerving feeling for the tall American that someone might well know his fate. He’d later decided that Thorne was right not to volunteer any information… it was better perhaps than a man never know what the future had in store for him.

One thing the knowledge of Hindsight’s origins certainly did explain was the significant manner in which Donelson, as he’d already seen, was completely different to any woman he’d ever met. Thorne had said little about women of the future other than that they had a good deal more freedom of choice and were considered, to all intents and purposes, the equal of men in most things. If Eileen Donelson was a good example of women of the 21st Century, then Kransky was concerned there’d be few men who’d be a woman’s equal. Either way, it wasn’t hard to see that she knew her job and knew what she wanted in life: he’d not like to be the man who stood in the way of her achieving that, whatever that might be.

Most of that type of deep thinking regarding Donelson and Hindsight in general had occurred during the first half of the run while he was still relatively fresh. At that moment, as Kransky followed Eileen’s steady pace along the line of the fence and the gates neared once more, all he could think about was a clean change of clothes, a shower and (truth be told) a bit of a lie down.

It was close to midday as Kransky made his way down to where he had earlier passed the Australian troopers setting up inside the perimeter fence, about halfway along the runway. He was refreshed and somewhat rested, but still felt some faint pain in his feet and legs, and knew it’d be a few days before some of the aches completely dissipated. He quickly forgot about his discomfort however as he drew nearer the area and his attention was drawn to what was going on there already.

Two long, foldable trestle tables were set up with several weapons lying upon them, along with a large spotting scope on a small tripod. Roughly three hundred metres away, a pair of man-shaped targets were positioned in front of a stack of straw bales. Beside the targets and also supported by the straw stood a piece of thick armour plate about a metre and a half square that someone had scrounged up from the main naval base.

Much further away, also parallel with the concrete strip, another set of bales and targets awaited, although Kransky thought that at a distance of what appeared to be a kilometre or more, they were well out of effective range of most riflemen or rifles. He knew even his own talents, capable as they were, wouldn’t be enough to confidently make an effective ‘kill’ at what appeared to be close to a thousand yards in anything other than perfect conditions. The situation had at the very least piqued his curiosity.

The group already clustered there at the tables comprised Max Thorne, Eileen Donelson, the Australian SAS captain, Green, two of his troopers, and another man he’d never seen before. As he drew closer, the stance and the body language suggested that at least one of the SAS troopers, toting an automatic rifle, was keeping the unidentified newcomer under some kind of guard.

“Glad to see you pulled up all right, Richard,” Eileen observed cheerily as he drew near, just the barest hint of mischief in her eyes. “Not a bad work out this morning, eh?”

“Yeah — it was sure a workout, all right,” the American admitted, forcing a grin of his own.

“Bit of advice, mate,” Thorne began, stepping forward and smiling broadly. “Don’t take the lady for granted.”

“Oh, I figured that out pretty early, Mister Thorne,” he admitted, the grin genuine this time, and he shook his head as he gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “The commander sure showed me up this morning… I’ll need to get a good deal fitter, and that’s the truth!”

“One man you won’t know,” Thorne changed the subject quickly, getting down to business. He stood aside, allowing the Irishman to take his obvious cue, and Kelly stepped forward with a hand extended.

“Major Richard Kransky,” Kransky offered, accepting the handshake and meeting the new man’s friendly but neutral gaze.

“Volunteer Eoin Kelly,” Kelly returned just as quickly, and he considered the name as they parted hands once more. “That wouldn’t be the Kransky who’s been causin’ the Japs so much trouble the last few years, would it now?”

“Yeah, it might well be the same,” the American answered with a little hesitation, unnerved that his reputation had again obviously preceded him. “What might that be to you?”

“Oh, nothin’ at all, except that one of my ‘colleagues’ tried to get hold of you in Spain a few years ago with the hope of maybe teaching us a few tricks here an’ there.”

“Yeah, I remember… that mad ‘Mick’ from the Republican Army. Didn’t think he was gonna take no for an answer for a while, there.”

“That’s a kinder description of Frank Ryan than some would give y’,” Kelly laughed genuinely. “Last I heard, the fella was still in Spain and takin’ little a ‘holiday’ in a Nationalist prison.”

“Poor bastard,” Kransky said simply with a solemn nod: he’d spent enough time in Spain during the civil war there to know the Nationalist’s prisons were a far cry indeed from any kind of holiday. He turned his attention back to Thorne, deciding there would be an explanation of the man’s presence at the appropriate moment, and that moment could be some other time. “What do we have going on here today?”

“I’ll give you over to Eileen for the answer to that, Richard,” Thorne returned, casting a hand out toward to the nearby commander.

“I see you brought along your hardware, as I asked,” Eileen observed, smiling as she stepped up to the trestle tables. “We had a discussion this morning while you were… ‘recovering’… and thought that perhaps instead of just improving on what you already had, we might instead replace some of it with something a bit more impressive…” She crouched down in front of one of the tables and opened the lid of a long wooden crate lying beneath it on the ground. From it, she lifted an impossibly-large rifle, somewhat awkwardly holding it in her right hand as her left extended a pair of bipod legs beneath its fore-end. Having done that, she lowered it carefully to the table and looked up at the man once more.

“We thought perhaps you might have a use for this,” she began as Kransky moved to stand beside her, mesmerised by the weapon. With a nod from her, he reached out and lifted the rifle, momentarily surprised by the weight of it — nearly thirteen kilograms. It seemed to be almost entirely constructed of steel, the main body a single, octagonal length of receiver and breech that ended in a fixed, skeleton stock. There was a pistol grip trigger assembly and a large, ribbed box-magazine mounted beneath the weapon about halfway along, and just ahead of the bipod projected a heavy, fluted barrel with a multi-baffled muzzle brake. All up the rifle seemed to be about 150 centimetres long — close to half as long again as the scoped German weapon he carried on his back.

“It’s called a Barrett M107,” Donelson explained as he set the rifle down on the table once more, then shrugged his own weapon from his back and also laid it on the table further along. She reached out and pulled the magazine from beneath the large rifle, handing it to him for examination. “The clip holds ten rounds. It fires the Browning fifty-calibre machine gun round that we’ve discovered the German’s are also using a direct copy of — although they classify it as a ‘nominal’ calibre of thirteen-millimetres.”

“Which makes the supply of ammunition no problem, regardless of where I might be,” Kransky observed without emotion, turning the heavy magazine loaded with cartridges over in his hands. “How’s the recoil?”

“Heavy, but the muzzle brake helps a lot. I can fire one or two rounds well enough without too much discomfort, so someone of your size should have no trouble.” She lifted a long, black telescopic sight from the table that also seemed quite large. “The scope we have fitted is a Trijicon AccuPoint telescopic sight with a variable zoom of five- to twenty-times. It has an illuminated reticle that requires no battery power and is clearly visible in all light conditions.” She showed him how the scope attached to the weapon’s receiver with just a simple snap catch, making sure he was clear on the procedure. “The sight attaches to the rifle with what’s called a ‘Quick-Detachable’ mount that doesn’t lose zero. We’ll also have a night-vision scope for to you that has an effective range of at least five hundred metres in almost complete darkness.”

“Sounds impressive, that’s for sure,” Kransky conceded, very interested. “I’m assuming the further of the targets are for this?”

“You’d assume correctly,” she confirmed. “The weapon’s already zeroed — give it a try.”

He needed no further urging. As the rest of them looked on, he lifted the weapon once more and slotted the magazine back in under the receiver, jamming it home with the butt of his palm.

“The action is semi-automatic, recoil-operated,” Donelson continued to explain, pointing to relevant parts of the rifle. “Cocking handle is here… safety here… and that’s about all there is to it.”

He hauled back on the cocking handle and allowed it to spring forward, the bolt face collecting a .50-calibre round on the way and loading it into the breech, after which he engaged the safety as she’d demonstrated. He found a cleared space on the bench near the spotting scope, dropped slowly to one knee, and lifted the Barrett to his right shoulder, resting it’s bipod on the table before him. Closing one eye, he squinted through the scope with the other and was impressed with the high-power magnification.

“What’s she zeroed at?” He asked with cold professionalism, the distant targets appearing remarkably close as he stared through the scope.

“Five hundred metres,” Donelson stated softly, and he gave an imperceptible nod as he estimated the range by eye alone and made adjustments in elevation, lifting the cross hairs slightly above his desired point of aim as the others around him covered their ears in anticipation. Inhaling naturally, he disengaged the safety and paused halfway through a released breath before squeezing gently on the trigger.

The M107 bucked heavily against his shoulder, the report painfully loud as the muzzle brake spewed smoke and propellant gas in large clouds on either side of the barrel. As the bright red flash of tracer hurtled away downrange, Kransky noted that the recoil was probably no worse than a 10-bore shotgun, although that was by no means comfortable all the same.

He leaned over and checked the spotting scope, which was already sighted on the targets he’d aimed for, and a smile instantly spread across his face. The shot was a little low — there was a sizeable bullet hole in the centre of the ‘neck’ area of the target rather than the head — but considering he wasn’t accustomed to the weapon, he was still quite pleased.

He’d have been hard pressed to get anywhere near that kind of accuracy at such a range with the German sniper rifle he carried, even in perfect conditions. Although the muzzle velocity of the .50-calibre rifle probably wasn’t much greater than that of his own weapon, if at all, an approximate threefold increase in bullet weight meant that initial velocity would drop off far more slowly, allowing a far greater effective range. The extra bullet weight also meant the weapon’s accuracy would be less at the mercy of prevailing winds and conditions.

Sighting through the scope once more, he repeated the action three more time, leaving the air around them was filled with the smell of cordite, and three large bullet holes now showed in a surprisingly tight group near the head of the first of the further targets.

“Degree of accuracy…?” He inquired.

“Roughly minute-of-angle in ‘out-of-the-box’ condition,” Eileen shrugged, “but we’ve fine tuned the thing a little, and it shoots better than that now by a fair margin. With a bit of practice and the right conditions, you should almost be able to shoot groups as small as ten or twelve inches at a thousand yards.”

“Damn! Good enough to take out a man, that’s for sure!” Kransky did a little mental arithmetic. “Also good enough to use on material targets out to a mile or more, I’d reckon.”

“Correct,” she nodded, “and we have some very effective armour-piercing ammunition to take advantage of that. It won’t penetrate the armour of a tank, although you could certainly break a track, but they’ll take on just about anything short of that at medium ranges.”

“This is all very interesting, Mister Thorne,” Kelly observed with only partial sarcasm, “but does all this actually have anything to do with me?” The irreverent query drew a disapproving glare from Donelson, which he noticed but purposefully ignored. She was in her technical element and didn’t appreciate interruptions from anyone, let alone people she didn’t like.

“Oh, it certainly does have something to do with you, Mister Kelly!” Thorne stated emphatically, although he refused to go on and explain exactly how at that point, instead choosing to step up to the trestle tables beside Donelson. “May I cut in, major…?” He inquired as Kransky looked up from the Barrett’s scope. The American stood and returned the weapon to the table, engaging the safety once more, and Thorne lifted an automatic rifle from the second table and held it up for all to see clearly. It was identical to the weapons the guards had been carrying in that area of the base.

“This is a Kalashnikov AKM assault rifle, Mister Kelly,” Thorne explained slowly as he stepped clear of the table once more. “The British now call it the ‘Number Seven Rifle’, I believe.” He turned the weapon slightly on its side so the Irishman could see what he was doing as he drew back the AKM’s cocking handle. “This rifle weighs about a pound less than the Thompson submachine gun your boys in the IRA are so fond of, and it fires a ‘short’ rifle round that’s far more powerful than the Thompson’s .45ACP pistol cartridge.” He shrugged. “It’s also a damn sight easier to make, not that that’s as much of an issue.” Stepping clear into open ground, he lifted the weapon to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel at the closer targets just three hundred metres away. He fired off five quick, carefully-aimed shots in semi-automatic mode, not one missing the target’s main ‘body’ area.

“The weapon has an effective range of about three hundred yards,” he continued, lowering the rifle once more. “Again, that’s much better than the Thompson, and certainly good enough for ninety percent of all combat situations. It also has one other very handy feature…” He moved a large lever on the weapon’s side and lifted the rifle to his shoulder once more. He held the trigger down longer this time, and the weapon bucked and rattled as it fired off the remaining 25 rounds in its magazine in several loud bursts of automatic fire that caught Kelly — and Kransky, for that matter — completely by surprise.

Although the fire was markedly less accurate, at least a third of the rounds still struck the target Thorne had aimed for and had almost cut it in half. He held the weapon up once more, the muzzle safely pointing skyward as smoke coiled in the air around him.

“The weapon fires at a rate of six hundred rounds per minute, which is extremely effective in infantry assaults and adds immensely to any combat unit’s collective firepower.”

“I’ll grant y’ we could use a few o’ them and no mistake,” Kelly conceded, trying to appear aloof but mostly sounding a little shaken, and Thorne could clearly see the gleam in the man’s eyes at the thought what the IRA could do if equipped with Kalashnikovs.

“Well, Mister Kelly, this afternoon we’re going to have a chat about that…” and with those words, Thorne’s eyes positively glowed with anticipation and the spectacle of the event.

Later that afternoon, as Kransky and Eileen continued to go over improved weaponry and practice out on their makeshift firing range, Kelly and Thorne sat alone around one of the tables in the Officers Mess with scotch in their glasses. He’d borrowed a pack of Camels from Bob Green and offered them to the Irishman, who’d eagerly accepted, not having been allowed cigarettes while interned at The Curragh or in prison.

“Is this the point where you tell me what you want in exchange for my freedom?” Kelly asked with relaxed confidence, puffing luxuriously on the smoke and sipping at the whiskey.

“You’re assuming what I’m going to ask is beyond you before I’ve even requested it,” Thorne pointed out, noting the tone in the man’s voice. “Surely you could at least hear me out first?”

“Well, what could you ask me, other than to betray my brothers or The Republic in some way?” Kelly shrugged, reasoning logically with what little information he had at his disposal. “You came looking for me in particular at The Castle, sure enough, but if you know me then you should also know I’ll never betray me own people.”

“Actually, I only wanted to speak to you about the Germans to begin with,” Thorne stated without emotion, the unexpected remark surprising Kelly somewhat.

“Now what do I have to do with the bloody Germans?”

“Not a lot personally, but I do know the IRA’s been trying to get financial and material aid from Germany for some time now, particularly since the war began.”

“No idea what yer talkin’ about,” Kelly denied flatly.

“Really…?” Thorne’s asked with a faint smile. “So you wouldn’t know anything about an Oskar Pfaus, who arrived in Ireland around February of 1939 and, at the behest of whom, Seamus O’Donovan ended up going to Germany in return to try and secure aid?” That remark unsettled Kelly a great deal: although Thorne could have come by that information by normal means, the conviction with which he spoke suggested otherwise. “I suppose you wouldn’t know much then, about Hermann Goertz either… dropped into Ireland in May of this year to follow up on the IRA’s Plan Kathleen — the German/IRA invasion of Northern Ireland — and still on the run from authorities, at one point actually hiding at O’Donovan’s house in Shankill, in South Dublin?” He gave the stunned volunteer a lopsided grin. “If you haven’t heard about either of them then I must have the wrong man here. You are the Eoin Kelly who held a position under Seán O’Brien, the Army Council’s Intelligence Officer at the time you were arrested… under the then Chief of Staff, Michael Fitzpatrick?” He didn’t worry about giving Kelly a chance to speak.

“Commander Donelson really doesn’t like you, or the IRA, Eoin. When she was a little girl, her father was stationed with the British Paras in Northern Ireland. The men who kidnapped him weren’t your average volunteers — they really went to town on him — and by the time his troop rescued him, there wasn’t a lot left of the father she’d known. Almost would’ve been better to not have found him at all, although I doubt she’d see it that way…” He went silent for a moment before continuing. “So don’t condemn her if she’s less than sympathetic to you or ‘The Cause’.” He paused and took a breath. “And me…?” He shrugged. “Well I’m a different story altogether. You see, Eoin, I don’t really care about the IRA one way or the other, per se. I could give the British Government — or Leinster House, for that matter — all sorts of really useful information regarding high-placed IRA volunteers… or ammo dumps around the country — those that are actually left around the country — but that’d be no help to me at all or, ultimately, any help to anyone else, including you and the IRA.” He took a breath. “You saw the capabilities of the weapons we showed you out there today. I can see to it you get hundreds of them — maybe thousands — and ammunition aplenty to go with them… maybe.”

There was a long silence as the pair locked eyes, each daring the other to break away first and neither faltering. Kelly thought long and hard before beginning to speak.

“When I was a young man, I went to a football match at Croke Park,” Kelly began slowly, choosing his words with care. “The Tans arrived during the game and locked the doors on us, stopping’ anyone from getting out. They started firing into the crowd… an unarmed and defenceless crowd, mark ye…” He met Thorne’s gaze with one as cold and hard as steel. “Twelve people died that day and another sixty were wounded. You sit there wearin’ the uniform of the bastards that’ve been Ireland’s bane for as long as we’ve had a history and tell me you want to ‘help’ me… want to ‘help’ Ireland? How’s the Empire ever helped Ireland, save for crushin’ her under its boot heel and killin’ her men, women and children?” He looked away for a moment as he considered Donelson’s story. “I’m real sorry for what happened to your lady friend’s father — I truly am — but I’ve seen too much of the same done to my own people at the hands of the Tans and other bastards just as bad to cry all that much about it.” He gave a faint smile. “You’ve got me here ‘cause the Germans have put the wind up the British, and no mistake. You’re worried they’ll make a deal with the IRA, and you’ll have to be watching under your own beds for trouble. Well y’ should be scared o’ the Germans — very fookin’ scared! You can offer me all the guns and other bollocks y’ like, but in a month or three, like as much there won’t be a British Empire to stand over my country anymore.” It was Kelly’s turn to shrug. “And y’ can rest assured, I’ll have a drink in yer honour, Mister Thorne… or your memory.”

The look on Thorne’s face was one of controlled anger, but the Irishman knew he’d finally got under the officer’s defences; something that’d been his intention all along. He was deeply offended the Australian had thought him so easily bought out, and had set out to retaliate with his own words.

“Yes, Eoin, I am scared of the Germans… I’m scared shitless!” Thorne admitted coldly, refusing to lose his temper as he took a deep breath. “They’re coming across the Channel sometime soon, and there’s sweet fuck-all Britain can do to stop them, that’s the truth. But have a think about that for a moment…” He took another breath. “You know the Yanks are implicitly in support of Britain, if not to the point of declaring war on Germany right at this moment, and I know that’s had a detrimental effect on the IRA’s fundraising as a result. Now it’s as may be that perhaps an invasion of Great Britain might just be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and maybe the US finally does declare war, or at least seems likely to. What are we left with? Hitler controls all of Europe, including Britain, and the United States can’t really do anything about it even if they wanted to, being thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean and all… except…” he paused for dramatic effect “…except… just a few miles off the coast of Germany’s newest acquisition — England — there’s this neutral and militarily weak country that’s the only possible launching place for an American invasion or counter-strike, should they desire to do so.

“This so called Irish ‘neutrality’ already favours Britain — the Royal Navy relinquishes its naval bases to Ireland while Leinster House allows overflights by British aircraft and doesn’t intern RAF servicemen who’ve crash-landed or bailed out over Irish soil. Does Germany enjoy similar benefits in this ‘neutrality’? Oh, I know the Krauts have ‘reassured’ Ireland that they ‘understand’ the nature of your country’s ‘peculiar’ position…” He grimaced. “I trust you can hear all the inverted commas in that sentence! Do you really think the Germans are at all trustworthy?” He allowed that to sink in completely. “You must know enough about history to know what the Nazis’ promises are worth! What did Hitler say about the Sudetenland in ‘Thirty-Eight? ‘It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe’? History shows how long that promise lasted! Will he make a similar ‘promise’ to Ireland after Britain falls?”

That the Germans could be a threat to Ireland had never occurred to Kelly even though he himself had held serious doubts about the nation’s usefulness as an ally. The Irish Government was overtly neutral, and the IRA was actively engaged in attempts to curry German favour — that there was a chance all that would mean nothing to the Nazis hadn’t even crossed his mind, and yet the arguments Thorne made carried weight. The recent past had shown exactly how little Nazi guarantees were worth, and how little the Great Powers’ appeasement of Hitler had accomplished in relation to a continued peace.

“I don’t want you to sell your people or your cause to the British, Eoin,” Thorne continued, mellowing somewhat now he thought he’d made his point and, more importantly, that he felt he’d regained the initiative in the conversation. “I’m offering you the chance to be armed and prepared when the Germans cross the Irish Sea — and believe me, if Britain can’t stop them, they will come. There won’t be any Britain by the time you get any support from me or the organisations I’m setting up: under circumstances such as those, how can there be any problem with you accepting my offer of arms?”

“Can y’ understand how hard this is for me to accept?” Kelly asked plaintively. “You’re makin’ all these claims and sayin’ y’ want to help The Cause, and yet you’re sittin’ there wearin’ that bloody uniform!”

“You still think you can’t trust me? What if I told you I know you were lying about Frank Ryan earlier today?” The man’s eyebrow rose at that but he didn’t try to deny it. “Ryan’s in Germany right now, isn’t he… trying to work in with the Germans?” Another paused for effect. “And what about Jim Crofton…?” At the mention of the IRA’s man inside Special Branch, Kelly’s eyes flew wide with surprise and shock. “He was one of the men sent to the Curragh to collect you, wasn’t he? But he’s also passing inside information to the IRA about Special Branch. How d’you think Leinster House would react if they knew about that? Yet I haven’t passed that on to them, nor do I intend to.” Thorne shook his head slowly. “I don’t want the IRA disbanded or damaged — when the Germans come across the Channel, Ireland will need every able-bodied and armed man it can lay its hands on, IRA included! All I want you to do is go back and report to the Army Council with what you’ve seen and heard here. You can tell them I know about Crofton and they’ll be able to see that I haven’t informed anyone of it. You can also take back a few ‘samples’ of what you saw today for the council to have a look at, although I’ll not give you enough ammunition for anything more than a test firing, and you’ll have details on how to contact me again if the IRA want to do business. That’s all I’m asking at this point — you can all walk away from it if there’s anything about what I’m doing you can’t trust or accept at face value.”

“I’ll need to think about this… think hard about it…” Kelly admitted, too confused to feel confident of making a rational decision.

“You’ll have all the time in the world,” Thorne said softly, smiling faintly once more. “It’ll be a month or so before we’ll have any spare weapons to send back with you, so you’ve at least that long. I’m sorry I can’t allow you to wander around unaccompanied while you’re here, but we should be able to manage an escort that hopefully isn’t too obtrusive. There will be areas we won’t be able to allow you access to, but if you need anything or want to talk any further, just ask for me.”

“Oh, I’ll be wantin’ to talk to you again about this, sure enough,” Kelly admitted, almost grinning at the wry truth of that but not quite able. “Once I’ve had a chance to get my head around it all!”

“I don’t know what’s possible on technical grounds, but I also have no problem with you making attempts at contacting your current Council, either to confer or simply to let them know that we haven’t killed you up here.” He shrugged. “Again, as long as you give no indication of exactly where you are or what’s going on here, you’re welcome to speak freely if you can get hold of someone by radio or phone or something.”

Kelly waved an accusing finger at that remark. “Oh no: now you’re really playin’ with my head there, Mister!”

“How better to screw with someone’s mind that to use the truth, eh?” Thorne grinned back, thinking the conversation had finally turned positive, if still uncertain. He nodded at Kelly’s glass. “You look like you could do with a refill.”

“I think I could do with one or half a dozen, sure enough…” And the Irishman held the glass up for Thorne to take, a genuine smile on his face for the first time.

10. Down Time

Wednesday

July 24, 1940

Despite an initial soreness in the joints and muscles that would last for a few days, Kransky joined Eileen on her run the next morning, and in the days to follow. At first he’d have admitted — to anyone other than Donelson, of course — that his actions were driven more by physical attraction than any real enjoyment of the exercise itself. By the end of that first week however, his body, already fit and relatively well toned to begin with, had started to become accustomed to the increased effort. By that time he was also managing to keep up with the commander most of the time, and the pair generally ran together side by side — although he’d have been mortified to discover Eileen was still holding her pace back slightly to be kind.

As they ran together, they were also able to talk, and Kransky was also able to actually get to know his new running partner as a result. Before he’d realised it, he was suddenly enjoying the running more for the positive effect on his own fitness than anything else, and was also thinking of the woman running beside him more as a friend; her potential as a possible sexual conquest beginning to fade as a result. He still wasn’t convinced she wasn’t flirting with him some of the time, but unless proven otherwise, he was willing to assume that his suspicions were simply a combination of his relative inexperience with women and his not being accustomed to women of her era — an assumption that was mostly correct.

Refreshed by a shower and change of clothes after that morning’s run, Richard Kransky made his way past the admin buildings and over to the flight line just before noon that Wednesday, heading for one of the larger hangars. Eileen had asked him to meet her there to go over some work she’d had done on the machine pistol and rifle he’d brought with him from France. She’d been less than forthcoming on what modifications or alterations she intended to make, and although he trusted her judgement he was by nature less than comfortable being without either weapon, or with trusting their care and maintenance to another person.

A well-equipped machine shop had been set up in the rear corner of the nearest hangar, half-hidden away beneath poor natural lighting and ventilation. Although the standard of the equipment, which included a large lathe and a ten-ton press, was nowhere near that of the computer-aided examples Eileen Donelson was accustomed to dealing with at the start of the 21st Century, she’d been well aware of what to expect and had spent quite a few months reacquainting herself with manually-operated equipment she’d not used since completing her engineering degree.

As Kransky walked through the hangar, Eileen was wearing a long and slightly over-sized white lab coat that hung open over jeans and a nondescript, loose-fitting T-shirt of neutral grey. A blue baseball cap marked “CG54 USS Antietam” in gold braid was snugged down on her head above a pair of orange-tinted protective goggles.

“Does the ‘Engineer Look’ suit me, d’you think?” She smiled as he drew near, holding her arms out from her sides and drawing attention to her dress.

“I’m sure that will be the style in Paris next year,” Kransky replied with a grin, now relaxed enough around her to make jokes he’d never dreamed of, not so long ago.

“Actually, sir, I must correct you there,” she smiled back, removing the goggles and placing them in the pocket of her lab coat. “I do believe Field Grey will be all the rage in Paris for quite a few years.”

“I’d say it’ll probably be ‘required wearing’ in Westminster too, soon enough,” Kransky conceded with a wry nod, “although I’m hoping maybe we can do something to delay that. You had a few things to show me?”

“Aye, that I did, Richard… and that I do.” She gestured for him to follow her across the concrete floor to a long set of workbench that lay hidden amid lathes, presses and other large pieces of machinery. Bare light globes providing barely adequate illumination hung suspended on single long, twisted cables from the hangar’s roof, and the atmosphere in general was tinged with the faintly acrid smell of machined metal and the operation of heavy electrical equipment: evidence enough that Eileen, the only other person in the building other than Kransky, had been working there just before he’d had arrived.

She lifted his prized MP2K machine pistol from the nearest bench and handed it across to him. Its curved magazine had been removed, but Kransky also noted that it was now carrying several quite obvious modifications. A 20cm sound suppressor had been fitted to the muzzle, adding around half a kilogram to the weapon’s weight and making it notably more ‘muzzle heavy’ — something Kransky suspected would probably help keep the weapon under control and reduce its tendency to rise under recoil.

Above the weapon’s receiver, a strange type of sight had also been fitted. Its base was no more than 120mm long, and atop the rear half of it was mounted a thin metal tube perhaps half that length and slightly less than 50mm in diameter. From an acute angle, the inside of the tube appeared to be clear, but as Kransky instinctively lifted the MP2K and squinted down along the top of its receiver, he found that a small, amber-coloured dot appeared within the centre of the sight’s lens. As he turned and moved the weapon with him, still staring through the sight, he found that the dot tracked true to the weapon’s aim no matter where he pointed.

“You’ll find it’s best used with both eyes open,” Eileen suggested, watching intently, “and it’ll make bringing the weapon onto target much faster. It’s called a ‘reflex’ sight… again made by Trijicon, the same as the scope on the Barrett rifle.” It seemed irrelevant for her to mention the manufacturer, considering there was no likelihood it’d be in any way significant to Kransky, but she felt compelled to anyway: it was in Eileen’s nature to concern herself with detail and minutiae when it came to ordnance.

He raised the machine pistol again, this time experimenting with keeping both eyes open as he aimed. He was impressed that his eye seemed to naturally find the sight and the aiming point beyond it. He could instantly see how much faster he’d be able to effectively bring the weapon into action in a firefight with the sight fitted.

“I know the thing’s not goin’ to be a ‘tack driver’ at the best o’ times with a barrel of only three or four inches,” Eileen explained, moving to stand beside him as he continued to practice aiming, “but with the right sights, the nasty little bugger should be combat effective for single shots out to fifty or sixty yards — maybe a hundred, if you’re good enough…”

“Hey…!” Kransky shot back, catching the cheeky glint in her eye. “You might have the edge on me out on the track, but don’t rag on me about my shootin’…!” He’d learned the truth over the last few days regarding the woman’s prowess at long distance running, and had felt extremely embarrassed that his ego had allowed him to be so easily fooled by her pretty face.

“Mister, I don’t care how good you are; if you can hit anything smaller than a tank with this thing at a hundred yards, I will kiss your arse!”

“Yes… you’re probably right…” he admitted rather lamely, having no idea at all how to reply to that remark. “That silencer will come in very handy…” It was time to change the subject, and both of them were in agreement on that judging by the suddenly-uncomfortable expressions on both faces.

“Aye, that it will… and so will this…” She turned and picked up what appeared to be a small and quite compact pair of binoculars, pressing a small button on the unit’s top surface, between the lenses before handing them over.

“I need a new set of field glasses…?” Kransky began to ask, MP2K in one hand as he lifted the binoculars with the other.

“Look at the far end of the hangar, then press and release the large button on the top,” she replied simply, and he did exactly that. Leaning across to gently return the machine pistol to the bench, he raised the field glasses to his eyes and focussed them on the far corner of the hangar. The 8 x 45 magnification brought the distant walls into clear view, and a small red circle appeared at the centre of his field of view as he pressed the larger of the two buttons atop the unit. As he followed Eileen’s instructions and released it once more, a small set of red digits reading — ‘56’ — appeared directly beneath the aiming circle.

Kransky lowered the binoculars with a frown and stared hard at the point he’d focussed on. Thinking carefully, he picked out a slightly closer point on the opposite wall and repeated the process. This time, the readout came up with the numbers — ‘52’ — in the same position directly below the aiming point.

“That’s the range!” He exclaimed, lowering the unit once more. “That’s not yards though… metres?”

“Very good,” Eileen nodded, obviously pleased. “Effective range up to twelve hundred metres, which should be more than sufficient for just about anything you need to do with the M107, and the batteries are good for about ten thousand range checks, although we’ll give you some spares all the same. I’ll teach you how to use the higher functions… at closer ranges it can even predict how much you need to adjust your aim at a given range to ensure a hit based on your weapon’s original zero. Think it might come in handy?””

“I’m sure it’ll come in real handy!” Kransky stated with certainty, impressed. “How the hell does it work?”

“Well,” Eileen began with a smile, “inside the unit is something known as a ‘laser’ — it’s what the scientific community in my time calls coherent light — light that travels in one direction, in parallel lines, rather than spreading out as it normally should. The word ‘laser’ is an acronym that stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the guys!” Kransky grinned sheepishly, his expression indicating that he had no problem with admitting the term had gone straight over his head.

“Only the cute ones,” Eileen smiled back, intending her reply be lightly humorous, but the subsequent silence that followed those words was anything but light.

“Are th-these lasers anything like the ‘Heat Ray’ in that War of the Worlds novel?” He asked with a slight hesitation, his embarrassment again making him desperate to change the subject all of a sudden.

“Got it in one…!” Eileen beamed, impressed by the man’s unexpected leap of logic. Truth be told, she was also a little relieved the subject matter was moving on. “That’s pretty damn sharp, although I guess I should expect that kind of lateral thinking from an ex-journalist!”

“Hey, that’s no fair,” Kransky protested lightly. “You know all about me, and I still know next to nothing about you.”

“Actually, it’s Max who knows about you, mostly,” Eileen admitted, sounding a little apologetic as the American placed the rangefinder back on the bench beside the MP2K. “He’s more of a nutter for historical bits and pieces than I am.”

“Oh, I’m ‘bits and pieces’ now… well that makes everything much better!”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, I can’t win, can I?” Eileen moaned theatrically, knowing Kransky was joking. “Hard as it must be for the ego of a man such as yourself to handle, the future of the world doesn’t actually revolve around you specifically.” That remark got her a chuckle. “While you apparently have some historical significance that Max is aware of, I honestly don’t know much more about you than what you’ve told me yourself…” she paused slightly “…not much more, anyway.”

“…except…?”

“Except that you’re honest and trustworthy to the core, an excellent guerrilla fighter and tactical planner, and are absolutely lethal with a rifle in your hands. Believe me, if I knew any more than that about you, I would remember it.”

“Ahh…” That sobered Kransky somewhat — he was a little dismayed by the idea that this woman, whom he was starting to like a great deal, knew the kind of ‘work’ that he actually did. He’d been deliberately circumspect regarding what he did while ‘in the field’ in his conversations with the commander, as the subject matter wasn’t something he considered appropriate for female ears. What he did wasn’t something he actually felt proud of in the cold hard light of day, regardless of how good he was at it, or whether he considered it a necessary evil. The reaction didn’t go unnoticed with Eileen, and it wasn’t particularly difficult to guess as to the reasons why. She gave him a kind and sympathetic smile.

“I don’t doubt what you do is unpleasant, Richard,” she began, her tone soft. “Nor do I think for a moment that you like what you do. Don’t think I think less of you for it either — don’t ever think that.” She stepped back apace, her senses telling her rather clearly that they’d hit on a subject that was very sensitive to him. She was also mindful that as a product of a far earlier age than hers, he was far less likely to deal readily with such issues as shame, embarrassment or emotions generally — issues still considered feminine things even in her supposedly more liberated times. Under the circumstances, instinct and intuition, female or otherwise, told her he needed a little ‘personal space’.

“They’re… they’re not things you talk about to anyone, really…” He said softly, hesitant but wanting to believe her. “Especially not to a lady…” He shrugged. “I guess women of your time are much more intelligent and learned than they are…” he corrected himself as an unusual thought occurred “…than they mostly get a chance to be in mine.” He shrugged faintly. “You have this incredible knowledge of weapons and technology that’d put most scientists of my time — most men — to shame. These pieces of equipment you have for me — the rifle, the sights, this laser gizmo — are as much an example of how far apart we are as those aircraft outside. It just seems so unlikely that people who came from what must be such a wonderful, advanced society as yours would have much to do with the kind of violence I’ve seen…” And Eileen could ‘hear’ that sentence finish with ‘…and committed…’ in his face and in the silence that followed.

The sentiment expressed in that statement made her feel more than a little sad for a number of reasons, and she turned slightly to rest her backside against the edge of the bench before them, her hands hanging by her sides as her shoulders sagged visibly. The serious turn of the conversation had started to affect her also, and over the weeks since their arrival there’d also been a build-up of feelings of loss and deprivation due to their displacement in the 1940s.

Similar feelings were being felt by many of the Hindsight members to varying degrees, although being men, none would’ve been as likely to admit it, and despite the company of their own fellow team members, it was beginning to produce underlying sensations of loneliness and solitude which went well beyond something as simple as culture shock.

In those moments following Kransky’s last sentence, she was also somewhat affected by his calling her a ‘lady’: possibly the first time in her life, having grown up in the late 20th Century and having spent her adult life in the military, that she’d ever actually been called a lady by anyone. The fact that it’d simply been an automatic assumption on his part somehow made it that much more significant, and his good-intentioned but misguided assumptions regarding the decency of the future they’d come from suddenly made her quite sad indeed.

“I wish I could say we came from a perfect world… some beautiful ‘Utopia’ like the one Sir Thomas More wrote of,” she shook her head, “but I’d be lying through my teeth, and that’s the truth… the jet fighters out there on that flight line weren’t developed in a world that’s had any close association with peace of a lasting kind. I know you wonder about what it’s like where we came from, but it’s not the ‘wonderful’ place you imagine it must be.” She thought for a long time, staring at the concrete floor, and Kransky allowed the silence to continue, deeply interested in what she might say next.

“I should be more complimentary about the Twenty-First Century, Richard — it’s given me a hell of a lot more than many women get, and more than any would be allowed in this era. I had the choice to be whatever I chose in life, regardless of who I am, who my parents were, or how much money they or I possess. I had the choice of deciding for myself who I married — or even if I got married at all — and my decision as to whether or not I have children as a result of those choices. If you lost an arm, doctors could sometimes sew it back on for you, and it’d often work again… on occasion they can make you a heart if yours fails — one that would last for a while, anyway…

“Singers and musical groups all around the world organise concerts to raise money for starving nations, and media moguls allow the use of their satellites to televise those concerts all over the world. You could fly from London to New York at a thousand miles an hour if could afford the ticket, and I could turn on one of those computers you’ve seen and receive mail in seconds from someone in Japan or Australia.” She shook her head again, and there was another solemn pause as she met his gaze once more, genuine sorrow in her eyes. By comparison to the era in which Eileen had grown up, she saw Kransky as something of an ‘innocent’, his own terrible war experiences notwithstanding, and there were almost tears in her eyes as she went on, thinking she wasn’t only painting a damning picture of her world but also shattering someone’s dreams into the bargain. “I already miss so many things from our old world, but was it a ‘good’ world…? No… far from it in truth…

“The world I left was a sad, tired, jaded world: one that no longer possessed any naivety or any real honour either. There were corporations so powerful that their directors, unelected by anyone but their own shareholders, controlled the fate of countries by pure economic power alone. Poorer countries couldn’t even afford to make interest payments on loans from faceless monetary organisations, and their people starved as a result. Religious fundamentalists hijacked airliners and flew them into skyscrapers, killing thousands, while superpowers meddled in world affairs and manipulated the lives of millions.

“Youth gangs in major cities killed each other for thousand-dollar pairs of sneakers or a leather jacket, and others killed time and time again simply for the thrill of taking a life. The populations of practically entire nations survived on profits made from the sale of illegal drugs to the affluent and the dirt poor of countries of the first world. People died by the millions every year from starvation, disease and deprivation while their own governments spent billions on killing machines just like the ones outside, and spent more training people to fly, shoot or drive them. I could go on for hours, and yet…”

“…‘and yet’…?” He repeated, filling the pause and encouraging her to continue.

“…and yet, I miss it so much!” She added, her voice almost inaudible as she whispered that admission. “I miss the cars and the freeways, the movies and the music… oh God, Richard, I miss the shops! I miss television and stupid soap operas and my BMW road bike…” Her voice trailed off a little, her expression one of uncertain guilt. “Am I being selfish… is it wrong to feel that way…?”

“No…” Kransky answered with feeling after a long pause, thinking about his own life and the multitude of unknown pleasant experiences he must’ve missed due to the choices he’d made throughout it. “No, I guess I don’t think that’s wrong at all.” He felt a lump of emotion in his throat and it required a great deal of effort to maintain his outward composure. It was a long time since Kransky had allowed himself the luxury of thinking of anything deeper than pure survival in the world that normally surrounded him. The deployment to Hindsight had allowed him free time to think that he’d never allowed himself on the front lines of Manchukuo, Spain or France, and he had to admit that it seemed some of the heart and soul of the journalist he’d once been did still indeed exist within him, much to his surprise.

He could also quite clearly see that Eileen was suddenly and rather unexpectedly on the verge of tears: something he wasn’t at all happy about. A decade of solitary life utterly devoid of long term companionship of any kind lasting beyond one battle to the next had ensured Kransky had never formed any real friendships at all, and although he might’ve originally begun to spend time with Eileen because of a purely sexual interest, he’d instead ended up starting along the road of forming his first real friendship in many years.

He wasn’t consciously considering any of that of course, and education or not, the actual psychological mechanics of it all might’ve well been beyond him had he attempted to understand it. Kransky’s attention was instead completely consumed at that moment by the fact that he was standing beside a woman on the verge of tears that he cared something for (as had innumerable men throughout the ages), and in that moment he felt quite uncomfortable, completely useless, and had absolutely no idea what he might do to make her feel any better (again, much the same as all those innumerable men before him).

In the end, the man’s actions were completely instinctive for, by his own admission, his life experience was far too lacking in the appropriate emotional areas for what followed to have been any kind of conscious act. In a single, smooth movement he reached out and gathered Eileen in a strong but completely innocent embrace, something deep in his mind telling him it was the only thing that might have a hope of making any difference. Judging by the way she wrapped her own arms around his waist and hugged him tightly in return, it certainly appeared in the very least to have not done any harm. She didn’t actually break into tears, but the heaving of her body against him suggested that it was perhaps a near run thing.

The embrace seemed to last almost indefinitely, and was ultimately only broken as the sound of footsteps ringing on concrete heralded another’s approach. Eileen spent a second or two composing herself as they parted once more, and Kransky could see the unspoken thanks and appreciation in her eyes in that moment before they both turned toward the newcomer. He’d never have admitted it, but that single, silent ‘thank you’ made him felt better than any mere physical encounter ever could have, and he gave a nod in faint recognition.

“Not interrupting, am I…?” Max Thorne called out as he drew near, the tone light and attempting to be humorous. although slightly inquisitive all the same. The general interaction between them had been clearly visible as he approached, and he was clearly curious as a result.

“Not at all, Max… just showing Richard here some new toys he might find useful in the field.” There was something in her tone as she answered that Kransky hadn’t expected — something that almost sounded like guilt — although the man for the life of him couldn’t understand why that might be the case: the encounter had been entirely innocent as far as he was aware.

Thorne raised an eyebrow. “You need to watch yourself, major: surround yourself with machine oil and military hardware and she’ll be putty in your hands!”

“Did you actually want anything, or are you just looking for someone to annoy?” Eileen shot back with a sharp look of warning in her eye, seeming to Kransky to have taken the remark far more seriously than it’d clearly been intended.

“Well, a bit from ‘Column A’ and a bit from ‘Column B’,” Thorne grinned broadly, showing no intention of heeding the early warning signs in Eileen’s tone and body language, although he was receiving them loud and clear. “I did want to remind you that we need to sit down with Hal regarding a proper review of British armaments production: it’s probably time we got our arses into gear over that.” The characteristic grin faded somewhat and his voice took on a far more kindly tone as he finally decided it’d serve no further purpose to continue annoying a close friend. “Other than that, I was just spare of something to do for an hour or so and thought I’d wander about spreading some good cheer.”

“Can you be serious for once in your bloody life, Max?” Eileen snapped angrily in return, brushing past him and stalking away. The reaction left Thorne as stumped for an explanation as Kransky, and as they watched her storm off, the American turned his eyes back to his CO and found Thorne staring back at him with a far more serious gaze.

“Just what did you do?” Thorne inquired thoughtfully, automatically deciding to accord blame elsewhere.

“Not me, buddy,” Kransky stated quickly, shaking his head and raising both hands. “Everything was fine before you showed up.”

“Yes… I saw how ‘fine’ things were,” Thorne agreed with a faintly sly smile, the tone indicating he’d taken the wrong inference from that remark, although it was unclear whether his misinterpretation was intentional. “Not that it’s any of my business,” he added quickly, his expression suggesting something otherwise “but what exactly was going on as I arrived…?”

“She was a little upset is all,” Kransky replied, feeling slightly uncomfortable and exasperated rather than actually annoyed by the vague insinuation. “We got to shootin’ the breeze in general, and she started to think about missing the future you people left. She just got a bit upset,” he repeated with a shrug, trying to retain the appearance of innocence. He knew from observation that Thorne was also feeling some effects of stress for some reason or another, and decided to go ‘on the offensive’ just enough to force the other man into retreat. “You telling me you ain’t feeling like you’ve left somethin’ behind?” This time it was Kransky’s turn to raise an eyebrow as he put forward that friendly challenge.

“Me?” Thorne affected to almost laugh at the idea, mostly managing to be convincing. “The only thing that annoyed me about leaving 2010 was that I’m not going to get to find out what happens to Sookie and Bill.” Although Kransky had no idea what the man was talking about, he could tell an outright lie when he heard one. He also knew that meant he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do in gently getting Thorne to back off, and as such he decided not to call him on it.

“Taking into consideration nothing was going on here,” the American began after a breath, and Thorne’s expression became mildly expectant as he thought he saw what was coming, which he did. “Was there ‘someone’ she left behind in the future…?”

There was a long pause as Thorne sized up exactly how to answer that one. There were a number of replies he could give, with varying levels of detail and honesty, but in the end he decided Eileen’s past was her own business. If she and Kransky were becoming friends, as it appeared they were, he might well find out a few things eventually anyway, but in Thorne’s opinion that was her choice to make, not his. That the option of remaining silent was also to his own benefit was of course of no consequence to Max Thorne as he finally spoke.

“No — she didn’t leave anyone behind.” That was the truth, but it was also only half the story, and he suspected Kransky could probably work out the rest if he wanted to. “Eileen was career military,” he continued, “and that’s no easy thing for a lot of women, particularly when you’re as smart and as capable as she is. Most guys aren’t as smart as she is, and she doesn’t tolerate fools all that well.” He shrugged. “She likes you, I know that much, but exactly how she likes you isn’t for me to call. If you’re interested in her, that’s pretty much between the two of you, but I am her friend, and the commanding officer here, so if something does happen, I’d hope you were — what’s the saying? — operating with honourable intentions…”

“Whoa — no need to turn serious on me there, Max!” Kransky held up a hand and gave a lopsided grin as he shook his head. “She’s a great girl, but we’re friends and that’s all. As her friend and the CO, you’ve got every right to look out for her, but don’t be concerned: regardless of anything else, I’ll be back in the field soon enough and I can’t afford to get involved with anyone.” He took a breath. “Besides, I’m not all that sure she’d be interested in me as anything other than a friend anyhow.”

“Has she told you that?” Thorne was genuinely interested now, and Kransky had trouble keeping a smug grin from flickering across his features: the loaded remark had obtained exactly the reaction he was looking for.

“Not… in so many words…” He answered slowly, considering his response with care. “But you don’t last as long as I have in my line of work without being able to read people well, either up close or through a rifle scope. I think she’s got a lot on her mind at the moment, and maybe more than just being here with Hindsight.”

“Yeah, well it’s a lot to take no matter how much so-called preparation they gave us,” Thorne turned his head to stare off once more in the direction of the hangar doors and Eileen’s departure. “Guess I’d better go and apologise…”

“Might be a good idea,” Kransky agreed, nodding solemnly.

Kransky also actively searched for Eileen Donelson later that day, as the sun was lowering on the western horizon and the threat of a chill was beginning to creep into the air. With their varied daily schedules, the officers of the Hindsight Unit generally ate at different times, and he wasn’t able to catch up with her until after his evening meal. It had taken some time, but he eventually located her down on the wharf at the main naval base, seated alone on a thick, wooden bollard by an empty part of the dock as base operations went on about her.

Although things might well slow down at night, an installation as important as that at the Scapa Flow anchorage rarely ceased operations altogether, and that evening was no exception. There was enough general lighting to clearly illuminate the area, and the numerous jetties and piers were strewn with the signs of wartime operations. Oil drums and supply crates of varying sizes were stacked all about in piles, along with machinery, loading cranes and other equipment.

A couple of destroyers were moored a hundred metres or so along the pier, and in the channel between Hoy and the smaller island, Flotta, two battleships and a cruiser stood at anchor, silent and dark. Midway between the ships and the dock, a Sunderland flying boat taxied up to its own mooring, a phosphorescent bow wave starkly visible as it sprayed up on either side of the nose and disrupted the black water beneath. At that distance, the aircraft’s engines were no more than a soft splutter and hum.

To her left, piles of sandbags surrounded a static 4.5-inch AA gun with its pedestal mount set into solid concrete foundations. The crew manning it seemed relaxed, more interested in preparing to fight the cold of night than the Germans. Darkness was approaching quickly, and with sunset came a dramatic reduction in the likelihood of enemy air attack — a likelihood that wasn’t high to begin with.

“You’re a hard person to find,” Kransky observed as he drew near and she turned her upper body in his direction, a wan smile showing at the sound of his voice.

“I wasn’t exactly in the mood to be found,” she admitted, turning back to face the water once more. The lab coat was gone, and she instead now wore the Howard Green jumper over her T-shirt and jeans. Even Kransky could feel the chill in the air that was beginning to penetrate the long-sleeved shirt and fatigues he wore.

“Do you want me to go…?” He asked instantly, not wanting to upset her. “I don’t mind…”

“No… it’s fine, Richard… don’t go.” And with those words, he stepped across to pick up an empty packing crate from nearby and drag it over to the bollard. The wooden box wasn’t overly large, and with his long legs, his appearance was almost comical as he seated himself beside her.

“You okay?”

“Aye, I’m fine, really,” she shrugged, the attempt at a smile mostly fading. “Just in a funny mood today.”

“That, I gathered,” he admitted with a wry grin. “You’re still mad at Max…?”

“Oh, I’m well pissed off at him, but not for that stupid carry-on earlier. We had something of a disagreement on business matters this afternoon, but being the CO, he won of course.”

“Wanna talk about it…?”

“One of us needs to go down to London to help streamline the reorganisation of British production. My opinion is that I’m the most suitable person to do that, but Max wants Hal to go instead. He’s sticking to some ‘official’ bollocks about my being too bloody ‘valuable’ to send because of my memory.”

“Your memory…?” Kransky didn’t understand.

“I have what’s known as an eidetic- or photographic memory. I can literally see pages of text or technical drawings in my head, even if I’ve only had the chance to study them once. With the bombings of industrial centres and factories going on in Southern England at the moment — which is only likely to get worse — Max fears that if I were killed, the loss of the information I carry in my head would be too great a risk.”

“Is that what you meant earlier when you said that you’d definitely have remembered it, if you’d heard of me?” Kransky queried, making the link to their discussion earlier that day.

“Aye, that’s what I meant right enough,” she nodded, paused for a short sigh, then shook her head slowly. “I suppose he’s right when it all comes down to it, but I’m still not happy about it. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve trained for my whole life. Hal will do a good enough job all right, but I was meant to do it!”

“There’ll be plenty here for you to do, I’m sure,” he smiled. “Plenty of field operatives to nursemaid and provide with swell little gizmos.”

“Aye, that there’ll be, I reckon,” she agreed with a smile of her own. “I can’t stay angry with Max for long anyway: I know he’s only doing what he has to. He’s a brilliant man, and in some ways he’s a born leader, but he can’t stand the idea of being in command instead of just being ‘one of the boys’. He’s too much of a big kid at heart to enjoy making the kind of hard decisions he has to make as CO.”

“He did say something was playing on his mind, now that you mention it,” Kransky mused, his thoughts running back to his conversation with Thorne in the hangar.

“Really…?” Eileen was suddenly very interested. “What did he say?”

“Well, I’m not sure if I should say anything, but… is there something wrong with a ‘Sookie and Bill’ that he knows? He said he was kinda concerned about how they were doin’ back where you guys came from.” As she heard those words, Eileen forgot her melancholy for a few moments and broke openly into outright laughter, the lilting sound making Kransky feel much better himself, although he didn’t understand exactly what it was he’d said that was so funny.

“On, my God…!” Eileen wheezed, gasping a little for breath as her mirth eventually began to subside. “The man truly is a great bloody bairn…!”

And the smiling naval officer went on to explain to an uninitiated Richard Kransky about the concept of syndicated cable television shows and the world of the TV show True Blood.

Shakespeare Cliff Observation Post

Farthingloe (near Dover), Kent Coast

Sunday

July 28, 1940

The White Cliffs stretched sixteen kilometres around the Kent coastline, from north of Folkestone to just south of Deal. At some points towering as high as a hundred metres or more above the surface of The Channel, the imposing walls of white chalk, streaked with black flint, had served for centuries as a symbolic natural ‘fortress’ against would-be invaders from Continental Europe. Keeping watch above the Straits of Dover, the iconic British landmark was clearly visible from the opposite French coast across little more than thirty kilometres of water at The Channel’s narrowest point.

Just a few kilometres south-west of Dover, Shakespeare Cliff Halt Railway Station lay on a section of the South Eastern & Chatham line running between Dover and Folkestone. The siding lay upon a small flat section of land quite literally carved out of the chalk face of the cliffs, originally created toward the end of the 19th Century as part of a serious attempt to build a rail tunnel between England and France. The project failed to eventuate due to political and public pressures, however the exploratory tunnelling subsequently revealed a rich source of coal that resulted in the opening of the Shakespeare Colliery in 1896, in support of which the railway station had been constructed.

Little more than a pair of sidings, signal box and open wooden shelter, the halt was completely isolated from the cliffs above save for the Abbott’s Cliff rail tunnel to the south-west, the Shakespeare rail tunnel to the north-east, and a narrow set of zig-zag steps cut into the cliffs near the Dover end to allow pedestrian access. The colliery had closed in 1915, but the siding, although never listed in any public timetable, had continued to be used as a drop-off point for rail staff living in the area.

A landslip had closed the tracks for some time during 1939, but even after re-opening in January of 1940, there’d been little ongoing use of that section of the line. Daytime operations had basically ceased altogether following the fall of France and the arrival of occupying German forces along the opposite coast. The line between Dover and Folkestone ran right along the edge of the cliffs for the most part, and was completely exposed and vulnerable as a result. Trains were generally too fast to present a viable target for cross-channel heavy artillery, however a single shell hit on empty track could derail a train or at the very least render the track useless all the same. In any case, there was always the ever-present danger of aerial attack and it was generally considered far safer to redirect services on that line to the Chatham route, via Faversham and Priory Stations.

Positioned as it was at the narrowest part of The Channel, Shakespeare Cliff was a logical site for a network of army observation posts and bunkers that stretched in an almost continuous line across the towering cliff tops. Just a few hundred metres inland from the cliffs, the Dover Road ran parallel to the coast from Dover before turning north-west at Folkestone as the A20 and heading inland toward Ashford and, ultimately, on to London. The ground sloped downward as it moved inland from the cliffs, generally masking road traffic from the prying eyes of the enemy across The Channel and therefore allowing the four Lanchester 6x4 armoured cars that arrived in convoy that afternoon to approach unseen from Folkestone along the Dover Road.

The Lanchester was an older design that dated back to the 1920s, and as such it’d already been removed from front line service and relegated to the realms of a few reconnaissance units within the Territorial Army. Nevertheless, it was a solid and reliable vehicle with good on- and off-road performance, and was armed and armoured well enough to make it a reasonable choice as an escort vehicle in times where some protection was required without the desire to attract too much attention.

As the troop came to a halt by the side of the road, close to a gated fence line that cordoned off the cliffs themselves with rolls of barbed wire, General Sir John Dill stepped from the passenger side of the second vehicle in line and stretched his body after a long and tiresome trip down from London. He donned his cap as a pair of junior officers also dismounted from the following vehicles and jogged quickly up to join him. One officer, a captain, wore the red tabs of Army General Staff, and although the second man, a major, wore the same khaki officer’s dress as the others, he also displayed the insignia of the Royal Marines.

Beyond the fence line on the cliff side, the low roof of a partially-buried concrete bunker sat close by, a rifle-armed guard standing by the open entry. Upon sighting the officers, he called to someone inside and just a moment or two later, a young lieutenant appeared from within. Making an effort to quickly straighten his cap and uniform, he made his way quickly down to the fence and met the group at the gate.

“Lieutenant Ramage, sir,” the man snapped to attention instantly upon coming to a halt, presenting a very crisp salute. “First Marine Siege Regiment…”

“Very good, Lieutenant,” Dill acknowledged immediately, barely coming to attention long enough to give a perfunctory salute in return. “I believe you boys have something you’d like us to have a look at?”

“Yes sir…!” The young man was professional, but was also quite nervous. The Royal Marines might technically be under the command of the navy, but he was in the presence of the British Army’s Commander of Home Forces nonetheless, and it was a quite intimidating situation.

“Lead on then, lieutenant,” Dill urged, his expression and tone complete seriousness as Ramage opened the wrought iron gate and ushered them through.

As the quartet made their way up the slope toward the nearby bunker, the drivers of the armoured cars took that as their queue to stand down for the moment. They turned their vehicles off the road and onto the grass verge on the opposite side, seeking what little cover they could amongst clumps of shrubbery and low trees. The Lanchester 6x4 was a huge, seven-tonne beast with a six cylinder engine and nine millimetre armour plate. A two-man turret was mounted above the fighting compartment at the rear of each vehicle, each armed with both a .50-caliber and .303-caliber Vickers machine gun.

As the men shut down their engines, one gun crew remained on alert in their turret, keeping a careful eye out for danger from the sky while the rest took a break and brewed some tea. Another crew would relieve them in a few minutes until each had done a ‘shift’ in turn and all had had a chance to get some tea and a bite to eat.

Ramage led General Dill and the others past the first bunker and further on up the slope toward the cliffs. Mostly cleared land gave way to seemingly impenetrable thickets and gorse bushes, although the lieutenant managed to find a narrow pathway that had been cut through. They moved quickly through the underbrush in single file, the bushes at times towering above their heads, and the heavy ground cover suddenly opened out into cleared land once more as the group drew close to the cliffs themselves. At that point, Ramage stopped for a moment and crouched low to the ground, all copying his actions through instinct.

“Pays to keep one’s head down this close to the edge, gentlemen,” he advised, slightly breathless and whispering as if there might be an enemy close by to hear them. “Jerry’s watching us as sure as we’re watching them, and although they generally don’t bother making anything of it, they may decide to call in some Stukas if they think anything out-of-the-ordinary’s going on.” He cocked his head to the right. “Not far now… right this way, sir!” And with that he was off again, moving quickly but still keeping low to the ground as he took them through the thick grass of that windswept summit toward the rear of another bunker twenty metres away that appeared to be sunk directly into the top of the cliff face itself.

A concrete-sided trench barely wide enough for two men was cut into the earth at the cliff edge, and at the far end awaited a thick, metal door. A wide embrasure was cut into the concrete wall beside the door at eye level, allowing an old Lewis gun to poke through. As they approached, the weapon remained trained on them the entire time, a pair of cold and serious eyes watching from behind the weapon.

“Open up, Sar’nt Rogers…!” Ramage called out as they drew near the door, and it was only as the sound of bolts being drawn could be heard inside that the muzzle of the Lewis gun turned away. The iron door opened outward and the lieutenant pulled it wide, allowing the other officers to pass through. The inside was standard for what was known in the area as a ‘Dover Quad’; a type of pillbox found exclusively in the Dover area. A square box of brick and reinforced concrete measuring four metres along each wall, the structure possessed wide embrasures on all sides and an overhanging slab roof that gave good protection against fire from strafing aircraft, although some experts claimed that in combination with the wide embrasures, it was also inherently vulnerable to ricochets from machine gun fire from below. A large brass telescope on a heavy tripod was bolted to the concrete floor at one of the forward embrasures, looking out over The Channel and the French coastline beyond.

“Ten…hut!” Rogers, the ranking NCO inside the bunker shouted loudly as they entered, and the other three men present instantly snapped to attention.

“At ease, men,” Dill declared with a slight grin, barely stopping to brace up himself as he quickly returned the sergeant’s salute. “Don’t mind me… I’ll not take up much of your time.” He turned his attention back to Ramage, adding: “What do you have for me, lieutenant?”

“Of course, sir,” Ramage replied instantly, stepping up to the telescope and checking it was correctly aimed and focussed. “It’s all ready for you.”

As the lieutenant moved back out of the way, Dill took his turn at staring through the eyepiece. The telescope was quite powerful, and on such a bright and sunny day it was able to bring the distant French coast into clear focus. Taking in a section of countryside between Sangatte and Escalles, it provided an excellent view of the massive construction site that had been created above the beach near Peuplingues. Although still not enough magnification to allow any real detail, it was already clear to a military man of such experience as Dill that what he was staring at was undoubtedly some kind of gun emplacement in the making.

“So this is what’s had the marines and Naval Intelligence so concerned, Major Pruitt?” He asked finally, not lifting his gaze from the eyepiece for a moment.

“Yes, sir,” the major stepped forward slightly as he answered. “They’ve got camouflage netting and makeshift barriers up, preventing us from getting a proper look at what they’re up to, but we’ve known something fairly large was in the offing for a while now. It’s only in the last few weeks that we’ve seen the railway tracks and the turntables go in, and the general layout is a logical pattern for railway artillery, as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“Aerial reconnaissance…?” Dill asked, finally backing away from the telescope and instead staring unaided across The Channel and the distant line of the French coast.

“Nothing’s been able to get close enough for any clear images so far,” Pruitt admitted reluctantly, “…at least… nothing’s been able to get close enough and get away again. Everything the RAF has sent across for us so far has been either shot down, or chased off by the Luftwaffe before the could get close enough. Their radar control is excellent, and they’re usually waiting for our boys within minutes of them taking off.” He grimaced. “We estimate they have at least a regiment of Ack-Ack in there…”

“That’s an awful lot of air defence for a run-of-the-mill gun battery,” Dill observed, thinking carefully.

“We were of the same opinion, sir,” Pruitt agreed. “The size of the site and the level of protection potentially suggests something quite out of the ordinary.”

“We’ve been expecting the appearance of coastal batteries from the moment France fell,” Dill mused slowly aloud to no one in particular. “The potential to disrupt allied shipping in The Channel alone would make it a worthwhile exercise for the Germans.” He turned his head and fixed Pruitt with a pointed stare. “But that in itself isn’t enough for you to ask for the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, is it, major…?”

“No, sir… it’s the size of the installation that concerns us… me… the most. This is far larger than anything we’ve seen before. What exactly is Jerry putting together over there that they feel the need for an entire regiment of air defences? There’s a mass of railway track going in there, and I think there’s a high likelihood this installation is being set up for an invasion. From that position, long range guns could potentially range as far as Dover and some distance inland, and also provide some heavy artillery support for amphibious landings.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, major,” the general’s mind was now ticking over quickly, “and I think there might well be someone who could give us a definite interpretation, but we must have some detailed photographs first.” He turned his gaze back to the distant coastline, rubbing at his eyes and still thinking. “We need to get a reconnaissance aircraft in there and out again! I’m going to contact the Air Ministry personally as soon as we get back to area HQ — I want a PR flight out there as soon as possible.” He paused for a moment, then added almost as an afterthought, “also, major, I believe the Siege Regiment has some railway guns currently on standby near Guston. They’ll need to be brought to alert status — we may well need them to take care of our little problem here in the not-to-distant future…”

Downing Street, Whitehall

Westminster SW1, London

Wednesday

July 30, 1940

The black Humber Pullman limousine’s 4-litre engine idled smoothly as it waited outside the front door of the Prime Minister’s official residence at Number Ten. Other than being a luxury sedan, it was relatively nondescript and carried no obvious markings or notable features that might attract attention. The driver was separated from the main passenger compartment by a clear glass screen that was quite well soundproofed, although a central sliding section could be draw back to allow communication between front and rear.

The car was empty save for the driver; a man dressed in an inexpensive suit and flat cap that suggested nothing more than perhaps the chauffer for someone of moderate wealth and little public note. Only the thick, black beard with flecks of grey and spectacles with small, round lenses faintly-tinted in orange suggested the man might possibly have been anything out of the ordinary.

In any case, the police officers guarding the intersection at the end of the street found no reason to question his business at 10 Downing Street. Both the car and driver were regular visitors, and the guards there were under standing orders to allow both to pass at any time of the day or night. That was enough for the constables on duty, and they’d thought nothing more of it as the Pullman had approached and been waved through without challenge on that sunny afternoon.

He’d been waiting less than ten minutes as the Prime Minister left the building and made his way down the front steps with cane in hand, wearing a black suit and hat. He was accompanied by a single Special Branch detective in a suit of similar quality to that of the driver’s, and as he watched the pair approach, he knew the man would be carrying a revolver inside his jacket. The thought didn’t faze the man behind the wheel at all: a large automatic pistol hidden under his dashboard of the Humber was within easy reach should a need for it ever arise.

Winston Churchill appeared ill at ease as he slipped into the rear of the limousine, followed by his bodyguard. The driver wasted no time in greetings, instead throwing the vehicle into gear immediately and pulling slowly away from the kerb in a smooth motion.

“The increasing frequency of these impromptu assignations are beginning to create problems for my office,” The Prime Minister growled with a sour expression as he reached forward and opened the sliding central glass section separating them from the driver. “You’ve been absent for several years, as has often been your wont, then turn up again completely ‘out of the blue’, as it were, right on the eve of this bloody war! Erratic behaviour, to say the least, and as useful and enlightening as our involvement’s been over these many years, very little of my time is truly my own now I’m Prime Minister. I’ve been waiting to hear from you for two days, and then all if a sudden, the first response I get is that you’ll be waiting at the doorstep in thirty minutes. I’ve made every effort to keep the true nature of your existence clandestine, Mister Brandis, however this is no longer a simple matter now that I hold office.”

“I understand completely, Mister Prime Minister,” Brandis replied instantly, keeping his eyes on the traffic ahead as the Pullman turned right into Whitehall and headed south. “This wouldn’t be my first preference either, sir, however under the circumstances it’s become something of a necessity.” He paused as the car negotiated its way around a large lorry and then a slow moving bus before continuing on. “My time’s also at a premium, particularly in the current climate, and it’s not easy for me to drop everything and walk out at a moment’s notice either, even if it is at the personal request of the First Lord of the Treasury.”

“You’d contend the matters you deal with on a daily basis are as pressing as those of a wartime Prime Minister?” Churchill was more intrigued than offended by Brandis’ remarks: in the twenty years they’d known each other, he’d managed to learn almost nothing as to the true nature of the man’s business or intentions.

“I’ll grant you the fate of a nation doesn’t rest on the decisions I make, Prime Minister… not directly in any case,” Brandis conceded with a wry grin as the limousine cruised comfortably down Whitehall and onto St Margaret St, “but they’re nevertheless decisions that potentially affect many lives other than that of my own, and as such they’re no less important to me.” He almost chuckled, although the men in the rear of the car could neither see nor hear the reaction. “But I digress, sir… what is it you wanted to talk about?”

“It’s been brought to the attention of General Dill that some rather excessively large and quite worrying constructions are going on at the moment on the French coast south of Calais. It’s the general’s opinion — and I tend to agree with him — that the area is going to be used…”

“For a gun emplacement?” Brandis completed the sentence for him.

“There was a time when it might’ve astounded me that you already knew that,” Churchill remarked dryly, not surprised at all. “After knowing you so long as I have, I should think I’d have been more surprised to have caught you unawares.”

“Believe me, sir, there’s an awful lot I don’t know,” he smiled faintly, “but I help out where I can. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, the gun emplacement you’re talking about in the Pas de Calais near Sangatte is being constructed to deploy a pair of incredibly destructive railway guns. Do we have any useful recon as yet?”

“We haven’t any decent images of the area,” Churchill shook his head in faint dismay. “They’ve erected camouflage screens and netting to prevent us seeing what they’re up to from the ground, and nothing we have in the air is fast enough to get in and out again without being intercepted or shot down.” Brandis turned the Pullman off St Margaret and took the sedan into the clockwise stream of traffic edging its way slowly around Parliament Square.

“And the new fighters from North American Aviation…?” Brandis queried with a grin, knowing how his knowledge of that information would be received. “Could one of them not be adapted to a photo recon mission relatively quickly?”

“The first shipment of aircraft has been received, however they’re still finalising their assembly and initial testing. We would hope to have one or two cleared by the end of the week, and I’m sure the RAF could have one converted to a PR aircraft with relative ease.” Churchill worked hard to conceal a dry smile, and didn’t even bother asking how the man could possibly have known about such top secret transactions: after years of such revelations, he was no longer surprised.

“Then I’d recommend you get one of them in there as soon as you can to get a decent look at what they have there and what needs to be targeted. I wish I had information of my own as to how far the site is from completion, but this is one area I have to admit I’m deficient in at the moment. Either way, it needs to be dealt with as soon as possible: once it does become operational, the Germans will have very heavy guns that’ll be able to reach a substantial distance inland from Folkestone to Dover in support of any invasion.” Brandis did his best to hide the fear he inwardly felt at that moment. The situation was on a knife edge at that point regarding the installation at Sangatte, and a day’s delay here or there could well make the difference between outright victory or a crushing defeat with terrible loss of life for the British.

“You’d class this as a target of the highest priority then?” The concern on the Prime Minister’s face showed clearly, and Brandis suspected he knew the main source of the concern.

“If you have any assets in the area that have a chance of hitting this site, you should definitely risk them in my opinion, sir.”

“I shall advise General Dill to do exactly that,” Churchill nodded sagely, accepting the man’s advice without question. There’d been the rare occasion that Brandis had been wrong in his dealings with him, and there’d been the even rarer occasions when the Prime Minister had ignored advice that had proven to be correct… and had paid dearly for it. The odds were stacked well and truly in James Brandis’ favour, and Churchill knew better than to risk making foolhardy decisions.

“Was there anything else I can help you with this afternoon, Prime Minister?” Brandis asked as he turned the Humber onto Great George St and the last leg of Parliament Square, heading back toward Whitehall.

“That was the only pressing matter to hand, thank you, James.”

“Then I’ll drop you back at Number Ten if that’s agreeable, sir… there’s a matter I need to attend to that can’t wait until tomorrow morning. I’d like to catch up with you again after your War Cabinet meeting on the fifteenth though, sir, if that’s suitable. You’ll probably be meeting with the officers of the Hindsight group that evening also, but I desperately need you to fit me in before that, and I’d also like to listen in on the Hindsight meeting, if you’ll indulge me.”

“I don’t have any meetings scheduled with Hindsight,” Churchill replied with a quizzical expression, “and considering there are only a handful of men in the entire world that know about that unit, I should be inclined in this instance to demand how you know about them, save for the fact that I also know you never divulge your sources.”

“You know me too well, sir,” Brandis admitted with a smile, “and rest assured that you mightn’t have a meeting scheduled yet, but you will by the fifteenth. Please fit me in… I promise you it’ll be worthwhile for all of us, particularly Hindsight.” He took a plain manila folder from beside him on the front seat and passed it back through the opening in the glass without taking his eyes from the road for a moment. “At some stage during the night, sir, Max Thorne may ask your help in securing finances from the British Government in order to fund the development and manufacturing of armaments in Australia, the United States and Canada,” he continued as Churchill accepted the folder and opened it, his eyes widening slightly as he took in what was printed on the papers inside. “Even if he doesn’t ask, I’m prepared to make the financial assets listed there available to him without any reservation, qualification or expectation of repayment whatsoever. I’d suggest that you seriously discuss with Cabinet the possibility of adding to that figure whatever The Crown can spare. I’m not ready to concede defeat yet, but in the event that Britain does fall, funds of this magnitude will be vital to ensure Hindsight is able to provide the remaining allies with the tools to effectively stop Nazi Germany in its tracks.”

“Cabinet must vote on any proposal of this kind, James,” the Prime Minister swallowed nervously as he considered the contents of the folder, “but I’ll see what I can arrange — you’ll hear from me through the usual channels.”

“Very good, sir… I’ll drop you off now…”

The Prime Minister and bodyguard stood together on the steps of 10 Downing St and looked on as the Humber pulled away, executing a three-point-turn a few metres further along before powering past again in the opposite direction, heading back toward Whitehall once more with Brandis as the only occupant.

“An intriguing man, sir,” the Special Branch detective observed solemnly as they watched the vehicle turn left at the end of the street and disappear.

“Intriguing indeed, Hodges,” Churchill muttered as he considered what Brandis had advised.

“Unusual accent he has, isn’t it sir?”

“Very…” the Prime Minister agreed in a thoughtful tone, nodding slowly. In the two decades years that the newly-appointed Prime Minister had known the enigmatic James Brandis, the man’s unusual and quite unidentifiable accent had been a constant source of curiosity. There was a definite suggestion of time spent at Eton, yet there was also a distinct trace of Boer and the hint of something more exotic that was possibly Eastern European.

The accent also varied dependent on Brandis’ mood, and on occasion there’d be certain words that would stand out as being uttered in a different accent, in stark opposition to the rest of his speech at the time. In all his years of worldly experience, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill had never before encountered anyone like the man, and that in itself made James Brandis an extremely intriguing individual.

After becoming prime minister, he’d commissioned an extensive investigation by MI5 which had completely failed to produce any useful information on Brandis’ true identity, and despite continued requested from British Security Services to take the man into custody for a thorough interrogation, Churchill had steadfastly refused. Brandis had proven in their infrequent meetings to be a quite reliable source of extremely useful intelligence for the man who would one day become prime minister, and as such he was reluctant to damage the relationship they’d developed. James Brandis was a man far more useful at large than he could ever be under lock and key.

“Come on, Hodges,” Churchill roused himself from his thoughts and consulted his pocket watch. “We’ve still time for a spot of tea before I’ve the pleasure of entertaining the US Ambassador this afternoon.” One of the constables standing at the steps of Number Ten opened the door for them as the Prime Minister turned and made his way inside with Detective Hodges in tow.

West India Docks, Isle of Dogs

Tower Hamlets E14, London

The West India Docks, built between 1800 and 1802, were the brainchild of wealthy merchant Robert Milligan and the West India Merchants of London, and were a direct reaction to the increase of theft and delays at London’s existing wharves. Part of the Isle of Dogs, one of the largest meanders of the Thames, they were originally constructed as two separate import and export wharves, connected at each end so as to allow ships arriving from the West Indies to unload quickly at the first dock, then immediately sail directly around to the second and load up again for the return journey. Covering twelve hectares in area, the entire perimeter was surrounded by a six metre high wall with entry and exit strictly controlled to deter any would-be thieves.

Brandis had driven the Humber Pullman down West India Dock Road, over the Blackwall Railway crossing, and through the main gates into the dock area itself, the high walls towering on either side. No one at the gates moved to stop or even slow him — the guards all knew him and knew better than to get in his way. Once inside, he turned left and drove eastward, heading parallel to a line of warehouses to his right. Designed by architect George Gwilt and son (also George), the five storey, red-brick structures formed a continuous line along the northern and eastern side of the Import Dock and allowed merchants and dock owners to more effectively receive and process the masses of imported goods received every day from the West Indies and other far-flung parts of the British Empire.

Movement along the cobblestone access road fraught with danger, with hundreds of dockworkers threading their way back and forth through a constant flow of trucks and horse-drawn carts as they worked to distribute imported goods stored behind those brick walls. It took Brandis a good twenty minutes or more of stop-start movement to finally reach his destination, two-thirds of the way along to the far end. Two uniformed guards stood outside a pair of thick wooden doors that barred the entrance to a warehouse outwardly no different to any of the others along the line, and as they caught sight of Brandis’ car approaching, they moved quickly to pull those doors wide and allow him access.

He turned and drove inside, giving a smile and a brief wave of recognition as he passed them. The pair were well-paid and were professional former police constables, and as such they knew exactly what was expected of them in the performance of their duties. The moment the Humber had passed through those doors, they closed and locked them once more without a single word.

Once inside the warehouse, Brandis was forced to stop quite sharply. His first action after turning off the engine was to reach under the dashboard next to the steering wheel and open the secret compartment there that held his pistol. The weapon, a large Colt .45 automatic, appeared in his hands just long enough for him to make a customary check that it was loaded and ‘safed’ before it disappeared into a shoulder holster beneath the jacket of his suit coat.

There was barely enough space inside to fit the vehicle, and opening the doors to exit was a similarly tight squeeze. The parking space was surrounded by a cage of steel bars and heavy-gauge chain-link fencing that left just a metre or so above and on either side to manoeuvre. Brandis climbed carefully from the car, not bothering to lock it, and walked around to the front of the vehicle where a barred door was set into the cage.

He unlocked the door and stepped through, carefully locking it again behind him as he entered the main warehouse area. There was electric lighting suspended from the high ceilings above, but none of it was turned on. The interior was dark and musty, with little illumination filtering through, most of the barred windows on either side of the building covered by thick wooden shutters that were usually closed.

The open plan itself was markedly different to what might pass as a normal 1940s layout, and had been designed by Brandis himself. Deceptively larger that it appeared from the outside, almost the entire space within the building was taken up by twenty-six rows of tall steel racking that rose floor to ceiling and were split into two sides of thirteen racks positioned at right angles to the caged parking area with a wide central aisle running through the middle between them.

Each rack was more than twenty metres long and carried four sets of shelving along its entire length, spaced a metre apart. Taking into consideration the metre-high open space on the floor below each shelf, this provided for five levels of storage on each of the racks’ 20-metre lengths. The aisles between each were tight, but carefully spaced to allow passage for a small but heavy forklift that currently sat idle, parked by the cage door as Brandis entered. The dark silhouette of a second, identical forklift could be seen at the far end of the central aisle, motionless as the first.

Due to direct influence from German advances in shipping practices prior of the late 1930s, most of Europe had standardised prior to the Second World War on a wooden cargo pallet sizing of 100 x 100cm (approximately 39⅓ inches on each side in Imperial measurement). Each of the 130 individual shelves on those twenty-six rows was stacked with twenty of those standard-size wooden pallets, and each individual pallet carried six low, rectangular metal boxes, each of which measured 50 x 30 x 12cm, allowing six such boxes to fit comfortably onto each pallet

Brandis walked down the central aisle in the shadowy darkness, turning right halfway along and heading down between two of the tall racks to the far end. He then made his way up a tight spiral staircase of wrought iron that disappeared through an opening cut into the ceiling, six metres above the warehouse floor. He went up the stairs quickly, two at a time, and it was a testament to his fitness that his breathing was barely laboured by the time he reached the top.

Brandis’ London home was a huge, studio-style apartment built directly above the warehouse floor. In stark contrast to the darkness below, the entire place was bright and naturally lit by floor-to-ceiling windows on either side, each opening onto a long balcony that ran the length of the apartment. The balconies were wide and allowed the windows to be set well back from the sides of the building, specifically designed so as to prevent the existence of the apartment being detected by any casual observer on the ground.

The interior was filled with expensive, hand-made furnishings that included a fully-equipped kitchen at one end, a dining area with a mahogany table and six high-backed chairs, a lounge area with several leather-bound armchairs and a large, matching sofa and, at the other end of the apartment, a king-sized bed flanked on either side by huge wardrobes filled with tailored clothes. A small fireplace set on bricks and surrounded by a cast-iron flue and chimney stood against the opposite wall, and a narrow hallway near the entrance from the stairs led to a small but well-appointed bathroom that included a washbasin and shower cubicle but no bath.

Most (if not all) of the credit for the style and décor of Brandis’ apartment could be solely laid at the feet of Rupert Isaiah Gold. At thirty years of age, Rupert was tall, slim and dark haired. Well-educated at Cambridge, with a degree in the arts, he was a native Londoner and of Jewish ancestry, and during his short life so far he’d on occasion found both to have been a hindrance to the advancement of his career and attainment of his desired social standing within polite society.

Rupert was nevertheless proud of his heritage on both counts, and as a child growing up within the London middle class, he’d often been forced to fight in defence of his lineage. That being said, he followed his faith in his own quiet and very private fashion, and could by no means be considered an extremely pious young man as strict adherence to the Torah or to any of the mainstream ‘orthodox’ religions would’ve been difficult to reconcile with other aspects of his lifestyle.

Rupert had first met James Brandis ten years earlier at a public house, while still studying for his degree. The pair had struck up a conversation over a drink at the bar, and had gotten along famously from the start. At first, he’d suspected Brandis of attempting to seduce him. Already aware of his own homosexuality since his late teens, Rupert hadn’t been particularly affronted by the idea, although the man was markedly older and generally wouldn’t have been considered attractive enough for his tastes. It soon became apparent however that seduction was the last thing on James Brandis’ mind. Instead, the man had come to Cambridge that afternoon to offer him a job.

And in the following decade, the career that had sprung from that offer of employment had far surpassed anything Rupert Gold could’ve dreamed of or asked for. Gold became Brandis’ personal assistant, or ‘PA’ as his employer preferred to refer to in shortened form, and the reality of the position meant that by default, he’d become the second-in-command of a huge, global business empire almost overnight.

Rupert was taller than Brandis by a few centimetres and markedly thinner. Wiry and athletic, he’d engaged in sports at school, and had been an active member of the rowing club at Cambridge. Despite (or perhaps because of) an upbringing that was middle class at best, he also had quite an aristocratic style and carried with it a taste for fine clothes and expensive accoutrements to match. Brandis had offered a ridiculously huge salary, fully intended to be impossible to refuse, and of course he’d accepted. Rupert had purchased his own quite reasonable flat in one of the more fashionable areas of London — one which so far, god willing — had been spared destruction at the hand of Luftwaffe bombs — and he was quite a wealthy man in his own right.

Working for James Brandis had become a dream come true for the young man, and the strategy behind the exorbitant wages was based on a simple yet effective premise: that those excellent wages would ensure his assistant was completely trustworthy. Considering the amount of responsibility often expected of the man’s PA, absolute trust was an essential requirement that couldn’t be taken for granted.

“I suspect I shall have to call and reschedule my booking at the Dorchester,” Rupert observed with exaggerated sourness as Brandis reached the top of the stairs and opened the door that opened into the apartment near the bedroom area. “Nicholas was expecting me there for dinner at six…”

“He was, yes,” Brandis replied bluntly with the hint of a wry smile at the corner of his lips as he slipped off his shoes at the door. “With what I pay you, I should think you could buy the Dorchester!” The harmless banter was a normal part of their professional relationship, but as Brandis moved away from the doorway, he nevertheless made sure the shoes he’d removed had been placed carefully together on the mat: Rupert took great pains to make sure the weekly cleaners did their job, and Brandis knew he’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t also do his part to ensure the apartment remained neat and tidy.

“I assume then that I’ll not be leaving straight away?” Rupert wasn’t all that upset in reality; he was used to changing his personal plans to fit in with work on an almost daily basis — it was the nature of his position after all — and as Brandis had already indicated in harmless jest, he was very well paid for that work. It was only fair that the level of commitment expected in return was equally high.

“Sorry, Rupert, but there’s a bit more to be done tonight before either of us finish up here,” Brandis was genuinely apologetic now as he removed his suit jacket and hung it in one of his wardrobes. “There’s something important I need to go over with you regarding the business here in London…”

“That sounds ominous, James,” Rupert grimaced, trying to laugh the remark off but inwardly feeling genuinely concerned for the first time.

“It is and it isn’t: I need to talk to you about what’s going to happen over the next two months… and beyond…” Brandis shrugged simply, not really explaining much as he walked across to the large, roll-top writing desk near his bed. Pulling out the chair in front of it, he turned it around and sat down. Rupert took his lead and sat on the edge of the bed beside the desk, patiently waiting for his boss to continue.

“Britain’s pretty much done for,” Brandis began the explanation in his characteristically roundabout fashion, as usual providing background information to support his decisions prior to revealing them. It was a standard practice that Rupert was familiar with, and it unsettled him a little as Brandis normally only spoke in that fashion when there was bad or difficult news coming… or both. “There’s still a slim hope we may stop the Krauts from invading, but I wouldn’t be betting the farm on that any time soon.”

“The situation’s as bad as that, really?” There was plenty of doom and gloom in the daily newspapers, but Rupert had discovered over the years that his employer seemed to have a preternatural ability to somehow know what was happening in the world as (or sometimes even before) it happened, and experience had shown that Brandis was right ninety-nine percent of the time. If he thought Britain was ‘done for’, then that was serious news indeed.

“The Germans are massing their troops on the other side of The Channel and preparing for invasion as we speak… whether or not that happens is largely in their hands rather than ours, and you can take if from me they’re not likely to change their minds on this. If they do land on British soil and manage to establish a bridgehead anywhere, it’ll pretty much be the end for England.” He looked down at his feet for a moment with an awkward expression that was extremely out of character, before lifting his eyes once more to again stare at Rupert directly. “It’s not something the papers are talking about — they may not know about it yet — but right across Occupied Europe, the Nazis are rounding up every minority racial and social group they don’t like and shipping them off to concentration camps. Jews, political prisoners, the mentally infirm, gypsies…” he paused pointedly before continuing, “…homosexuals. Basically any group or individual that isn’t a blond-haired, blue-eyed, card-carrying ‘poster child’ for the Aryan race is in their sights, and very few of the people they’re sending east right now are ever going to see their homes or their families again.”

Those words, particularly the pause as Brandis spoke, caught Rupert completely by surprise and left him momentarily speechless and open-mouthed. The attitudes of the general public and governments at all levels around the Western World regarding homosexuality were as conservative in the early 20th Century as they’d been in earlier periods, and in Britain at least it was still regarded as an illegal activity that carried a penalty of imprisonment should any arrest result in conviction.

Very few men of Rupert’s era had the courage to be open about their sexual orientation, and Rupert, like most, preferred to keep what he did in private exactly that… private. Even the suggestion that a man might be homosexual could well be enough in upper class circles to prevent access to the right jobs or the right clubs, and would see any aspiring social climber potentially ostracised from his friends and peers (regardless of how many others in that same group might also be secretly gay).

Rupert had never made any consciously overt gesture or signal in Brandis’ presence that suggested what his sexual tendencies might’ve been, and although he’d certainly come to trust his employer and would even call him a relatively close friend, Rupert had nevertheless been very careful in that time to do or show nothing that might jeopardise their professional relationship. Brandis’ words were the first indication or recognition of Rupert’s sexuality that the man had ever made in the ten years they’d worked together, and the revelation came as a sudden and quite unexpected shock.

“How… how long have you known…?” Was all Rupert could stammer, his voice almost croaking as he fought for air.

“Before I walked into that pub ten years ago to offer you the job,” Brandis shrugged, as if the matter were of no more consequence than a discussion as to what colour shirt to wear.

“Then… then why…?”

“Why did I hire you?” He asked, and Rupert could only nod silently. Brandis sighed visibly, his vague feelings of frustration a reaction to the fact that the subject was of any importance at all in the world they lived in. “I hired you because I knew you’d be the best person I could ever hope to find to work as my assistant, and you’ve not disappointed me once in the decade since. Rupert, I couldn’t care less that you’re Jewish, and I certainly couldn’t care less about what choices you make regarding who you associate with privately, or who you choose to sleep with.” A faint hint of bitterness and disgust crept into his tone as he continued. “The last thing I want is to see you or anyone else being rounded up by the fucking Nazis and being marched off to a death camp wearing ‘striped pyjamas’ with a yellow star or pink bloody triangle pinned to your chest!”

There was a short pause as Rupert mentally digested what the man had said, and Brandis took that time to allow his pathological hatred of the Nazis to dissipate somewhat. When he spoke again, the venom in his tone had all but disappeared once more. “To that end,” he continued, “we’re going to get you out of England and off to somewhere safe where you can continue the good work you’ve been doing for me.”

“‘Out of England’…?” That news would also have left Rupert stunned if he’d not been so surprised already. “What are you talking about, James? I’ve lived in London all my life: I’m not going anywhere, Germans or otherwise!”

“Courageous sentiments,” Brandis shrugged as if his PA’s words were meaningless, “but the fact remains you will be leaving the country in the near future… in about three weeks to be exact. The Nazis are exterminating people, Rupert, and Jews are top of their hit list. You’re of too great a value to me as a friend and as an employee for me to allow you to end up in one of their bloody gas chambers! I’ll be getting out myself at the same time, although we’ll not be travelling together: I need you to take on an assignment for me that’ll involve you working for someone else for the foreseeable future.”

“You’re letting me go?” The concept was so terrible and foreign to Rupert’s reality that he could barely speak the words, emotions that were equal parts fear and anger welling up within him.

“I’m not firing you, for God’s sake,” Brandis replied, the slightest hint of exasperation creeping into his tone. “I’m just altering the conditions of your employment. When Britain falls, there’ll be no longer any business here for me to own or run, and I’ll shortly be passing control of most of my foreign holdings into the hands of someone else also… what d’you think your job prospects with me would be then? The alternative is to take on this assignment. We won’t be in constant contact, but there’ll be times when I’ll contact you for information and assistance and, possibly, to supply information on occasion as well. The rest of the time, you’ll still be working as PA to another man whom you’ll meet in a couple of weeks… a man who’s going to really be going places in the next few years, if I’m not mistaken.”

“So you want me to work for some complete stranger and spy on them for you?” Rupert replied petulantly, sounding almost acidic.

“It will not be ‘spying’!” Brandis shot back firmly, enough authority in his voice to send his PA a clear warning of his displeasure. “The man’s name is Max Thorne, and he’s currently the commanding officer of a special military unit known as Hindsight. Within the next few years, I expect him to become a major figure in the business world, and I intend him to accomplish that with you guiding him all the way.” Brandis rubbed at his forehead and paused for a moment, frowning to himself as if debating how to continue.

“Unless something goes incredibly awry, in the next few weeks I’ll have reached the culmination of everything I’ve worked toward my entire life. Although I may still keep my finger on the pulse of what’s happening around the world — hence my intention to keep in contact with you here and there — I otherwise intend to ‘disappear’ from public life for all intents and purposes. Considering the extent of my investments worldwide — which I’m sure you’re aware of — that in itself will create a substantial power vacuum in the industrial and manufacturing world… a vacuum I expect Max Thorne to fill… and that is why I want you to go and work for him.” He paused again, noting that although there was still confusion on Rupert’s face, the young man had calmed down and was at least now trying to understand.

“To that end, you’re first task for your new employer will be the transfer of a substantial amount of my liquid assets into his possession — the reason you’ll soon be leaving the country.”

“Assets…? What kind of assets…?” Brandis had been counting on the likelihood that mentioning financial matters would capture his PA’s attention and bring them back to the main thrust of the business at hand, and the ploy had worked perfectly.

“I’ve lived here above this warehouse for many years, Rupert… for many years before you came to work for me…” he began again, effectively defusing any further possible emotional fallout concerning what they’d just discussed. “In fact, this same warehouse has been owned under the ‘Brandis’ name since it was built in 1802, if originally constructed to a somewhat different design. It didn’t start out with all these storage racks…these came along a little later, and I’ve added to them as the years have passed. By the time you started with me, most of these were already filled, so I doubt you’d have even noticed a new pallet load appearing every now and then.”

“It’s the only part of the business you’ve always insisted on handling personally, without any involvement on my part,” Rupert observed softly, forcing a smile and inwardly also happier to have changed the subject somewhat. “It was clear from the start that all this was your project, and that you didn’t want myself or anyone else prying into it… I’ve always respected that.”

“I know you have, although you must’ve been curious,” Brandis gave a genuine smile in return. “To your credit, you’ve never asked me or made any attempt to find out for yourself what I’ve been up to down here. I hired you because I knew I could trust you implicitly, and you’ve never let me down.”

With a smile, he turned on his chair and lifted the desk’s roller shutter lid right to the top, leaving it wide open. Reaching beneath the front edge of the desk with one hand, he found the button he was looking for and there was a soft ‘click’. A small, secret drawer popped open at the rear of the desktop and from it, Brandis removed a small key.

“Let’s head downstairs… there’s something I need to show you.” Brandis suggested, glancing up at his PA once more as he pocketed the key and ignoring the renewed look of surprise on the man’s face.

“I’ve sat at that desk a thousand times…!” Rupert muttered, attempting to mask a wry smile with indignant incredulity. “What else do you have hidden in there?”

“Come on downstairs,” Brandis grinned widely, not answering. “I promise we’ll do our best to make sure you don’t get your suit dirty.”

They descended the stairs and stepped onto the main floor of the warehouse a few moments later. A large bank of knife switches was fixed to the wall near the bottom of the staircase, and Brandis, in the lead, immediately worked his way along the entire panel, manually pulling each one down in turn to engage its contacts with a small spark of electric current. Throughout the warehouse, powerful arc lamps suspended above the level of the highest storage racks burst into life with the faint but distinct crackle of electricity, bathing the entire floor in stark, cold illumination.

It was rare for the lights to be on at all — Rupert had only seen them fully turned on twice in the ten years he’d worked for Brandis — and he shielded his eyes momentarily as they adjusted to the sudden brightness. Still wearing his tinted spectacles, Brandis seemed unperturbed by any of the changes in lighting and immediately walked across to the nearest storage rack, Rupert following the moment his eyes had adjusted properly and he realised his boss had moved away.

Brandis reached out and laid a hand gently on one of the metal boxes, the pallet carrying it stored on the first level of shelving and standing just a metres high. Below it, an identical loaded pallet sat on the concrete floor and above it, three more levels of the same were held by similar shelving, as was the case all the way along the racks on that aisle and on all the others. Underneath the thick layer of dust that’d been disturbed where he’d laid his fingers, stencilled black lettering that was otherwise mostly obscured proclaimed only the figures: ‘BOX 10,141 — MACHINE PARTS — 79AU31011894’.

“I’ve no doubt you’ve thought about what’s down here,” Brandis began, his smile becoming a faint, wry grin. “What wild suppositions have you come up with over the years?”

“It could only have been something extremely valuable,” Rupert shrugged, answering without any hesitation, and this time leaving Brandis a little surprised.

“The logic behind that conclusion…?”

“Other than not hearing your immediate denial?” Rupert’s own smile was more genuine now as he began to feel more relaxed. “Apart from the mostly unseen but nevertheless quite extreme security you protect this warehouse with, the one single thing that makes it obvious is the fact that nothing ever leaves. You’re right, James: I haven’t really noticed the odd pallet or two being added to the stocks here over the years, but I’ve certainly noticed that nothing ever gets removed or taken away. Rather strange, I thought, that there are never any shipments out of here at all considering this is, after all, an import dock intended to receive goods from overseas and distribute them to London and the rest of the country.” He shrugged again as if it were all rather simple. “The only logical conclusion I could think of was that you’re storing something very valuable here. The level of security you’ve hidden inside these walls would put some banks to shame, and to my way of thinking that’s exactly what this warehouse is: one huge, secret bank vault that you’ve managed to hide mostly in plain sight.”

“It’s that kind of intelligence that made me want to hire you in the first place!” Brandis beamed as he took the small key from his trouser pocket, incredibly pleased that Rupert had worked all that out for himself. “It’s also that level of intelligence that I need for the mission I’m sending you on next.” He held the key up between his fingers and gave the young man a sly wink. “After all this time, how about I show you what you’ve wondered about all these years?”

Each 50 x 30 x 12cm steel box was flat-sided and featureless, save for folding hand-holds of steel tube welded at the ‘long ends’, each handle recessed slightly so as to leave no protrusions that might prevent the boxes being tightly packed. The lid was hinged, and each trio of boxes was carefully placed to align those hinges back-to-back down the centreline of their respective pallets. A large padlock made from heavy-gauge steel ensured every box was kept securely locked.

“I have a second ‘master’ copy of this key hidden somewhere else,” Brandis explained as he turned his back to Rupert and approached the racks. “I’ll make sure you know where that is and how to find it.” Standing by the box he’d just touched, he carefully inserted the key into the padlock and turned it. “Now,” he continued as he removed the lock and placed it on top of the pallet to his immediate right, “come and see what the fuss is all about…”

He opened the box as Rupert moved to stand beside him, and in the stark lighting there was no mistaking its contents. The surprise the young man might’ve experienced prior to that moment paled into insignificance by comparison to the stunned disbelief registering in his features as he looked on now. Inside the thin steel walls of that box, six gold bars were packed together side-by-side, and as he looked closer, Rupert realised that two more layers of bars were stored underneath. Smiling at his PA’s reaction, Brandis reached in and removed one of the bars, lifting it with some effort and offering it up for Rupert to hold.

“Four hundred and thirty troy ounces,” he advised as Rupert took the bar gingerly in his hands, caught off guard by the substantial weight. “Just over twenty-nine pounds each.”

Rupert turned the bar over in his hands, examining it in detail. Made to the standard ‘Good Delivery’ specifications of the London Bullion Market Association, each bar was a tapered ‘rectangle’ 37mm thick that measured 255mm x 81mm along its top surface and 236mm x 57mm along its bottom surface. The bar’s markings were also standard: its serial number was followed in sequence by a refiner’s hallmark, its ‘fineness’, and its year of manufacture (which in this case was the year 1894). The fineness mark read ‘999.99’, and although Rupert was no expert, he knew enough about precious metals to recognise he was holding the purest form of gold there was: gold of a higher standard than the generally accepted twenty-four carat measurement of so-called ‘pure’ gold.

“Eighteen bars in each box…” he muttered, almost in a daze, “…six boxes to each pallet!” He stared up for a moment, almost feeling dizzy. He stared at the shelving around him as if only now truly seeing everything there for the first time. “But — but there are hundreds of pallets…” he thought for a moment and corrected himself, “…no… thousands!”

“Two thousand, five hundred and seventy-one pallets, to be exact,” Brandis confirmed, and then added with an almost apologetic shrug: “One of the shelves down the back isn’t quite full, but world events caught up with me…”

“What’s the value of gold at the moment?” Rupert muttered, mostly thinking out loud. “Six pounds an ounce? Seven?”

“Thirty-five US dollars an ounce at the moment… troy ounces that is…” Brandis chimed in, calculating on the fly. “Based on current exchange rates, that puts gold at better than eight pounds thirteen shillings per ounce…”

“Eighteen bars per box… one hundred and eight bars to a pallet…” Rupert tried to work out the math in his head, but the sheer size of the numbers overwhelmed him.

“Two hundred and seventy-seven thousand, six hundred and sixty-eight bars in total,” Brandis advised. He knew the figure off by heart after so many years of work collecting the stockpile.

“But that’s millions of pounds… billions!”

“Just over one billion pounds Sterling… or four billion American dollars,” Brandis nodded slowly, pausing for a moment before coming to the point of the discussion. “And in about a week’s time, it’s all going to leave the country for good… every single bar of it.”

“German bombers make trying to get anything up the Thames practically suicidal during daylight hours now…” Rupert was aghast at the idea. “You’d risk shipping all this out through The Channel?”

“Not in a million years. There’ll be trains coming in at dusk for ten nights running to take it overland to Liverpool. From there, it’ll be loaded onto a battlecruiser and you’ll be accompanying it across the Atlantic to the Federal Reserve Bank in New York — arrangements have already been concluded for extra space to be made available. The paperwork you’ll be bringing with you on the trip will clearly transfer ownership of two thousand, five hundred and seventy pallets to Max Thorne, to do with however he sees fit.”

“That’s one pallet short,” Rupert pointed out immediately, something Brandis had been counting on. “You said there were two thousand five hundred and seventy-one pallets.”

“I did indeed,” his boss replied evenly, “and I omitted one pallet from the total because there’ll be another official letter from my solicitors clearly stating that last six boxes of gold belongs to one Rupert Isaiah Gold.”

“That’s more than I could earn in a lifetime,” Rupert had slipped so far beyond the ability to be surprised any further that he now simply received the news with a blank acceptance.

“About five lifetimes at the rate I’ve been paying you,” Brandis shot back with a grin, “or twenty lifetimes for just about anyone else: slightly less than four hundred thousand pounds, more or less.” He shrugged. “I’ve always trusted you as an employee and a friend, Rupert… the exceptionally-high wages I’ve paid you were merely the precautions of a sensible businessman in order to protect your inherently honest nature from ever needing to be tested.

“The task you’re about to embark on will take you into an environment which will be far more cutthroat and mercenary than the one you’ve become accustomed to working for me thus far: while I’ve preferred to conduct the great majority of my business in secret, and we’ve both been mostly sheltered from any unwanted scrutiny as a result, Max Thorne isn’t going to be accorded the same level of anonymity I’ve managed to maintain throughout my life. There’ll be offers of bribes, and I suspect you’ll be tempted… everyone can be tempted. This gold should ensure a level of financial security that precludes the need for anything more than mere temptation.”

“Who are you, James?” That question left Rupert’s lips with more intensity than even he expected. “You work, act and think like no one I’ve ever met… you seem to know what’s going on in the world before it even happens… and I find out you’re sitting on a pile of gold big enough to make you the richest man in the world…”

“Well, the gold is probably ninety percent of my entire wealth,” Brandis conceded with a nonchalant shrug, “but I suspect you’re probably correct. None of that’ll be mine however in a few weeks time.” He grinned widely again. “Rest assured, I’ve nevertheless squirreled away a little something for myself to ensure I shan’t be destitute.”

“You didn’t answer my question, though,” Rupert pointed out, also smiling faintly. “For ten years I’ve given you sterling service — let’s not equivocate on that — and we’ve been good friends that whole time. I’ve never seen you throw a party, socialise, or attend any function that didn’t have some bearing on business. You’ve never given any indication of ever having a crush, love, fling, affair or anything to do with matters of the heart with anyone, woman or man for that matter.” The words were kind but they were serious questions for all that, and they were subjects Rupert had thought on many times during his employment.

“Your birth certificate lists you as eighty years old, but such an idea is patently absurd — one only has to look at you to see that — and I know you’ve grown that beard and ragged hair to conceal any accurate guess at your real age. I’ve heard you speak fluent French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin — I’ve no doubt there are others I haven’t heard — yet your accent, if anything, is no accent at all. Not English nor European… certainly not Asian: yet at the same time, it seems to be an amalgam of all of them, as if you’ve spoken so many languages for so long that the accents have all merged into a unique blend that shows aspects of each.” He paused for a deep breath before asking again: “Who are you, really?”

There was a long pause, during which Rupert stared directly into his employer’s eyes and refused to back down, the challenge he’d laid out containing no malice or anger but intensely serious nonetheless. Brandis, for his part, resisted his instinctive, characteristic urge to make some flippant remark or deflect the question. He didn’t know if he could answer honestly, but he did know that the young man at the very least deserved something more than mockery or the insult of a lie. He drew a deep breath and released an equally deep sigh as he removed his spectacles for the first time and matched Rupert’s gaze.

“As far as my age is concerned, I’m not even sure myself after all this time,” he began, rubbing at his forehead again. “I could give you a figure that’d be physically accurate, but it’d be meaningless in the context of who I am or how old I actually feel.” He smiled weakly. “I know that’s mostly a cop-out, and mostly because I choose not to give you an actual figure, but it’s true nevertheless that any number I gave you would be wildly unrepresentative at best.

“And who I am…? Well, that’s even more complex. It may be a cliché, but it’s no less true for all that to say that it’d be dangerous for you to know who I really am… to know what’s truly brought us to the discussion we’re having right now in this warehouse. I’m nobody… I’m everybody… to all intents and purposes, I’m a ‘phantom’ who operates in the shadows and does so with good reason. I had an single accent once… I had another name, once… was it my real name? I couldn’t answer that now after so many years. It was the name I was christened at birth, to be sure, but the one I have now has been who I am for far longer… why should that first name be any more legitimate than any others I’ve used since then?” Brandis tried to smile again, but there was no real strength in it now and he felt an almost overwhelming tiredness sweep through him as he leaned against the framework of the shelving for support.

“You need to understand something, Rupert,” he continued, seeming to veer off-topic but not really doing so. “Few people on either side of this war truly realise what’s happening in the world right now… that regardless of who eventually wins the Second World War, this struggle we’ve begun against Nazism and the Axis is going to create a paradigm shift in the way the people of this Earth view themselves and their future, both as individuals and as a global community… whether they’ll even think in terms of a ‘global’ community. This planet has never experienced conflict on the scale we’re about to see unleashed from across The Channel and around the globe, and no conflict that follows will ever be so clear cut. This is war in its purest form… plain and simple… black and white… no less that a battle of Good versus Evil itself.

“This war will be the ultimate test of democracy against dictatorship, and the outcome will determine which ideology remains dominant for decades, if not centuries to come. I’ve dedicated my entire life to a fight against totalitarianism and dictatorship, and I’m about to hand over the baton to the man you’ll start working for in two weeks’ time. Of all the men I’ve known in my life, Max Thorne is the only one I’m certain can continue that fight with the same intensity with which I’ve begun it.”

“You know him personally, then?”

“Have we met face to face yet…? No…” Brandis shook his head slowly… thoughtfully, “but I know him all the same, and that’s how I know you’ll both work together well. He’s going to need your expertise and your strength, and there will be times when you’ll need his.” He yawned suddenly and held his palm up, cutting off Rupert’s next question. “In any case, I’m dead tired and I need some sleep.” He checked his wristwatch, then slipped the spectacles back over his eyes. “It’s not too late yet: you might still make the Dorchester at a reasonable hour — give them a call and see if Nick’s still there.”

“I should think I’ll need a drink or ten tonight after all these revelations,” Rupert observed dryly as Brandis turned for a moment to close and lock the box he’d opened.

“Take my car… I’ll not need it tonight.” Reaching into his trouser pocket, Brandis took out his car keys and tossed them to his PA, the man catching them deftly in one hand. “Just don’t drive it home if you get too pissed.”

“I’ll have it back first thing in the morning,” Rupert promised as his boss turned away without another word, walking slowly toward the stairs.

“We’ll go over all the details tomorrow, Rupert,” Brandis added, pausing for a moment at the base of the staircase. “Be a good chap: turn out the lights and lock up for me as you go out, would you…?”

“You never did give me a name or a real age…” Rupert Isaiah Gold observed with a wry smile, knowing full well he’d never get a real answer.

Lowering his glasses just enough to stare at the young man over the frames as a faintly mischievous smile crept across his face, James Brandis indeed gave no reply. He did however begin to sing softly to himself — something that was quite unexpected and out of character for the man Rupert had known for so many years — and as he turned to climb the stairs, it was clearly obvious that he was singing loudly enough for the young man to hear. He was also surprised to discover that his employer had a rather pleasant tenor singing voice. The melody was unlike any Rupert had ever heard before, and seemed as unusual as the lyrics Brandis sung: there was of course no way he ever could’ve recognised The Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil, a song that wouldn't even be released for another thirty-eight years.

Brandis never once looked down as he made his way up the spiral steps, working his way through the entire first verse as Rupert stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring upward with an intrigued expression. He paused for a moment, right at the top, and delivered the first two lines of the first chorus as he disappeared inside the loft apartment. The moment those last two lines were completed, the door at the top closed softly and Rupert heard the sound of a key turning in the lock. He continued to stand and look on for a few moments longer, the strange lyrics echoing in his thoughts.

Eventually he roused himself and went through the process of turning off all the lights once more before making his way through the now-dark warehouse to the caged garage area. The door guards outside opened the gates the moment they heard the Humber’s engine kick over, and Rupert took great care as he reversed the car out into the evening air once more. He fought with the gears for a moment before finally managing to get it into first and moving slowly away down the cobblestone drive, the slitted ‘wartime’ headlights giving barely enough illumination.

In the hours ahead, Rupert’s night would be filled with fitful, restless sleep, and throughout it all, those eerie, almost foreboding lyrics would continue to turn round and round in his mind and his dreams.

PR aircraft ‘B-for-Baker’

Maidstone, Kent

Tuesday

August 13, 1940

Squadron Leader Eric Richardson scanned the sky in all directions for enemy fighters as he had countless times during the 20-minute flight down from Oxfordshire. In that vague half-light between night and the first rays of morning sun, it was probably too early for the Luftwaffe to be out and about in force, but he wasn’t the type to take things for granted. Richardson was relatively new to the field of aerial photography, and had only been with the RAF’s Photographic Reconnaissance Unit for a few weeks. The PRU’s ranks had been decimated by heavy attrition throughout 1940, and it was an unfortunate reality that the huge majority of PR aircraft the RAF sent across The Channel never returned, falling victim either to ground fire or, more commonly, to the predations of radar-directed Luftwaffe J-4A fighters that were too fast to outrun.

The PRU had formed in the last week of September 1939 at Heston Aerodrome, west of London, for the purpose of conducting photographic reconnaissance over Europe. Originally known simply as ‘Heston Flight’, its mission had since grown in size and scope and it had gone through several reorganisations prior to being designated by its current title. Heston was easily within range of the Luftwaffe following the Fall of France, and the unit had been forced to move further west to Oxfordshire in early June due to repeated aerial attacks that had all but reduced the place to rubble and made the runways completely unusable.

As a former fighter pilot, Richardson had already been shot down once but had been fortunate enough to have been over British soil at the time, and had parachuted to safety as his Spitfire spiralled into the ground in flames. He’d been ready to jump straight back into combat, but a shortage of aircraft had left him without a unit for a week or so and had made him an excellent potential recruit for the shattered and reforming Photographic Reconnaissance Unit. The fact that he was an experienced fighter pilot came as a huge advantage in the eyes of the RAF (the fact that he’d survived long enough to become experienced in the current climate even moreso) and even he had to admit that he’d found the specialised PR training relatively easy to pick up. What had been more impressive was the brand new aircraft they’d given him to train with. Manufactured by North American Aviation, the Mustang Mark I (soon to enter production in the United States as the P-51A) was a truly amazing aircraft.

North American were a relatively small, unknown aviation manufacturer whose only notable other military aircraft to that point had been the excellent B-25 Mitchell medium bomber. As had been the case in Realtime, the RAF had originally asked NAA to build Curtiss P-40 fighters under licence. North American had shown a good deal of foresight and initiative, and instead pleaded for the opportunity to design a completely new fighter altogether, so confident in their proposal that North American agreed to purchase RAF wind tunnel testing reports for the P-40 to seal the deal in spite of the fact the data would never be used. The resulting low-wing monoplane fighter was new and state-of-the-art in every respect, and took just 100 days of development from the start of planning to the roll-out of the first prototype. In Realtime it would go on to become what was generally considered the finest piston-engined fighter ever to see combat in the Second World War: the P-51 Mustang.

Still a North American design, albeit conceived at least a year earlier than had been the case in Realtime, the Mustang that Richardson now flew had been ordered specifically from NAA by the RAF under the direction and assistance of Nick Alpert. Alpert had been able to supply detailed blueprints outlining some requirements for modification to the original design, following which a greatly accelerated development and production program had been initiated.

Aircraft ‘B-for-Baker’ was one of the first three dozen Mustangs to be supplied under contract from NAA and delivered via cargo ship in separate fuselage and wing sections. Reassembly had been carried out at secret locations in Scotland and in the north of England, far away from likely prying eyes and ears, and of those first completed models, twenty-four had been assigned to form two new fighter squadrons, while the remaining twelve had gone to the PRU for vital reconnaissance work.

The Mustang I was almost identical to the Realtime P-51H model, save for being armed with two 20mm Hispano cannon in each wing rather than the normal US practice of arming their aircraft with .50-calibre machine guns (usually six). While there was only enough space to carry 120 rounds per gun, the cannon were far more powerful than the .303 machine gun armament standard to RAF fighters at the time, and only a few hits from four such guns would be lethal enough to deal with any enemy fighter and most enemy bombers. The Mustang was also fast… very fast… and its new-model, fuel-injected Merlin-61 engine was at altitude able to take it to speeds of over 780 kilometres per hour — over 480 miles per hour in Imperial measurement. Like its Realtime equivalent, the P-51H model, it was a lightweight version of the more common P-51D which had the same ‘cut-down’ rear fuselage and sliding, ‘tear-drop’ canopy.

Mustangs entering service with RAF fighter squadrons carried the usual RAF land temperate camouflage scheme of large blotches of brown and dark green on upper surfaces and fuselage sides with sky blue beneath. Richardson’s aircraft was built for reconnaissance however — its full RAF title was Mustang PR Mark IA — and it sported an entirely different camouflage scheme as a result. Save for its red/blue tail markings, RAF roundels and its ‘LY — B’ unit letter recognition codes (barely visible on either side of each fuselage roundel in faded grey stencilled letters), it was completely painted on all surfaces with the very same sky blue that fighters usually sported on their undersides only.

A set of high-quality still cameras had been installed behind the pilot, two looking directly downward through a plexiglass panel in the fuselage floor while the lens of a third camera pointed out to port at a right angle through a slightly bulged, clear ‘blister’ of Perspex that formed what would otherwise have been the central red spot of the Mustang’s RAF roundel on that side. The four wing cannon had been removed in the PR variant, and in their place were just two .50 calibre Browning machine guns with 400 rounds apiece.

It was a relatively weak armament, but the modification had a threefold effect on improving the aircraft’s performance: the removal of the cannon meant a marked saving in weight, while also leaving increased space inside the wings for extra fuel. As was the case with the Realtime P-51, it also meant that the machine guns’ muzzles could be mounted flush within the wing. The 20mm cannon of the fighter variant were powerful weapons with a high muzzle velocity, and as such were substantially longer than the Browning M2 machine gun. As a result, the cannon barrels protruded almost a metre beyond the leading edge of each wing, firing outside the disc of the propeller.

This small but notable disruption to the aircraft’s aerodynamics had a direct effect on its top speed, and speed was all important to a PR aircraft. Speed was life as far as recon pilots were concerned; particularly those engaged in exceptionally dangerous low-level missions known colloquially as ‘Going Dicing’: a shortened form of the phrase ‘Dicing with Death.’ At high altitude, a Mustang PR was out of range of ground fire and was too fast to be caught by enemy fighters. Down low however, both were a very real threat and Dicing missions were always tense, stressful affairs as a result.

Richardson carefully watched the sky ahead as the Kent countryside slipped past beneath his nose and away behind. He’d found the A20 just outside of Lewisham and followed it south-east as it cut through green pastures on its way toward the coast, the Mustang rarely rising above treetop height for most of the journey. Had it not been for the unmistakeable howl of its Merlin V12, the aircraft would’ve seemed little more than a ghost in the grey, pre-dawn haze.

He diverted around Maidstone, skirting the city’s southern boundaries. Using local landmarks to assist with navigation, Richardson easily located the grounds for the Kent County Cricket Club and the children’s orphanage at Mote House — positioned as they were within 180 hectares of parkland just a kilometre or two from the centre of town — and used them to bring him back onto the A20, which took the name of Ashford Rd as it ran past Mote Park’s northern border on its way south-east. The A20 would take him right through to Folkestone and The Channel, both of which were now only five minutes away at his cruising speed of almost 500 kilometres per hour.

Ashford Road took him past Harrietsham, Lenham and Charing before he again diverted course slightly, this time skirting north of Ashford and rejoining the A20 as Hythe Rd on the other side. Dawn finally broke over France and the distant horizon as the Mustang howled past overhead at Smeeth and then Sellindge, and as Richardson finally broke away from the A20 just five kilometres or so from the coast, the first rays of sunlight were finally reaching out across the surface of The Channel.

He was glad of the veil of broken cloud spread across the eastern sky that effectively prevented him from being blinded, flying, as he was, directly into the rising sun. Folkestone was visible ahead now, as was the distant French coast beyond, and Richardson went through several final rechecks of his instruments and the status of his aircraft’s systems, including preparation of the cameras mounted in the fuselage behind him.

The Mustang carried a pair of 250-litre auxiliary fuel tanks beneath the wings. He’d been flying on that extra fuel for the entirety of the trip so far, and those tanks were now almost empty. As Richardson passed overflew Sandgate, south of Folkestone, and continued on out over The Channel, he pulled a lever on his instrument panel and the pair of tanks fell away, striking the surface of the water 20 metres below the aircraft and disappearing in twin sprays of foam. The event was instantly noticed in the cockpit, and the Mustang literally surged ahead as their extra aerodynamic drag suddenly disappeared. Richardson selected the appropriate heading east-south-east and edged his throttle forward, the engine’s pitch changing dramatically as he pushed the aircraft toward full power.

Below him, the glinting surface of The Channel slipped quickly away behind as his airspeed crept upward. Even for a seasoned fighter pilot, the acceleration and speed were exhilarating, and he couldn’t help but allow an almost childlike grin of excitement to spread across his face beneath his oxygen mask as the Mustang topped out at its sea-level limit of 700 kilometres per hour. Adrenalin was coursing freely through his system now, his breathing faster as a result: forty kilometres ahead, his target was just four minutes away across the water, and it was now that he was at his most vulnerable.

Dawn had spread across the whole of Western Europe now, and right along the French coast, Luftwaffe pilots would be warming their engines and preparing to take to the skies on combat air patrols intended to seek out and shoot down RAF aircraft exactly like his. The Mustang was currently heading toward danger at a great rate, and it was only after Richardson had passed his target and taken his pictures that he could finally turn back to the west and seek safety in altitude.

SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E)

Near Sangatte, Pas-de-Calais

Edward Whittaker had been working from dawn until dusk every day for the last eight weeks: one man among thousands of POWs and forced civilian labourers now working there at the compound. Like the rest of them, he’d return every night to the prison camp with his hands scuffed and bleeding, his back and shoulders aching from the day’s hard work, but he also had to admit he was a good deal fitter as a result, and his previously pale skin was now quite well tanned from weeks of working shirtless in the summer sun.

They’d arrived with the dawn and had barely climbed down from their trucks that morning as air raid sirens released their piercing wails all over the installation. Non-essential Wehrmacht and SS soldiers and officers immediately headed for slit trenches dotted strategically about the area. The prisoners didn’t bother however, although all of them were of course deeply concerned: they’d learned the hard way during numerous air raid drills over the last eight weeks that POWs weren’t permitted such luxuries as shelters or protection, and only the sheer volume of flak weaponry positioned about the surrounding area stood between the unwilling labour force and potential death from above.

Whittaker was part of a small group working closer to the beach at the far end of the main branch line, beyond the northernmost of the two huge guns. As such, they were in a perfect position to catch sight — briefly — of an RAF fighter as it darted past above the treeline that ran along the installation’s western perimeter, its pale blue camouflage no more than a momentary flash of colour in the morning sun. Some of the nearby lighter flak guns attempted to engage, but the aircraft wasn’t interested in hanging about and made off back toward the English side of the Channel at full throttle, quickly darting out of range once more before anyone could react.

The volume of fire that should have been brought to bear should have ensured its certain destruction as soon as it’d drawn within — at best — two or three thousand metres, but an almost complete lack of an RAF presence anywhere near the coast since the last weeks of July had caused the flak batteries’ crews to become relaxed to the point of outright negligence. They’d paid for that negligence by allowing that single fighter to escape unscathed, and the Commander-in Chief, Home Forces had his detailed photographs as a result…

Richardson kept his throttle at full power and took the Mustang into a steep powerclimb the moment he’d cleared the target area and got turned onto a course for home. His heart was pounding as if it threatened to burst from his chest, and the adrenalin coursing through his veins and arteries meant the exhilaration he felt at the successful completion of his mission was all the more intense.

He’d come in at wave-top height for the entire trip across The Channel, much as he’d travelled the entire landward leg of his approach barely above the trees, ensuring there’d been no chance of German radar stations along the coast having any chance whatsoever of detecting him. That had also ensured the masses of ack-ack protecting the target had been given no prior warning of his presence and enabled him to take his pictures without any opposition.

If there were fighters in the area now, Luftwaffe command would already be vectoring them on to his tail, and if there were none in the air nearby, there’d certainly be some lifting off within seconds. It’d all be to no avail, however. The fighter variant of the Mustang was slightly faster than the new Focke-Wulf J-4A at all altitudes, and the PR Mark IA version, thanks to its weight savings and streamlined armament, was faster still. Now he was at higher altitude and headed for home, there wasn’t an aircraft anywhere near that had a chance of catching him. The Mustang hurtled on westward, following the dawn as Richardson allowed himself to relax — finally — and began to think about how much he’d enjoy his morning coffee.

11. A Not So Phoney War

In England, the Realtime period between September 1939 and May 1940 — the months directly preceding the beginning of the German blitzkrieg in France and the Low Countries — at the time became known colloquially as the ‘Phoney War’. In the seven months following the Allied declaration of war on September 3, 1939, very little activity of any kind occurred on the Western Front at all, the Germans according it their own nickname of ‘Sitzkrieg’. Indeed, the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force sat in relative comfort behind the Maginot Line and the Meuse River, secure in the apathetic ‘certainty’ they were completely safe. Certainly they were a good deal safer at that time than the outnumbered and under-equipped Poles, fighting for their lives and country on the opposite side of Europe: those same hapless Poles over whom the ‘war’ against Germany had ostensibly been declared in the first place.

And while the Polish fought on vainly in defence of their failing freedom, their would-be saviours sat behind their ‘safe’ defences and basically did nothing. It was military ‘fact’ that no one could penetrate the Maginot Line and that no mechanised force could negotiate the heavily forested Ardennes, or ford the Meuse without great delays. If the Wehrmacht came, the Allies would have plenty of time to consolidate and strike at any advancing force while the Royal Air Force and the Armeé de l’Air held the Luftwaffe at bay. So the Allies waited, the Poles were defeated in their lonely stand, and the majority of the Wehrmacht, almost all of which had been fighting in Poland, began to rebuild and re-equip and turned its hungry eyes toward the west.

Four years later, during the course of that same Realtime war, the advancing United States Army would solidify their positions on that same River Meuse in preparation for winter and the arrival of the New Year. They too felt similarly secure in the knowledge that those same Germans, beaten and desperately under-supplied, could never mount a counter-attack through the Ardennes or anywhere else despite some damning and very recent historical evidence to the contrary that the forest could in fact be penetrated quickly by a determined and well-trained armoured force.

In late 1944, as was the case in early 1940, the Allies were proven incredibly and utterly wrong. In 1944, the German counter-offensive that became known as ‘The Battle of the Bulge’ very nearly broke through the American lines as it swung down toward Brussels, the Allies largely deprived of their omnipotent air power due to execrable weather. Had the offensive in the Ardennes not bogged down and totally exhausted supplies and fuel available for the German armoured columns at the last moment, ports on the Dutch coast might well have been recaptured and the allied forces in the west split violently in two.

Of the Realtime ‘Phoney War’ of 1939-40, some historians continue to argue that the French and BEF should’ve gone over to the offensive immediately upon declaration of war in September of 1939. With the greater majority of Germany’s armed forces fighting in Poland and the east, there existed an excellent chance of capturing the Ruhr and the German industrial heartland, putting paid to Hitler’s designs for Grossdeutschland in one fell swoop. Certainly there might’ve been a possibility of suing for some kind of negotiated peace from a position of strength, potentially saving millions of lives.

Little more than twenty-three German divisions stood their ground on the Siegfried Line against one hundred and ten Allied divisions, and yet the Poles’ self-declared ‘saviours’ did nothing. Although less advanced in their organisation and order of battle in 1940, the French alone possessed a marked superiority in numbers of tanks and vehicles, and of that lesser number the Germans did have, there were to all intents and purposes none on the western frontier while the Wehrmacht fought in Poland. Yet the Allies remained complacent and Fall Gelb (Plan Yellow) began in May 1940: fallschirmjäger fell on the Belgian fortress of Eban Emael, German troops and armoured units penetrated the Ardennes and crossed the Meuse in just days, and the Battle for France began in earnest.

For this radically altered Europe of Reuters’ and the New Eagles’ devising, the period between the beginning of July and the first days of September became, apart from just a few notable exceptions, something of a second ‘Phoney War’ in which there was very little by way of major action from either side… in the European Theatre at least. There were of course the usual harassing air raids, and frei jagd fighter sweeps continued across southern England, the latter in particular becoming progressively more productive and deadly as greater numbers of the newer J-4A fighters became available at geschwader strength.

Adolf Galland and Werner Mölders declared their new fighter the greatest ever built, better even than the Spitfire, although in the years to come they’d both review those statements as technology overhauled them and even better aircraft were produced. Combat tallies rose ever upward and aces such as Galland, Mölders, Marseille, Priller and Bär became national heroes, but the ‘kills’ became harder and harder to find as the summer grew older and the RAF became all but non-existent. Fewer aircraft would rise every day from battered airfields to meet the Luftwaffe fighters and bombers that swept at will across England, the attackers choosing their targets with relative impunity. By the end of August, Britain’s military and industrial infrastructure in Southern England was practically in ruins, and the huge majority of the population were very very frightened of what the next few months might bring.

There’d also been much activity at Scapa Flow throughout July, although perhaps not of such an overtly positive nature. Max Thorne grew more accustomed to his new military rank and uniform as July wore on, and he was often kept too busy to think about anything other than the job at hand during his waking hours, although his nights were still plagued either by dreams, alcohol or — with increasing regularity — both. New uniforms arrived for the entire Hindsight Unit: a temperate zone camouflage smock and pants of ‘tiger stripe’ pattern that was accompanied by an offer extended to all to be unofficially inducted into British Paras. To a man — including the Americans — all volunteered immediately, and from that moment on wore their new red berets with pride.

The Australian SAS team was relieved of its communications and surveillance duties and took on the task of field training other combat units, Captain Green and his troop excelling at their task. Officers and NCOs of all the Commonwealth elite forces in Great Britain began to cycle through the Hindsight base at Lyness — an installation that would eventually increase its personnel on staff by almost half again within a month. These newly-trained officers and men would return to their units and pass on what they’d learned, the more advanced ideas and tactics revolutionising some men’s thinking. One of the brighter and more eager junior officers to attend the camp was a young man by the name of David Stirling. Specifically singled out by Thorne himself to undertake the SAS training sessions, in Realtime this man would’ve paradoxically gone on to create the legendary Special Air Service from which Green’s Australian unit would eventually be spawned.

The American Rangers were set the task of organising home guard units throughout the country as their more mundane daily duties at Scapa Flow were taken over by a huge influx of security-cleared staff brought in from the mainland. For days on end they’d travel out by transport plane in twos and threes to various parts of Britain, visiting Land Defence Volunteer groups and instructing them in the basic theories and tactics behind conducting an effective guerrilla war against an invading and/or conquering army. They too were good at their job, and were able to pass on an important set of skills that a previous generation of American soldiers had learned the hard way from a capable enemy in the Viet Cong.

During that warm and reasonably uneventful July, Thorne also began to train Alec Trumbull in flying the F-35E, a serious and intense expression never leaving the young man’s face as the pilot listened carefully and took in everything Thorne taught him. He quickly picked up the ‘knack’ of operating the aircraft in most of its flight modes, quickly overcoming his awe regarding the advanced technology and discovering that forty years hadn’t altered the basics of flying so much that he was unable to adapt. Although Davies was loath to admit it, the pilot was nearing the point where Trumbull might even begin flight training on the F-22: the young man had at the very least progressed to the point that he was able to begin instructing others in flying the Lightning II, thereby leaving Thorne free to deal with the mountain of administrative problems that were the day-to-day bane of a CO.

In global terms however, it could certainly be said that the month of July through to the end of August was, generally speaking, a quiet time during which little activity occurred on either side of The Channel.

There were, of course, several significant exceptions…

Hindsight Training Unit, HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Wednesday

August 14, 1940

It’d been difficult for him to slip through the night piquets undetected, but he’d managed it all the same. Continuous exercises and rigorous training with Kransky and the rest of the security unit had brought his long-dormant talents and skills back to the fore and honed them considerably. In truth, it hadn’t been as difficult as it probably should have been that morning, but he wasn’t about to complain. He carried a silenced pistol inside his camouflage jacket, but he was fervently hoping he’d not need it: that’d be the end of him there at Scapa Flow, and he might well be needed again before Berlin could afford to sacrifice him, if necessary. He had no illusions as to that fact either: sacrifice him they would, if the need was great enough.

Following the Flanker recon flight at the end of June that had caught them napping, Hindsight had broken out every radar set they’d brought with them, including one built up from spares, and the units had been set up at four ‘points of the compass’ on Hoy Island, mounted atop four of the numerous fortified gun emplacements dotted about the coastline and cliffs as protection for the approaches to the Home Fleet’s main anchorage. It was the one at Rora Head on the island’s cliff-edged western coast that he’d approached unnoticed in the dark of that early morning before sunrise. The guards and night crew were all tired — they were only minutes away from being relieved — and he’d timed his arrival for exactly that reason.

It’d taken a little longer than he’d have liked to slip past the guard near the steel door at the rear of the emplacement, and he’d carefully and silently climbed up onto the broad, concrete roof where the radar set was positioned. He wore soft-soled running shoes rather than his standard-issue boots: any sound at that point would raise an alert and bring about his undoing, and he made sure was as silent as a mouse.

Crouched by the rear of the large, white BRT — mounted as it was on a heavy metal tripod and bolted to the concrete — he rested his back against the bulk of a ventilation stack for the gunroom below and checked the time as he shivered at the dawn chill. He could clearly hear the apparatus within the dome-shaped casing whirr as it scanned the sea and sky off to the west in search of danger. He’d arrived with a few minutes to spare, and waited until exactly the moment specified by Berlin before carrying out the next part of his mission. As his watch ticked toward four that morning, and the first rays of sunlight reached out across the tops of the nearby hills on that side of the island, he took the time to cast his eyes about the general area.

His position was completely safe from detection by the guards posted at the actual emplacement — the width of the roof itself precluded any chance of anyone that close actually spotting him — but as he scanned the surrounding landscape, a single silhouette stood out clearly in the distance, black against the dawn sky at the crest of a set of low hills to the east that led back toward Hindsight. He instantly ducked down completely behind the metre-high ventilation stack, suddenly feeling very exposed, and drew a small pair of field glasses from a large pocket of his field jacket.

The stance and the man’s sheer height alone instantly identified the distant figure as Richard Kransky, and he silently cursed his luck. The Yank had been out on one of his lone patrols that night as usual, and had been able to approach the emplacement stealthily, much as he had, albeit for far more benign reasons. He could also see that although Kransky was clearly visible from his elevated position, the lie of the land meant the Hindsight security chief probably wasn’t visible to the guards below him on the ground. Kransky’s presence concerned him, but he kept his cool: it wouldn’t be long before everyone’s attention was focussed elsewhere, and there’d be enough time in the ensuing confusion for him to make good an escape from the area… or devise an excuse for his presence.

He checked his watch once more, taking care to keep behind the cover of the air vent, and waited until the correct moment to reach down and take hold of the BRT’s insulated power cable. Pulling it taught between both hands, he stretched it across the straight edge of the ventilator’s metal frame, carefully exerting a steadily-increasing amount of strength until the copper wire inside finally separated and the whirring of the unit’s operation abruptly ceased. He’d taken care not to overtly tear the outer covering of insulation, and as he allowed the cable to fall to the surface of the roof once more there was no mark that couldn’t be explained as some kind of accidental breakage during installation.

Kransky watched as the morning gun crew changed over at Rora Head. He was less than three hundred metres away as he squatted on the crest of the slope down to the coast and stared through his heavy binoculars, none of those at the 8-inch emplacement ever suspecting his presence. Those coming in had only been awake a few minutes and those they were replacing had been awake all night… in both cases, their attentiveness was low and even the guards by the door weren’t truly alert to the environment around them.

As Security Chief, he suspected he should be angry about the situation but he preferred to be realistic, and human nature was what it was whether he liked it or not. The situation still wasn’t good enough however, and he’d certainly have to reprimand the crew at some stage, although he mightn’t be particularly enthusiastic in going about it. He didn’t appreciate excessive authority himself — one of the reasons he’d remained a ‘free-lance’ mercenary rather than a member of an organised armed force — although after a few weeks at Scapa Flow he could happily say that if more commanding officers were like Max Thorne, he could probably cope with army life. Most weren’t, unfortunately.

Kransky had spent a large part of the night roaming about the island as if on field ops, pack slung on his back and the huge Barrett rifle over one shoulder. He was always back on base for his morning run with Eileen Donelson, and following that he generally spent a large part of most days working with Thorne and others to ensure the security of the base remained tight. That had taken up a great deal of his time in that first week of arrival as he and the rest of the officers and NCOs arriving with him had formed up as a cohesive unit, but as the weeks passed and security in their section of the base became more of a routine than new procedure, he found more and more spare time available for other things.

A lot of that new-found free time concerned itself with learning more about Hindsight itself, and the incredible world the members of that unit had come from. His nights — a good part of them — were spent roaming the bleak expanses of the grassy hills and eastern lowlands of Hoy, getting to know every crest, nook and cranny. He generally made do with three or four hours sleep at most — sometimes not even that — and his body had actually become accustomed to that routine over time. After years of life on the land in hostile environments, he’d developed the ability to memorise the surrounding terrain quickly, and he’d already stored details of most of the terrain of Hoy and Mainland in his mind.

He hefted the large rifle in his hands and turned away from the emplacement, drawing away from his vantage point and down the summit’s gradual reverse slope. The weapon Eileen and Thorne had given him to replace his Mauser was nearly a metre and a half long and weighed almost 13 kilograms — nearly three times the weight of the old rifle. He didn’t mind that as much as might’ve been expected as he was not only strong but also quite tall, and the size of the weapon was therefore relatively less of an issue as a result.

When he finally judged himself to be far enough away from the emplacement to avoid detection, Kransky stood fully and started walking at a more normal pace. It wouldn’t have mattered to the gun crews and guards had he been spotted — indeed, that would’ve been better event for them from the point of view of the base security officer — but it was a matter of personal pride in his own capabilities that he’d take every possible step to ensure both his approach and departure from a potential target area were as stealthy as possible.

He took a glance at his watch, noting that it was not long after four and that he probably wasn’t going to make it back in time for breakfast and a shower by seven for his morning run. He’d use the radio at his belt to let Eileen know he was going to be late: with a hearty walk ahead of him just getting back to base, another run that day was probably superfluous anyway.

“Kennel calling Pack Leader… come in please, Pack Leader… over…” The sound of Warrant Officer Clarke, the officer on duty in the radar control bunker at Hindsight, suddenly called softly to him from the radio speaker/mike clipped to his left shoulder. ‘Pack Leader’ was his call sign, and he answered the signal immediately.

“Pack Leader reading you loud and clear: what’s up, Tom… over?”

“Looks like we have a malfunction at one of the Doghouses, Pack Leader… one of the Terriers is refusing to hunt… over.” The coded signal was quite clear: that the radar unit stationed at one of their gun emplacements had ceased operating.

“Understood, Kennel…” Kransky replied with a vague frown, belatedly deciding he too should probably adhere to the use of official code and call signs, being the Chief of Security and all. “Which Doghouse needs extra training… over?”

“Doghouse William, Pack Leader… repeat… Doghouse William… over…” The frown on his face grew significantly less faint: the four radar units were named ‘Nigel’, ‘Simon’, ‘Edward’ and “William’ and each name’s first letter corresponded with that of the appropriate point of the compass. Doghouse William’ therefore was the westernmost radar unit… the one positioned at Rora Head he’d barely walked away from minutes earlier.

“As luck would have it, I’m just a few minutes away from William myself, Kennel: I’ll get over there and see what I can find out… over.”

“Roger that, Pack Leader… understood… please investigate and advise… Kennel over and out…”

Kransky turned back toward the western hills and the brightening sky beyond. The gun emplacement was no more than two or three minutes brisk walk back the way he’d come, but he paused for a moment as the immediate frustration of having to retrace his steps was suddenly supplanted by an uneasy sensation of vague concern. It was at that moment the faint, mournful sound of air raid sirens disrupted an otherwise peaceful sunrise. As he broke into a run, back toward the Rora Head fortifications, a rather ironic thought flared for a moment in his mind that it now seemed certain he’d get his morning’s exercise after all.

The flight of B-13A Seeräuber fast bombers, escorted by their almost identical J-13C heavy fighter escorts, approached low from the west following a wide detour that had taken them right around the Orkneys in the hours before to sunrise. Staging out of Luftwaffe airbases in Norway, they’d circled north of the islands, staying just above the wave tops at all times to avoid radar detection in the hope a dawn attack from an unexpected direction might catch the base’s defences off guard. Every second an alert was delayed would help their cause, and there’d have been no possibility of surprise unless the western radar at Rora Head was put out of action, which had suddenly and rather effectively just occurred.

Twelve bombers of II/KG30 came in low and fast in three distinct groups of ‘finger-four’ formation, accompanied by a similar number of their fighter brethren from I/ZG76. Both types were variants of the same original Junkers Model 388 and were a brand new model being phased in to replace the same company’s versatile B-88s and J-88s currently filling similar roles. The aircraft even looked like little more than an enlarged and modernised version of the older ‘Eighty-Eight’, but beneath the surface they were a generation ahead of those being replaced, as was the case with many of the new aircraft currently coming into Luftwaffe service.

Both models were incredibly fast for a twin-engined aircraft; capable of speeds comparable to the Spitfire and greater than a Hurricane. They were also able to fly missions of far greater range than was possible with a single-engined aircraft, and with a pair of 250-litre auxiliary tanks beneath their inner wings (as these now carried), the distances they could fly were could be quite remarkable. They were also substantially larger than the Model-88 they replaced with a wingspan of 22 metres and a maximum take off weight of almost fifteen tonnes.

Save for a remotely-controlled turret in the extreme tail mounting a pair of 13mm machine guns, the B-13A bomber variant was unarmed, relying on speed alone to carry it to its target and allow it to deliver its 3,000kg bombload. Its three-seat cockpit included a clear Perspex nose that provided an excellent forward view for the bombardier on approach to target. The J-13C fighter variant also carried the tail turret mounting, but instead carried a streamlined, solid nose and two 23mm cannon and four 13mm machine guns it a ventral mounting in place of an internal bombload. Four hardpoints beneath the wings and one beneath the fuselage also allowed the carriage of extra fuel and/or up to 1,500kg of external weapons such as bombs or rockets.

There’d been no danger whatsoever as far as conventional radar detection was concerned. Continual air raids over the preceding weeks had destroyed Fighter Command’s early warning systems right across Britain in an ongoing, back-and-forth battle between the two combatants. Some RAF radar sites might be repaired well enough to become operational again here or there around the country, but the moment they began transmitting again, Wehrmacht RDF and ELINT units on the French Coast would then detect them, triangulate their positions and pass them on to the Luftwaffe for further air raids to be scheduled. On that particular morning however, Fighter Command radars were basically out of action right across the eastern length of the British Isles, and Luftwaffe fighters and bombers could — and would — roam quite freely across Southern England that Wednesday as they did most days, detected by radar or not, while what little RAF opposition there was to be sent up against them remained completely dependent on an undermanned, overworked Royal Observer Corps.

Catching the Hindsight base off guard was a more difficult proposition however, although over a month without any real threat or alert had lulled the group — and Scapa Flow anchorage in general — into something of a false sense of security. Concentration was at a low ebb, and there was a pervading sense of a relaxation that was unwarranted and also, as was about to be proven, somewhat dangerous.

Warning of the incoming raid itself might well have been even later had it not been for the efforts of a single RN destroyer on ASW duty, a few kilometres west of the Orkneys. HMS Esk, built in the mid-thirties and displacing around 1,400 tonnes, was one of nine E-Class destroyers. Eight, including Esk, were in service with the Royal Navy while one, HMCS Gatineau, served with the Canadian navy. She was of a standard design as RN destroyers went, with four 4.7-inch guns in single turrets, one solitary 3-inch AA mount amidships and two quadruple torpedo tube mounts: only the depth charge throwers at her stern and the ASDIC unit mounted at her bow made her anything special: something that made her potentially deadly in her mission as a sub hunter.

One thing she didn’t have was radar. Warship sets were slowly becoming available for air and surface detection and gunnery, however the fitting of technically advanced equipment such as radar started at the top and filtered down. Battleships and aircraft carriers received them first, then battlecruisers and cruisers and so on. As Esk steamed roughly due north through those cold, morning waters, it was her port bridge lookout that first spotted the enemy flight visually at a range of perhaps no more than two or three thousand metres. The aircraft were difficult to pick up so close to the surface of the grey ocean, masked as they were by the backdrop of a still-dark western horizon.

The flight howled past a thousand metres off the destroyer’s stern, too far away for the ship’s lighter air defences to take a shot or two, and the aircraft were already moving quickly away from the ship to the east at better than 250 knots by the time her 3-inch AA mount had loaded and rotated to track the unexpected target. The gun belatedly managed a few shots before they were out of range entirely, all of them bursting well short and too high. The one thing the destroyer could still do however was flash a warning to HMS Proserpine of the impending attack — something Esk’s captain did immediately.

Events progressed quickly as sirens cut through the morning air and sent uniformed men scurrying from barrack rooms in all directions to man defences and/or take cover; first at the anchorage itself and then also at Hindsight and along the flight line. The crews of the two 2K22M ‘Tunguska’ flak units kept their turrets in the expected direction, although the line of hills through the central part of the island prevented their tracking radars from picking up any targets as yet. At various points about the airfield, men readied manually aimed .50 calibre Brownings from small gunpits connected to the slit trenches, long belts of ammo glinting dully as they snaked to their weapons from ammo boxes. Gun crews for newly-installed 40mm Bofors and 3.7-inch AA guns manned their weapons and also turned them westward, waiting for a visual sign of their enemy.

Thorne came bolting from the barracks at full speed just seconds after the alert was raised, Jack Davies following close behind. Both arrowed straight for the flight line where their respective aircraft awaited in sheltered revetments, maintained in a state prepared for an emergency take off under just such circumstances. As they neared the runway, the duty crews of the Extender and the Galaxy were also beginning start-up procedures. Given enough time, they might hope to get the huge cargo jets airborne and up to an altitude that was well out of harm’s way and unattainable for piston-engined aircraft.

Ground crew already had their engines turning over as Thorne and Davies reached the fighter jets. Five AIM-120D AMRAAM medium range missiles had been added beneath each of the F-35E’s wings, mounted on single-rail launchers outboard and two twin-rail launchers beneath the inboard pylons, making for a total of ten extra missiles to complement two more similar missiles carried within the aircraft’s internal bays in partnership with the usual pair of heat-seeking Sidewinders. Expensive and complex as the radar-guided AIM-120 was, it was deemed necessary as piston-engined aircraft might not generate enough heat for an IR-guided missile to consistently maintain adequate lock-on unless fired from close range — a situation that mightn’t be possible to achieve in combat.

As Davies began to taxi his plane out onto the runway, Thorne also increased the throttle on his own engines and prepared the Lightning II for its shortened take-off run, sliding on his flight helmet as he watched the Raptor move to the middle of the asphalt. Thorne grimaced and shook his head to clear his fuzzy thoughts: his head ached badly, as did the muscles and joints of his upper body. Waking up with a hangover, half slumped in an uncomfortable armchair wasn’t something that he’d recommend as a rule, but it’d happened all the same. That morning was the tenth time so far that month that he’d been drunk enough the night before to pass out in an armchair in the Officers Mess, only to be found alone by his orderly early the next morning… the event frequent enough now for the corporal to have become accustomed to the situation and remain prepared for it.

Thorne had to admit it was hard to understand why anyone would want to wake up with a hangover at all, and having to deal with one while trying to pilot a complex and very loud fighter jet made it all the more difficult to comprehend. The irrationality of the fact that he’d been putting up with those morning hangovers quite frequently for almost a year prior to arriving in 1940 never consciously occurred to him nevertheless, so carefully had his subconscious pushed the ramifications of it from his mind in the interest of rationalisation.

The sound of heavy AA guns firing in the middle distance also began to rise over the sounds of take off, and he turned his attention back to his own controls and commenced the Lightning II’s take-off sequence. As he pushed his throttle forward and the aircraft began to move along the taxi area he was using as a runway, he almost laughed as it occurred to him he was probably still more than a little drunk.

‘If you drink, then drive, you’re a bloody idiot!’ He remembered that suddenly, the slogan appearing from somewhere deep within his memory. Had that been from an Australian anti-drink/driving advertisement or a British one? He couldn’t remember clearly now, although he suspected from the style, that it was probably Australian. It mattered little: there were more than a few things he couldn’t clearly remember these days, and the origin of an anti-DUI advert seemed the least of his worries.

“Lucky I’m not behind the wheel right now,” he muttered with a grin, not concentrating anywhere near enough on what he was doing. His ground speed increased, and it was only as the F-35E drew near to take off speed that he realised he’d misjudged his run and was headed directly for a small tanker truck and trailer parked at the end of the taxi lane. Well beyond the point of no return, Thorne could only jam his throttles fully forward and haul back on the stick as hard as he could in the hope there was enough runway left. The wheels lifted from the concrete — finally — and he immediately lifted his port wing slightly, all humour gone from his tense features as it cleared the rear trailer of the tanker by scant metres.

Even over the roar of his own powerplant, he heard and felt the faint rumble behind him as Davies’ Raptor accelerated down the runway at a tremendous rate and lurched skyward, immediately entering into a steep climb under full afterburner and vectored thrust. The Galaxy and Extender were both taxiing now, but it’d still be several minutes before either made it into the sky and even longer before they reached a safe altitude. As Thorne took the F-35E past 300 metres and pushed into a shallow bank to the west, he cast his eyes over his left shoulder with real concern: either of those big jets would be an irresistible target for an attacker, and both were irreplaceable and vital to their mission.

Most of the important cargo had been unloaded and dispersed about the base to keep it safe, however what couldn’t be unloaded quickly were the computer systems stored at the rear of the Galaxy’s upper deck. Within those processors’ memory banks and hard drives were vitally-important technical drawings that were the equivalent of millions of pages of blueprints. If they were lost, there was a more than fair chance Germany might be able to conquer the entire planet… or at the very least become the unassailable master of all of Europe.

The gruppe of fighters and bombers reached the coast quite close to the emplacement at Rora Head and skimmed low around the western heights of Hoy as they roared past, just a few dozen metres above Berriedale Wood. They were less than ninety seconds of flight time away from the Hindsight runway and surrounding buildings as the B-13As and their escorts reached the crest of Ward Hill and finally became visible to AA gunners and radar tracking systems alike. With the guns and bombs at their disposal, the pilots fully expected to inflict serious damage on the targets they’d been assigned: four special aircraft that they expected to find sheltering at the base ahead

Flak began to burst around them as the bombers flew within range of the nearest of the heavier AA guns, a few of the Home Fleet’s warships at the near end of the anchorage also letting fly with their larger DP gun mounts from the far left of the aircraft as they flew on. The bursting shrapnel was initially high and off target, but gradually grew closer as gun crews got their range. A few more seconds, and the northern-most quartet group of fighters lost one of their flight to some well-aimed 3.7-inch guns, while a second was destroyed completely by a direct hit from a four-inch anti-aircraft shell fired from the battlecruiser HMS Renown in the anchorage further north.

It wasn’t long before the heavy AA fire began to fall away however. As the range between the guns and aircraft narrowed it became increasingly difficult for the gun-layers of the heavy 3.7- and 4.5-inch guns of the naval base and airfield to keep up with the constant changes to fuse settings. The guns were primarily intended for high-altitude use after all, and as the black clouds of bursting flak began to fall behind the formation, the battle was taken up by a pair of 40mm Bofors medium batteries to the north- and south-east.

The flight plan had been devised specifically to take them between the firing arcs of the two batteries, the positions of which Luftwaffe Intelligence was quite aware of, and they were firing from the very extremity of their own effective ranges. Even so, three more aircraft fell prey to their direct fire: one fighter was destroyed, and two bombers were damaged to the point that they were unable to press home their attack. The stricken B-13As peeled up and away to the north, both trailing smoke.

At a distance that was now less than five kilometres, all could see Davies’ F-22, its broad wing and fuselage surfaces flashing in the morning sun as it hurtled along the runway and launched itself into the sky at an incredible rate. Some of the pilots also spotted the F-35E banking around at low altitude a moment later.

“Enemy aircraft airborne, Herr Hauptmann!” The gruppe-leader’s wingman observed excitedly over the radio “Circling over the hangars to port of the runway and turning onto our position…!”

“Shit on that!” His superior snapped with equal fervour, momentarily losing his professional attitude as they also caught sight of the Galaxy and Extender on the taxiway beyond the main hangar buildings, moving out to line up for take off. “Look at the size of those bastards parked at the end of the runway! All units — primary targets are in sight: two large aircraft at the far end of the main landing strip. Drop tanks and weapons free. Watch your altitude, gentlemen: anything that big is liable to go up with a big show!”

Empty auxiliary fuel tanks fell away from the aircraft as they prepared for attack, but the commander’s words were his last as the western Tunguska opened up on one aircraft with its twin 30mm cannon from the flight’s starboard flank and simultaneously fired a pair of 57E6-E missiles targeted on two others. The second 2K22M flak on the far side of the base loosed two missiles also, although it was still too far away to engage with its cannon. A two-stage missile with a boost phase during launch, they quickly accelerated to a speed faster even than the shells from the Tunguskas’ own cannon and arched across the distance between their launchers and the nearer targets in less than four seconds.

The flight commander and his crew died instantly, their aircraft disintegrating in the blast of a direct hit from one missile’s 20kg warhead as three more around it met a similar fate and a fifth was shredded by an eighty-round burst from the nearer Tunguska’s twin cannon. Five more fell a moment later, leaving the flight down almost half its entire strength within ten seconds of firing. Wreckage was strewn all about the western perimeter of the base, starting small spot fires here and there as each site released trails of black smoke into the sky.

The anti-aircraft vehicles might well have dealt with the entire formation within a few more seconds had both units’ tracking radars not registered the presence of Thorne’s F-35E as it flew within their firing arc. The Tunguskas’ missiles were guided by radar and her guns aimed optically, and both were incredibly accurate with a 70-90% hit probability, but a cannon shell or missile warhead were indiscriminate all the same and nothing would save any aircraft that strayed into either’s path inadvertently in the desperate throes of air combat. The IFF transponder inside the F-35E’s fuselage was recognised instantly, and the automated safety overrides on both vehicles immediately shut down their firing systems in response so as to not endanger a ‘friendly’.

For the remaining Luftwaffe aircraft, the reprieve was momentary at best. Four of the remaining ten remaining aircraft were heavy fighters, and the closest of those decided to take on the F-35E as the jet came out of its turn pointing directly at the formation. As the J-13C banked in toward Thorne, it opened up with its nose-mounted guns and a blistering barrage of tracer roared past off the Australian’s starboard wing a second later that was far too close for comfort.

No more than a thousand metres between them, the range was far too close to be certain of a kill with a medium-range missile, but he fired two anyway, desperate to protect himself and the cargo aircraft below and making himself an ace at the same time. An AMRAAM hissed angrily from beneath each wing, instantly arcing away on divergent courses as they sought out separate targets. One dealt a direct hit to the J-13A that had fired on him, while the second detonated its 22kg proximity warhead beneath the belly of an enemy fast bomber. There was little wreckage left to fall in either case as both disappeared in clouds of flame and billowing black smoke.

The loss of those last two aircraft finally broke the will of the eight remaining pilots and the formation split apart as they all came to the same decision simultaneously and aborted the attack. Thorne drew even closer as they broke and found himself on the tail of one of the bomber for a few seconds, his gunsight pipper’s central dot aligning perfectly with the centre of the twin-engined Junkers as he pressed down his gun trigger.

There was a roar as the 25mm cannon beneath his belly hammered away with a quick burst, tracer ripping through the B-13A’s starboard engine and wing and tearing them completely from the fuselage near the root. The bomber began to spiral away out of control, the aircrew left with no time to clamber from their cockpit and in any case far too low to bail out as it dashed itself to pieces against the ground three hundred metres below, the wreckage slamming into a storage shed behind the main hangars and exploding in a large fireball.

Three of the seven remaining enemy appeared to be on a path that would take them far too close to the runway for Thorne’s liking, and he began to turn the Lightning II sharply back toward them in the hope of bringing his cannon to bear. All seven remaining attackers suddenly exploded around him in quick succession, the event occurring so fast that it seemed almost simultaneous.

Davies’ F-22A Raptor had quickly roared up to five thousand metres following take off, its powerful Pratt & Whitney turbofans on full afterburner as it reached the zenith of its climb, and it seemed to pause for a moment before flipping sharply onto its back. As it rolled through 180º, the Raptor’s nose began to once more point earthward and Davies’ acquisition radar instantly locked onto the all seven remaining enemies as they split formation below. In lightning-fast succession, Davies had released all six of the AMRAAMs carried within the Raptor’s main weapons bay.

The advanced missiles, sometimes nicknamed ‘Fido’ in the USAF (as in ‘Go get him, Fido!’), were a ‘fire-and-forget’ weapon, and each was assigned a different target by the jet’s fire control systems as they were kicked free of their mountings one by one. All six ran true, smashing what was left of the attack from the skies as Davies swooped down from the sky above in their wake, the F-22’s 20mm Vulcan cannon releasing a deadly stream of shells that obliterated the last, lone B-13A.

Wild-eyed and running on pure adrenalin, the Texan released a long whoop of elation over the radio as he roared past off Thorne’s nose at full throttle, levelling out some distance away, quite close to the earth. His flight path carried him on across the grassy slopes of Hoy Island, past Ward Hill and beyond, and out over the North Atlantic. He joyously executed a transonic victory roll that carried back to the men of the base the sound of what was for most their first sonic boom.

Alec Trumbull had watched the entire show from a slit trench close to a nearby flak emplacement and had been left dumbstruck. He’d watched the opening engagements as the Tunguskas had torn apart half of the entire attack and had been amazed. As he watched the diving streak of the F-22 release six AIM-120s and destroy as many aircraft a few seconds later to end the attack, he was left completely in awe.

In that moment following the battle, as others cheered and clapped, Trumbull shook his head in stunned, open-mouthed relief and watched the Raptor thunder away out of sight to the west, the enormity of the things he’d learned over the last month coming savagely home as he finally, truly believed what Thorne had told him. He saw the great chasm that was the ‘gap’ between the technologies of his time and the technology Thorne and Hindsight had brought with them. He saw how completely that technology could shatter forces that hugely outnumbered them… and Thorne had said that they’d actually been ill-prepared. The Australian claimed the German force opposing them — these ‘New Eagles’ — had been planning their trip back through time for possibly as long as five years. A shudder ran through him and he was suddenly very afraid: afraid for himself, afraid for his family, and afraid for The Empire as a whole.

Eoin Kelly, still ‘luxuriating’ in one of Hindsight’s security cells and due to be flown back to Ireland within days, had been allowed out of his confinement — a very kind gesture in his opinion — and had been escorted to the safety of his own slit trench. He too had been in a prime position to watch the battle overhead, although he’d have thought that descriptive term quite generous in reference to such a one-sided affair.

A month after arriving there at Hindsight, he still remained torn to some extent over the proposition Thorne had put to him upon his arrival. The demonstration of smallarms he’d viewed however had paled into insignificance compared to what he’d just seen in the sky above Hindsight that morning, and although no one had explained anything to him, he was certain that some incredible things were going on there at the base. The other idea he took away from the events of that morning was the thought that if Thorne, possessed of such powerful aircraft and technology, was still frightened of the might of Germany, perhaps the Irish also had something to fear after all. If he’d been undecided before that moment, the aerial battle and its outcome had made up his mind.

Twenty minutes later, both Thorne and Davies had landed their aircraft once more. Major problems had been uncovered in their defensive systems in a number of areas, and there were lessons that needed to be learned — quickly — as a result. Post-battle analysis revealed that the western radar unit had gone down unexpectedly just minutes before that attack, and it didn’t seem possible that could’ve been by coincidence.

“I want a full fucking investigation and I want an armed guard posted with each unit — day and fucking night!” Thorne snarled with vehemence, still wearing his flight suit as he stormed into his office with Kransky in tow. The American was now seeing the ‘bad’ side of the Australian for the first time, and he had no problem with that: the circumstances suggested foul play as clearly to him as to Thorne, and that was something that made him equally enraged and determined.

“You’ll have both immediately… and a report on your desk by six this evening.” Kransky stated with certainty as they halted by a small pot-bellied stove that was maintained with wood all day by Thorne’s batman — the same man who kept well out of the way in the outer office area upon seeing the mood the CO was in.

“There’ll have to be some pretty damned unequivocal evidence to convince me that radar outage was anything but deliberate…” Thorne growled darkly “…and if it was deliberate, it means just one of two things… either they landed someone last night, or we have someone here at Hindsight who’s not all they seem.”

“Not too many places to land on that coast up there that aren’t cliffs — and I was out that way most of the night: would’ve been hard for anyone to get past me. If it proves to be the latter?” Kransky’s question was as dark as the preceding statement in tone and intent. He could see the alternatives as well as the CO and liked them as little. Thorne’s eyes locked with his, the expression leaving him with no doubt as to the coming answer.

“If it is the latter, the fucker lives just long enough to give us whatever information we need.” The Australian removed his flying gloves finally and warmed his hands before the stove. “Keep your radio with you at all times… I could need you at a moment’s notice, day or night. I’ll leave the necessary security issues to you… you know what needs to be done.”

Kransky nodded solemnly. “I’ll have guards posted in pairs at each unit — the chance of both being infiltrators — if that’s what we’re looking for — is that much less. I’ll also contact MI5 and have them run deeper checks into the backgrounds of all of the personnel they’ve sent up here — maybe we can find something if we look hard enough.”

“That’ll take a bloody long time, but we don’t have much choice…” Thorne mused, calming down. “With no bloody computers to do the work, I suppose there’s not much to be done about that.”

“Why now, though? Why now, and why like that?”

“That was a probing attack. They could — and would — have sent a damn site more aircraft than that if they’d wanted to take us out properly… and the bloody attack worked to all intents and purposes, even though they didn’t drop a single sodding bomb! We need those fucking fighters Dowding’s been promising us and we need them now — we have to have a constant air patrol running during daylight hours at the very least…” Lifting the handset of a phone sitting on his desk, he dialled a three digit extension and waited for the other end to answer.

“Nick? It’s Max here. I need you to get onto London immediately and tell them we’re coming down to see the Prime Minister!” There was a pause as he listened to Alpert’s quick reply. “I don’t give a flying fuck how busy Winston is… tell them there’s a meeting on at Whitehall tomorrow evening, and that’s not a request!” He hung up immediately, his tone leaving no mistaking that he expected his orders to be followed implicitly as Jack Davies poked his head through the open doorway, grinning broadly.

“Thought I might find you here, boy…!” He stated loudly, still charged on the adrenalin of combat. “Bit early to celebrate in proper fashion with some booze, but now you’re an ace and all, I think I should ‘buy’ you some breakfast down at the mess hall?”

“Err… thanks all the same, Jack, but I might give that a miss actually.” The thought of greasy mess food definitely held little appeal for Thorne’s queasy stomach. “Not really hungry, and kinda busy here in any case…”

“Suit yourself,” the American shrugged, waving his farewell and disappearing again just as quickly before the others could speak.

Davies was met by Eileen a few moments later as he made his way to the mess hall, the commander forced to jog a little to catch up with him. He nodded his greeting as they drew close and he turned to wait for her.

“Mornin’, ma’am…” he volunteered cheerily as he raised a hand to an imaginary hat, still quite buoyed by his morning’s work.

“Aye, good morning to you too, Jack,” she returned dubiously, casting a frowning glance around as if concerned someone might overhear. “You notice anything wrong with Max this morning?”

Davies shrugged. “Not really — a little tired maybe, but he’s got a lot on his plate… I wouldn’t begrudge the man that!”

“Mmm… maybe…” she mused softly.

“Why… there a problem…?”

“Oh, it’s nothin’ really…” the female commander shook her head slowly as they continued to walk. “He just looked a bit bloody shaky getting that bugger off the ground this morning.”

“Aw hell, Eileen, he’s never been that good in the Lightning if you ask me.” The Texan’s bravado and good-natured deriding of Thorne’s flying capabilities had become second nature to all in their little unit, and the source of some amusement at other times.

“No, I’m serious, Jack…” she said sternly, frowning again. “I’ve never seen him have so much trouble getting’ the F-35 airborne before… from the angle I was on it looked like he almost hit a fuel tanker as he took off…” Her intent gaze searched the American’s eyes for any hint of agreement but found nothing, and in the end she simply shrugged and pushed the incident as far out of her consciousness as she could. “No matter — probably nothing…” but the strange feeling of unease wouldn’t go away.

Later that morning, Kransky stood atop the roof of the gun emplacement at Rora Head accompanied by Captain Merrill, another member of his security team, and a pair of guards armed with Thomson submachine guns. It was clear that a man might well remain unseen by the ventilation stack from where normal guards were stationed below. He’d seen for himself how relaxed the temperament had been that morning, and it would’ve been no great effort for someone with appropriate training and nerve to sneak past them before dawn. He cursed inwardly, more annoyed with himself than the guards: he’d also been there at the moment that radar set had ceased functioning, watching from near the summit of the rise behind the emplacement, and he too had seen nothing. If there had been an infiltrator or saboteur, he was as much to blame as any… perhaps more to blame after all, for if he’d actually gone down and taken the guards to task for their inattentiveness, he might’ve detected something awry.

The first technician on the scene after the ‘all clear’ had been Eileen and she was still present, speaking to some of the gun crew who’d come on duty around the same time the system had crashed that morning. Kransky gave her a stare that was far more than a passing glance, and it hadn’t been the first of those he’d aimed in her direction over the last month. The morning was warmer now, and she wore just a light, woollen skivvy of pale blue over a T-shirt and jeans that were a little too snug-fitting to be either modest or unflattering. The informality of Hindsight and the fact that the members of the officer corps were all quite recognisable meant that they wore civilian clothing rather than issue uniforms a lot of the time.

He liked Eileen Donelson — truth be told, he liked her a lot. They’d cemented their growing friendship over the passing weeks, and although even Kransky might’ve recognised the clichéd nature of the phrase ‘if things had been different’, he would certainly have been interested in seeing that friendship go further if ‘things’ were. There were any number of arguments however that suggested he refrain from making any move in that direction.

To begin with, he was loath to get involved with anyone when business was a factor as was the case here: there was a coarse phrase he’d heard Thorne use once that spoke of ‘shitting on one’s own doorstep’, and it covered the problems involved in the potential situation as well as any. There was also the issue of impermanence — there was no telling how long the inaction around them would last, and as he’d told Thorne, he didn’t want any unnecessary complications when he did actually return to the field.

If he also wanted to be brutally honest from a physical point of view, attractive as Eileen was, he’d also have preferred her to be carrying a bit more weight, particularly in the area of her chest and hips: the jeans and tight skivvy showed off a fine figure that was quite a bit slimmer than many men from his time preferred. Kransky knew that whole rationale was more than a little shallow, but he also knew that if he really ever had a chance with Eileen, her figure certainly wouldn’t stop him. As the opportunity was never likely to present itself however, he could afford to be particular.

Kransky knew that he was using rationalisation in many forms to convince himself he wasn’t falling for Commander Eileen Donelson, and the conscious self-delusion mostly worked. That was important, for the biggest deterrent to his considering himself a chance was ultimately the fact that the better he got to know Eileen, the more he realised her heart lay with someone else, whether she was overtly aware of that fact or not. He suspected she wasn’t conscious of it and had buried the feelings deep within her subconscious: he knew people well, and that woman in particular well enough already to know that once she had her heart set on someone, she’d be unlikely to play around with anyone else. If ‘playing around’ was all that might’ve been possible, then he wasn’t particularly interested either, much as it surprised him to realise.

The evidence found at the gun emplacement was inconclusive at best. Eileen had discovered that the power cables appeared to have been drawn tight against the ventilation stack to the point of separating internally, although the outer insulation appeared to remain intact. There was no specific proof that the line had been severed intentionally, and as such it was certainly possible the whole thing had indeed been a rather unfortunate and incredible coincidence. The SAS troop who’d originally set up the system couldn’t recall, so many weeks later, exactly how they’d gone about the installation — although they of course insisted the work had been done properly at the time.

Yet despite finding nothing conclusive, Donelson was doubtful that coincidence was all they were talking about, and Kransky felt the same way, truth be told. As she’d examined every part of the system and found nothing else out of place, Kransky had gone over the surrounding terrain with equal zeal, utilising all his field talents, and he’d also failed to find anything conclusive. Yet neither could dispel the nagging suspicion remained that human intent lay behind it all — particularly in the face of the circumstantial but overwhelming evidence of an enemy air attack that had been far too well-timed to be a true coincidence. And as Thorne had already stated, that left just two likely possibilities… that the enemy had either landed an agent during the night by U-boat or something similar… or the Germans had indeed an infiltrated an agent into their midst. Considering how well the waters and coastline were patrolled, the latter unfortunately seemed to be the more likely of the two.

As Kransky had suggested to Thorne earlier that morning, he’d have MI5 looking into the backgrounds of every member of 1940s personnel that’d been assigned since Hindsight’s arrival at the end of June. Kransky was obviously clear of any suspicion, and he knew that Thorne was no traitor. He also sincerely doubted any of the other Hindsight members from the future could possibly be an enemy agent, but that still left a great deal of men who’d been stationed there that it could be, and investigation of every individual would take more time and manpower than they actually had available. As Judy Garland had said in that Wizard of Oz film he’d seen while back in New York earlier in the year (and as Thorne himself was frequently fond of misquoting), he thought silently: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore…”

SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E)

Near Sangatte, Pas-de-Calais

With most of the major construction work now completed, the POWs and forced labourers were now mostly concerned with cleaning up and general maintenance, something unlikely to warrant the presence of a large work group for much longer. Whittaker’s group of officers had noticed there’d already been an appreciable thinning of the workforce over the last week, and another very welcome change to the daily routine was an increase in rest breaks and periods spent sitting around — under guard, of course — awaiting new work orders.

Stahl, the SS officer they’d started work under, had transferred back to his infantry unit — something for which all of them were heartily glad. They’d lost four more of their number to his temper and sidearm on in two separate incidents — both trivial situations — and by overall comparison, the last couple of weeks without him had been almost comfortable. Their new commanding officer, a young and far more agreeable SS Untersturmführer (second-lieutenant), was a welcome change. Also recovering from injuries — in this case a left arm wrapped in a cast and suspended by a sling — the officer was from a rear echelon unit rather than frontline infantry, and was also possessed of a far more even and forgiving temperament. There’d been no deaths within the group since his arrival, and the change in mood and general feeling of relief and lack of tension as a result meant the prisoners were generally more predisposed to obey orders with alacrity.

Drills and alerts had commenced within thirty minutes of the brief appearance of the RAF recon aircraft the previous day, and had continued on throughout that day and into the next morning. There’d been no other obvious outward indications of anything difference among the SS artillery and flak units present, but there was nevertheless the feeling within the POW officer group that something was afoot… that there was a sense of tension about the base that hadn’t been there before.

Near the perimeter fence at the very northern end of the compound, sitting in the shade of a guard tower, a group of ten or so including Whittaker were experiencing another short period of inaction that afternoon. They stood about or sat upon a tight cluster of discarded crates, most smoking quietly as a single SS guard patrolled nearby in a rather desultory and uninterested manner, his assault rifle slung carelessly at one shoulder.

“Have you noticed how empty is the Channel, these two weeks last?” Major Alois Dupont, formerly of a French artillery unit, observed quietly beside Whittaker, sitting on the same long, wooden crate. His English was a little broken. but more than clear enough for the rest to understand.

“Hardly any activity at all, save for the occasional destroyer sweep or MTB patrol,” Whittaker agreed, nodding in reply, “yet the port at Boulogne-sur-Mer is always full of shipping each day as we go out and come back in.”

“Always the same ships,” a cigarette smoking RN sub-lieutenant standing on the opposite side of the group observed. “Same ships always there in the same place… have been the whole week.”

“This is not a good thing,” Dupont stated with feeling, voicing the unease all felt.

“Trains carrying tanks, half-tracks and artillery have been coming into the port all week as well,” Whittaker pointed out, voicing the unpleasant conclusion they’d all reached. “They’re preparing for invasion.”

“We need to get out of here!” Dupont snarled angrily. “Escape these filthy Bosche and head south!”

“And do what, Alois…?” Whittaker groaned, shaking his head. The argument was an old one that came up frequently. “Even if we could escape, there’s no safety to be had anywhere in France, and by the look of it there’s every chance getting back to England won’t do us much good either! Spain’s the only real alternative, and d’you really think we’d make it that far across Occupied France?”

“Spain or Switzerland… not easy either way,” the naval officer shrugged, “and what then, even if we did make it? Spend our time in an internment camp instead of a prison? Don’t expect any rescue or help soon either, if England does fall…”

“The Americans!” Dupont insisted, grasping at the same, slim hope he’d carried as a young man serving in the Great War, two decades earlier. “They saved us in 1917, and they will again!”

“How can they help if there’s no England?” Whittaker muttered dismally. “How can anyone help?” It was a question none could answer.

Near Boulogne-sur-Mer

Northern France

Ernst Barkmann liked to play golf when off duty, assuming a decent, private golf course was to be found close to wherever he was posted at the time… golf or a leisurely walk in a suitable forest, hunting game with rifle in hand. It was in a quite picturesque little wood, just a few kilometres west of Boulogne-sur-Mer, that the brigadeführer found himself that pleasant afternoon, indeed walking with gun in hand as his eyes scanned the track ahead for any movement. He wore civilian clothes that day — a tan shooting jacket over cotton trousers and shirt, with a pair of comfortable hiking boots on his feet.

The jacket carried a thin layer of extra padding at its right shoulder to protect against soreness from recoil when firing, and over the left breast, Barkmann had personally added ten small loops of fabric, seven of which currently held .22 calibre cartridges ready for use, all fitted nose-down. The single-shot Haenel .22LR rifle he carried was a personal favourite in his collection, and even with the simple open sights fitted it was accurate out to 100 metres in the right hands. Barkmann was a deadly shot with decades of constant practice, and in his hands it was a lethal weapon regardless of the small-bore round it fired.

Beside him, a similarly-dressed Oswald Zeigler matched the slow pace and also scanned the track ahead, his own rifle also held with the air of a man accustomed to the use of firearms. Several metres behind the pair, a trio of escorts acted as ‘gun bearers’, between them carrying spare ammunition, water and light rations. One of the men also carried at his belt the carcasses of three brown hares that’d already fallen prey to the shooters’ superior marksmanship.

“Obergruppenführer Weiss mentioned you’ve had some ‘difficulty’ with our esteemed Reichsmarschall recently,” Zeigler broke the silence as they walked, the soft words spoken in the form of a observation rather than a question. Heinrich Weiss was the head of the SS Regional Political Department for the Pas-de-Calais. It was the same department which Barkmann was posted to as second-in-charge, which of course meant that Weiss was his commanding officer.

“I’m not sure that I follow, Oswald,” Barkmann evaded the remark with all the skill of the professional liar he’d practiced years to become, although he cringed and cursed inwardly. Zeigler’s reputation as a high-level Party member was well known, and the revelation that his commander has revealed such information to the man was ‘awkward’ to say the least. “I’ve had cause to speak directly with the Reichsmarschall on just one occasion, and I’d have to say the meeting was an amicable one.”

“You’re an excellent liar, Ernst,” Zeigler almost laughed at the reply, “but you really shouldn’t try to work your ‘magic’ on someone equally practiced in the art of deception. Rest assured, Kurt Reuters has no friends among the men present this afternoon and I, for one, am always pleased to encounter others within the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht or SS who feel similarly. I also have it on good authority that the ‘incident’ we’re speaking of came about as the direct result of Herr Reuters’ personal interference in an investigation into the actions of a Luftwaffe officer by the name of Ritter.”

“I couldn’t say I know anything about that, Mein Herr,” Barkmann stopped walking and stared directly at Zeigler, his expression clearly showing the truth of the man’s statement despite his continued denial.

“Well, that’s just the thing, Ernst…” Zeigler pointed out in a conspiratorial tone that was overtly insincere and quite unsettling into the bargain. “No one seems to know very much about… or, more importantly… why the highest ranking officer in the Wehrmacht has such a personal interest in the fate of some insubordinate pilot.” Both now stood motionless in the middle of the forest track, hunting momentarily forgotten. “I myself would very much like to know the background behind the man’s interest.”

Barkmann was now very tempted to open up to Zeigler and tell him everything of what had transpired during his meeting with Reuters at St. Omer. It was only a few days earlier he’d driven over to the small hamlet of Tardinghen at Cap-Gris-Nez, where a large marshalling yard was being established for the newly-refurbished 3rd SS Shock Division. It was there he’d managed to spend a few hours with his lover, Pieter Stahl, and had become quite concerned by the continued stress the younger man seemed to be suffering under.

Although the wound in his cheek was now healing, Stahl was still in almost constant pain from it and the injuries to his ribs, and it seemed possible there might be a hidden infection complicating the issue. It also appeared he’d carry a permanent scar from the incident, which in Barkmann’s opinion would be a terrible shame. A mark of that nature would ruin the young man’s beautiful features, and that just wouldn’t do at all.

That in itself was reason enough to maintain a grudge against Reichsmarschall Reuters, and on top of that was of course the personal humiliation the man had inflicted upon Barkmann himself. No one should be permitted to speak to a high-ranking officer of the SS in such a manner, and nobody would speak to him that way with impunity if Barkmann could possibly help it. The reality of it all was that the brigadeführer was also a rather vindictive and petty creature — something his often-bruised and lonely young wife could attest to if she could find the courage, although she had no clue as to his true sexual tendencies.

Barkmann was a man who had some understanding regarding the necessary concealment of secret feelings or tendencies that, if brought into the open, might see an officer disgraced — perhaps even harmed physically. Homosexuality wasn’t a tolerated ‘life choice’ in National Socialist Germany, even if it were widespread and carefully hidden by many of the middle/upper classes and the bourgeoisie, as Barkmann well knew. As such, he had his own suspicions as to why Reuters might’ve had an ‘interest’ in Oberstleutnant Carl Ritter, although he could have no clue as to how wide of the mark those suspicions were.

“I doubt I could shed any real light on any relationship between the Reichsmarschall and the pilot, Ritter,” Barkmann answered finally after a long, thoughtful pause. “However…” he added as he noted Zeigler about to reply in protest “…one doesn’t really need to know the details of their connection to make some use of it.”

“How might one do that?” The other man enquired carefully, the hint of a smile creeping across his features once more. “Hypothetically-speaking, of course…”

“Of course…” Barkmann smiled also this time, more comfortable now they were playing a game he understood well. “Hypothetically-speaking, as a member of the intelligence community with some modest training and experience in such matters, I should imagine that an unscrupulous individual seeking to do harm to the Reichsmarschall could do so in an indirect manner by ensuring a misfortune befell this Oberstleutnant Ritter. Regardless of the reasons behind Reuters’ interest in the man, the fact remains that he does have an interest, and I’ve no doubt therefore that the man would suffer some emotional pain and difficulty, should this Ritter be hurt of killed, in action or otherwise.” He shrugged as if the suggestion were painfully obvious. “An event of that nature might even become the necessary catalyst for discovery of the background behind their involvement, although it’s not something that could be guaranteed…”

“This has been a most enlightening afternoon, Ernst!” Zeigler exclaimed after a moment’s thought as he took the information in and processed it. “I must thank Herr Streibel for making our introductions… I suspect you’ll be a fine asset to the SS, and to the Reich in general in the coming years.”

“Just a humble soldier doing my job, Mein Herr,” Barkmann demurred humbly, but the compliment had hit its mark and it was difficult to subdue the expression of pride that fought to spread across his features.

“I think I shall have a quiet word to Generalfeldmarschall Göring tomorrow morning,” Zeigler mused softly, his mind already ticking over. “Perhaps a Luftwaffe reshuffle is in order… there are some new and resupplied units that have spent too long out of combat that may be getting a little rusty during this period of inactivity. No doubt we can find some ‘Devils Work’ for these idle hands…”

“An excellent thought, Oswald,” Ernst Barkmann smiled openly, understanding completely what the other man was referring to.

At that moment, a large hare broke cover from the left side of the forest track, just thirty metres from where they stood, and darted away along the cleared trail. Barkmann caught the movement in his peripheral vision, and without a word he turned and raised the rifle to his shoulder, safety catch already disengaged as his index finger curled around the trigger. There was a sharp ‘crack’ as the weapon fired, and in an instant the hare was sprawled dead across the track, a .22 calibre slug buried deep within its chest.

The whole thing was over before Zeigler could even react, and he stared in surprise and more than a little awe at the man beside him as Barkmann lowered the rifle once more. Pulling down on the trigger guard caused the weapon’s falling-block to lower and expose the breech, and as the expended cartridge ejected automatically, Barkmann used his left hand to pluck another round deftly from the store held at his left breast and slip it into the smoking breech. As he snapped the trigger mechanism back into place, the rifle was now reloaded and once more ready to fire.

“Shall we carry on, Oswald?” He asked brightly, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had just occurred. Zeigler could only nod and followed on silently as the SS officer walked off along the track toward his kill.

Poplar Railway Station, East India Dock Road

Tower Hamlets E14, London

Loading freight at night was difficult in the dim station lighting, but it was a necessary hardship for several reasons. First and foremost, there was the ever-present danger of aerial attack. Although the Luftwaffe had generally eschewed attacks on civilian centres, preferring targets of a more military bent such as airfields, naval bases and such like, the London docks could nevertheless be considered a site of a legitimately strategic nature, and it was therefore advisable to remain cautious. There’d been significant exceptions to the rule where industrial centres such as aircraft factories at Coventry or shipyards on the Clyde near Glasgow had been heavily bombed, with significant civilian casualties as a result.

In James Brandis’ mind, there was also the quite valid matter of security to be considered; particularly taking into account the nature of the freight they were intending to move. His guards and workers were well paid and quite trustworthy, on the whole, but trust was a very difficult concept to rely on where gold was concerned, particularly in the vast quantities Brandis was in the process of transporting.

The cover story was that the shipment was machine parts (as labelled on the crates), and that they were destined for new armaments factories being set up in Canada to assist the war effort. There was enough detail in the story to — he hoped — keep his employees happy and devoid of curiosity, and movement under the cover of evening darkness at least helped keep the activities away from the prying eyes of the majority of the local populace.

Poplar Station lay on the southern side of East India Dock Road. Originally opened by the North London railway in 1866, it had served freight and passenger needs alike in the years since and was now part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). The twin tracks passed under the East India Dock Road on its way to Broad Street Station heading north, and had become the termination of that line since the closure of Blackwall Station in 1926.

A pair of parallel branch lines split just south of the station and diverged into a siding on the western side of the platforms where freight might be loaded as required. It was at this siding that steam locomotive LMS Number 8233 stood waiting as the ten freight cars coupled to its tender were carefully loaded, each in turn, by men operating Brandis’ pair of forklifts. While those flatcars were being loaded, ten more similar wagons waited patiently on the next set of tracks over, having already been loaded earlier that evening. Camouflage netting had been erected around and over the stationary cars in an attempt to hide their existence from any potential Luftwaffe reconnaissance from above.

Locomotive LMS 8233 was a ‘2-8-0’ Stanier Class 8F heavy freight model, originally built by the North British Locomotive Company of Glasgow under orders of the War Department, with the intention of sending it across The Channel. The Fall of France however had put paid to any likelihood of that happening, and instead it was taken under the control of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, hauling freight out of their Toton, Holbeck and Westhouses yards in Northern England. For the last two weeks however, LMS 8233 had been operating a good deal further south under charter by James Brandis.

Over nine consecutive afternoons, ten M-series Bedford trucks had formed into two convoys of five each and began a shuttle service between the West India Docks and Poplar Station, each vehicle loaded with two pallets of gold for a total of ten pallets per trip. At the station, each truck was unloaded in turn and the pallets were carefully transferred to the line of covered freight wagons. Each flatcar could carry thirteen pallets, the weight loading coming in just under the maximum 20 tonnes allowable, and by the time they were finished that night a total of 377 tonnes of crated gold bars would be tied down and concealed beneath army-green tarpaulins. It’d been hard work, and all would be happy when that night’s final shipment was loaded and on its way to Liverpool, none moreso that Brandis himself.

Rupert Gold had stood beside him the entire time, studiously marking off each crate by serial number as it went onto the flatcars and making sure everything tallied up at the end of each night. Brandis had never seen Rupert wearing anything other than the best Savile Row suits, and he’d never expected his PA to jump in and become involved in any actual physical work — having known him for ten years, the idea alone was ludicrous — however he had to hand it to the young man that he’d taken the revelations of the incredible wealth in his stride and was dealing with it all in the same professional manner he’d always displayed when handling his employer’s affairs. His assistance in looking after the paperwork and the logistic side of things had also been invaluable, and Brandis was completely confident that he wouldn’t let him down in the days, months and years to come.

“That’s the last one, James,” Rupert advised, clipboard in hand as the pair stood at the very southern end of the platform, watching a forklift deposit the final pallet upon the final flat car. “Two thousand, five hundred and seventy-one pallets: three thousand, seven hundred long tons…” his speech faltered for a moment as he almost added ‘…of gold…’ but immediately thought better of it, instead finishing the sentence with “…in total…”

“An exceptional job done by all,” Brandis agreed with a slow nod and a wry smile. “Nice save, by the way…” he added, knowing full well what the man had almost said. “Make sure they all get a ten percent bonus in their pay packets tomorrow.” He clapped a friendly hand on his assistant’s shoulder. “You take off now if you like — there may be a club still open that’s got some chilled chardonnay on hand.”

“Bed for me Old Chap, thank you very much,” Rupert replied with an obviously tired smile. “Not an ounce of energy left within me.”

“Don’t bother coming in tomorrow morning,” Brandis directed generously. “Have a sleep in and enjoy the day — we’ve got that meeting at Whitehall in the evening, but I shan’t need you before then. See you back at the warehouse at… say… three in the afternoon? We can head off together from there — should be plenty of time to perhaps get a light meal and a quick drink before everyone gets down to business.”

“Thank you, James… I do appreciate it.” A sincere tone crept into Rupert’s voice for a moment. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me over the years… I truly mean that.”

“You must be tired, getting all serious on me now!” Brandis smiled kindly, deflecting the honest thanks with humour. “Get out of here and get some sleep!”

With a single nod and a smile of his own, Rupert Gold turned and walked briskly off toward the northern end of the platform, nimbly threading his way around forklifts and through the clusters of workmen as the rest gathered about in preparation of their own departure in search of home and a warm, comfortable bed. James Brandis watched the man leave and sighed deeply, also feeling dog-tired but knowing there was still work to be done as a shunter moved up to draw out the ten previously loaded flat cars and couple them up to the second ten that had just been completed.

A small goods car would be attached to the rear of the train that would carry a trio of military police officers armed with submachine guns. Two more were tasked with riding in the cab with the driver and crew, ensuring there were guards at each end of the train for the entire journey. Brandis would get a few hours sleep on the trip across to Liverpool before catching another train back to London in the morning for his meeting with the Prime Minister. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes before rousing himself from his semi-stupor and heading off down the platform himself.

12. Ultima Ratio Regum

Royal Marine Siege Regiment

St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe (near Dover)

Thursday

August 15, 1940

As was the case following the German victories in France and the Netherlands during the Realtime war, England was faced with the unpleasant reality of squaring off at the Straits of Dover against a powerful and determined enemy across thirty-four kilometres of English Channel. One danger that was quick to arise was that of cross-channel guns, and it was only a few months after Dunkirk that Batterie Seigfried became operational at Cap-Gris-Nez, its 38cm guns well within range of Dover and a substantial section of the Kent coast.

More were to follow in Realtime, with installations being completed right along the nearest sections of the French coast that included Batterie Friedrich August (three 30.5cm guns at Boulogne-sur-Mer), Batterie Todt (four more 38cm guns at Wissant), Batterie Grosser Kurfurst (also at Cap-Gris-Nez with four 28cm guns), and Batterie Prinz Heinrich and Oldenburg (both at Calais with two 21cm guns apiece). These weapons were also complemented by a trio of 28cm K5 railway guns accurate enough to engage shipping in The Channel in addition to land bombardment. In Realtime, these would’ve later been joined by Batterie Lindemann at Cap-Blanc-Nez, armed with three of the huge 406mm ‘Adolf Guns’ left over from Germany’s aborted ‘H-Class’ battleship program.

Britain’s Realtime answer to the German guns had begun with the commissioning of two 14-inch (356mm) Mk VII guns left over from the development of the King George V battleship class. Nicknamed ‘Winnie’ and ‘Pooh’, these guns were intended as counter-battery weapons that proved to be far too slow and inaccurate to take on enemy shipping, although they were nevertheless adequate in their intended bombardment role. These would be followed into service in the Dover area by a variety of British guns that ranged from six inches (152mm) up to 15 inches (381mm), the latter intended to be used primarily against enemy shipping although able to assist in a counter-battery role if required.

RAF air superiority throughout the Realtime Battle of Britain meant these gun emplacements were relatively safe from aerial attack (although this wasn’t to say that the Luftwaffe didn’t indeed make some serious efforts to destroy them). This time however, the RAF had been all but eliminated as a fighting force by the end of July 1940, and there was therefore nothing to stop enemy aircraft from bombing any British coastal battery into the history books before anything managed to become operational. Both ‘Winnie’ and ‘Pooh’ had been destroyed in exactly that fashion within days of construction commencing on their emplacements, and most of the remaining gun batteries along the Kent coast (save for some very lucky and very well camouflaged exceptions) had fallen to the same fate.

Across the water in France, the Realtime ‘Adolf Guns’ would never exist now other than in the memories of a very select few on either side, however the danger of cross-channel bombardment nevertheless remained a very real threat. With no likelihood of any static heavy artillery battery ever lasting long enough to enter service, the British were forced to resort to other means to affect some limited ability for retaliation to the increasing level of bombardment that had begun from France since the beginning of July.

The War Ministry had instead resorted to the use of heavy railway artillery that could be kept mobile and therefore, theoretically at least, remained less vulnerable to air attack: weapons that had also existed in Realtime. During the First World War, the Royal Artillery Regiments had made use of several types, including some mounted with 14-inch naval guns. The barrels of these were scrapped during the inter-war years, however the rail mountings still remained in reserve, and in 1939 the decision was made to return them to operational service.

One of the better weapons used by the Royal Navy during WWI was the 13.5-inch (343mm) Mark V, mounted on numerous battleship classes and found to be far superior to the earlier 12-inch (305mm) designs it superseded. At the beginning of WW2 the RN still carried a number of these weapons in storage, along with plentiful supplies of ammunition and propellant charges. The decision was made to release some of these barrels and fit them to the leftover railway mountings to produce three complete ‘new’ weapon systems. By summer of 1940, the guns had been converted, had satisfactorily completed their operational trials, and had been handed over to the Royal Marine Siege Regiment as three identical railway guns known as Sceneshifter, Piecemaker and Gladiator.

The weapons had been used sparingly so far and to good effect on occasion, and the photographs Squadron Leader Richardson’s Mustang had returned with the day before had provided sufficient evidence that it was now well worth the risk of bringing the guns into action once more to deal with the new threat developing near Sangatte. Safe from aerial attack or from prying eyes in the sky above, the weapons had spent most of their daylight hours in the last month or so biding their time inside the relative safety of the Guston railway tunnel. Entering the southern mouth of the tunnel, not far from the intersection of Dover and Old Charlton Roads, the twin tracks of the East Kent Light Railway ran underground for almost 1,300 metres heading north-north-east, passing beneath the A2 between Swingate and Whitfield, before running out into the open air once more a few hundred metres south of Guston.

A branch line specifically constructed for the guns diverted off to the east a thousand metres or so beyond the northern mouth of the tunnel and continued on for several kilometres through Kent farmland before reaching its termination in an open field between Westcliffe and St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe that was perhaps five kilometres north-east of Dover. Within that field, the track terminated in a long, shallow semi-circle, and just before noon on that clear autumn morning, railway gun Piecemaker had been brought out from under cover and shunted halfway around that curve by a small but powerful diesel locomotive, its attendant ammunition wagons in tow.

Admiralty Pier was part of the Port of Dover and extended out into The Channel as the western breakwater, the Dover lighthouse at its very end standing guard over the port entrance. With its own rail station — Dover Marine — the pier served during peacetime as the embarkation point for several cross-channel train services including the luxurious Golden Arrow London-Paris Pullman service. With connections to the Southern Railway Network (formed out of the amalgamation of the South-Eastern (SER) and London, Chatham & Dover (LCDR) services), the branch line joined the main network outside the port near Archcliffe Road, where trains could either be directed south-west toward Folkestone or instead head through the town centre to the north and continue on toward Canterbury and on to London.

The pier had once been the site of a residential slum, however this had been cleared out during the 1930s, with most of the residents moving to newly constructed rows of flats on Limekiln Rd, on the western side of the tracks. Limekiln met Archcliffe Rd and the main carriageway out of town to the south, and the imposing Archcliffe Fort stood above the bend in the railway line as it turned toward Folkestone. Looking out to sea from the headland above the harbour, the fort backed onto Archcliffe road and stood on land that in one form or another had been fortified since the construction of a watchtower in 1370AD. The site had undergone significant modification during the reign of Henry VIII, and was again rebuilt and expanded several times during the 1700s as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.

Sceneshifter had come down from Guston Tunnel and the East Kent Light Railway that morning in the opposite direction to that of Piecemaker, joining the eastern (Dover) line near Buckland. The gun, its attendant wagons and locomotive were now motionless on a bend in the main line, positioned in the lee of the fort above and at exactly the right point around the curved track to bring its muzzle to bear on its designated target on the other side of The Channel. Civilian trains were scarce during daylight hours due to the threat of air attack and bombardment from France, and the War Department had in any case made sure that all rail services in the Dover and Folkestone areas had been suspended for the morning while the guns were brought into position.

As the name suggested, the Hythe and Sandgate branch line connected these two towns to the SER network at Sandling Junction. Opened in 1874, the patronage was never high due to the stations being positioned somewhat further than was normal from the actual centres of population they were intended to serve. During its early years, a horse-drawn tramline was instituted in an attempt to stimulate usage of the services, however there was insufficient long-term improvement to prevent Sandgate Station from being closed in 1931, the dual tracks reduced to a single line as a result, and in Realtime the entire line would close just twenty years later.

Upon leaving Guston Tunnel, Gladiator had undertaken the longest trip of the three guns that morning. Running in convoy with Sceneshifter as far as Dover, the last of the trio had continued on along the SER line alone, passing through the Shakespeare Cliff and Abbotts Cliffe tunnels respectively (with the Shakespeare Cliff Halt railway siding in between) and on through Folkestone and beyond. It was shunted at Sandling Junction before making its way almost to the end of the Hythe-Sandgate branch line, where a shallow curve in the tracks again presented a perfect angle of ‘traverse’ for firing on France.

The gun crews would normally have been directed remotely by spotter aircraft high above the waves of The Channel, however only the most suicidal RAF pilot or crew would even consider spending any length of time in the sky near the French coast nowadays, and as such they were instead in direct radio communication with forward observers watching the intended target through rangefinding equipment from the cover of the observation post atop Shakespeare Cliff. The increased distance meant there’d be an appreciable loss in accurate spotting, but as it was the only viable alternative, there was nothing else to be done.

All the crews were well-trained and prepared for the task at hand, and there was sufficient ammunition and charges in the wagons behind each gun to in theory ensure the destruction of any target. Sceneshifter would fire a single ranging shot initially, and would be followed by concentrated fire from all three weapons once the fall of shot on target was observed at Shakespeare Cliff and appropriate adjustments to elevation and traverse had been made. The guns fired a special 567kg ‘light’ shell, along with a ‘super’ propellant charge that had both been designed specifically for railway use and enabled the weapons to reach an extended range of over almost forty-five kilometres. They could fire those shells at a rate of around two per minute, and ideally it was intended that only a short bombardment from all three weapons would be all that was required to take care of the new enemy threat across The Channel once and for all.

SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E)

Near Sangatte, Pas-de-Calais

A makeshift railway siding had been set up inside the main gates of the compound, linked to a branch line running back up the low hillside toward Fréthun and its connection to the French rail network, and during the past two months that siding had been a continuous hive of activity. As earthmoving equipment and sheer brute force of manual labour cleared and excavated the hillside running down to the coastline, trains began to roll in with a mind-boggling array and variety of construction materials and equipment.

Less than two kilometres from the beach, the slope had disappeared completely within the perimeter of the construction site, replaced instead by several square kilometres of perfectly level ground that cut halfway down into the hillside and used the removed landfill to bring the lower sections up to the same level. Hundreds of huge, prefabricated slabs of reinforced concrete were brought in by rail and positioned to create a massive gravity retaining wall several metres high that ran 1,500 metres north-north-east along the installation’s western perimeter.

The initial excavation and landfill work had already been well underway by the time Whittaker and the others first arrived, and they’d been put to work laying more railway tracks, erecting camouflage screens and netting. There were now also a pair of huge, circular gunpits standing 500 metres apart, each accompanied by thick, flat-faced blast walls of earth and concrete that stood five metres high and provided protection from enemy fire around the entire 180° frontal arc facing out toward The Channel and the White Cliffs beyond. The pits themselves were several metres deep, lined with thick layers of reinforced concrete, and to the rear of each lay a tunnel/trench system that carried light rail tracks several dozen metres underground to a remote bunker system that formed each pit’s main storage magazine.

Twin sets of railway tracks had been laid on either side of each pit, all of them joined to the one original branch line at the rear of the installation after entering through the main gates. Those tracks had seen heavy use over the last eight weeks, initially to bring in continuous supplies of building materials and prefabricated sections of reinforced concrete on what seemed sometimes to be an endless supply of rail cars. As the construction had continued around them, the gunpits had begun to take shape, and by the end of the sixth week, the type of cargo coming in had begun to change.

Four gigantic cranes mounted on heavy rail cars arrived and were assigned in twos to each of the newly-constructed pits. One positioned one on either side of their designated emplacement on the outer sets of tracks, leaving the inner sets free, and were locked into position by massive hydraulic jacks that ensured they wouldn’t move under even the heaviest of lifting loads. The cranes themselves were so large that it had taken the better part of an entire day to shunt them into position, braces of powerful locomotives moving with agonizing slowness and spewing sulphurous smoke and sparks from their stacks as a protest to the heavy work they were forced to perform. The obvious weight of those cranes spoke volumes as to what they might be capable of lifting, and the prisoners bandied about more than a few theories during work breaks that were exceedingly rare and exceedingly short.

The most logical theory, which grew to become accepted by the majority of those within Whittaker’s officer group, had originally been formed by Dupont, who prior to capture had commanded a French artillery unit. An older man, he’d served in the Great War of 1914-18 as an NCO (also in the artillery) and had crewed a French 320mm railway gun on the Western Front. There was no doubt in his mind that the Germans were setting up a heavy coastal artillery battery there at the compound, although the one thing that concerned him was the immense scale of it all: the emplacements they were working on were far larger than anything he had ever encountered in his service career.

His theory was confirmed two days later as the first components of the weapons themselves arrived, also by rail. Almost a thousand Waffen SS personnel arrived with the loads and immediately set about the task of assembly: the Wehrmacht had no intention of trusting the construction of the actual guns themselves to the work of unskilled prisoners of war, after all. Whittaker and the others were instead tasked with the continued completion of the fortifications intended to protect the emplacements themselves, and with the general clean up duties that were part and parcel to such a large and complex construction site.

The gun mounts arrived first: huge cast and welded sections of solid steel pieced together to form a circular central pivot upon which the weapon’s breech, barrel and carriage were to be supported. More of the narrow-gauge light rail tracks were laid at the same time, these sections placed to form a semi-circle around the very perimeter of the rear half of the pit. This allowed shells and propellant charges arriving from the underground magazines to be positioned for reloading behind the gun regardless of its angle or traverse, and removed the requirement to return to one fixed position for reloading, something that would otherwise force any gun crew to lose an acquired target every time they wished to fire another shell.

The gun carriages arrived two days after that, so wide that they slightly overhung their flatcars on either side. Major Alois Dupont and the others could only stare and shake their heads in disbelief as they all stood and watched the carriages being lifted from their wagons by the railway cranes and lowered carefully into position. Neither he nor the other officers in the group with artillery experience had ever seen gun components that large before, and that in itself was a significant and sobering fact for the rest of the POWs there. None of them were kept waiting long.

The gun barrels were finally shipped in midway through the eighth week, and as heavy as any of the previous sections might’ve been, all could now clearly see why such powerful lifting equipment had been required. With their breeches already attached at one end and massive, four-baffle muzzle brakes fitted at the other, each gun tube was over 36m long, and none of the POWs could possibly have speculated on the weight, although the figure must’ve been hundreds of tonnes apiece. Not even Dupont or the other experienced gunners had any reaction other than complete bewilderment and, truth be told, more than a little fear into the bargain: not only were these weapons now clearly larger than anything any of them had ever encountered or even heard of in their lives; they were in fact larger by a substantial margin.

It’d taken a full two days to prepare and complete the installation of the guns, and it wasn’t until the end of that first week of August that the cranes had finally been shunted away leaving the weapons to stand alone in their massive pits. The gun crews — obviously already well-practiced and undoubtedly the best in their field — immediately set about running drills and testing the operations of the guns to ensure everything had been assembled and connected correctly. Twice daily — at dawn and just before dusk — klaxons would sound and the crew would go through their usual, hour-long exercise of preparing the weapons and running them through variations in traverse and elevation accompanied by the deafening whine of powerful electric and hydraulic motors. All the while, small electric locomotives ferried shells and charges back and forth from the magazines, responding to hypothetical scenarios and alerts with similar speed and professionalism.

The fly-past by Richardson’s Mustang two days before had obviously been a reconnaissance mission, and the kommandant of SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E) had no illusions as to the stir those photographs would’ve caused in Whitehall. He’d spent several minutes cursing the laziness and negligence of the entire flak regiment tasked with their protection, and had then spent the rest of the day running several extra, unscheduled firing drills while the entire installation remained at battle stations and orders were issued for several of that unit’s higher officers to be court-martialled.

Prior British responses to the appearance of long-range gun emplacements on the French Coast had generally been in the form of retaliatory bombardment from similar guns — something which it had to be admitted had so far been relatively effective. With the RAF all but non-existent now as a fighting force in the skies above the Home Counties, it was also highly unlikely the enemy would be able to muster enough bombers or fighters to instead launch a concerted air assault. As a return to their ‘tried and true’ alternative of counter-battery fire from railway guns seemed the most likely of any option for a British response, a round-the-clock aerial surveillance of the English coast was put into place.

The Abwehr had already identified many of the more the likely firing sites along the railways close to the Kent coastline, and the watch had been set. The height of the Dover cliffs opposing them meant great swathes of land beyond weren’t visible to observation from land, necessitating the aerial alternative. Even as the men of the Royal Marine Siege Regiment were preparing their guns, unseen eyes flying high above the French beaches had quickly spotted and identified Gladiator and reported its exact position to the battery HQ at Sangatte.

Neither Whittaker nor the rest of the work crews had the slightest inkling that anything serious was about to happen. The sounds of alert klaxons and the movement of propellant charges and those monstrous shells to the gun line from their underground magazines seemed the same as any of the drills they’d already seen that morning, although Dupont at least did note that each gun seemed to have a greater number of projectiles stockpiled behind the mount than had been normal in previous exercises.

The first suggestion of imminent danger came as several, Dupont included, noticed that in this particular ‘drill’ the crews were actually going as far as loading a shell into each gun’s massive breech. Even with the assistance of some very advanced Krupp loading equipment — designed in part by Reuter’s technical departments — it took the guns a full five minutes to lift and chamber their four-metre-long shells, each slowly rammed by heavy hydraulics into their cavernous breeches ahead of the huge brass case carrying its propellant charges.

A large concrete command bunker was positioned toward the western perimeter of the complex between the two weapons, set a good distance in front of both. Mostly underground, only a small, domed control room showed above the surface of the newly worked earth, and from its observation slots, Obergruppenführer Paul Strasser looked on expectantly.

The guns emplaced there were classed as ‘strategic’ weapons, and as such Special Heavy Battery 672(E) answered directly to Reichsmarschall Reuters himself, although technically as a Waffen-SS unit it was ultimately under the command of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Strasser was in contact with Reuters at that moment, speaking to the OdW at his Amiens HQ via secure landline.

“The weapons are loaded and prepared for firing, Herr Reichsmarschall. Our observers estimate we have no more than five or ten minutes at most before the enemy fires upon us. All that’s required is for you to give the word…”

Standing at the desk in the large briefing room, Schiller and Müller beside him, Reuters took a few moments to think long and hard about his decision. Covering the mouthpiece of the phone, he lowered it from his ear and stared around at his colleagues.

“Your thoughts, gentlemen…?”

“You know my mind, Kurt,” Schiller replied instantly with a thin smile. “I’m just sorry I’m not actually there to see the bloody things go off!”

“Joachim?”

“You’ve never wanted those damned things right from the start, Kurt… you fought the Führer tooth-and-nail to divert those resources to something far more useful.” Müller remembered all too well, as did Reuters, the confrontation his opposition to the guns’ construction had produced with Hitler himself.

“Enough steel in each of them to build a U-boat… at least,” Reuters nodded with a rueful smile. “That was one fight I definitely lost to the Führer,” He shrugged. “Nevertheless, the weapons are here now, whether I like it or not, and I suspect it’d be a far greater waste of those vital resources if they’re not utilised at all.”

“If we use them now, we reveal that part of our invasion plan to the British ahead of time,” Schiller observed, thinking quickly, “but that’s about the only disadvantage I can think of to giving the order.” It was his turn to give a matter-of-fact shrug. “On the other hand, there’d be the advantage of allowing us to perform a live-fire trial ahead of time and iron out any bugs or faults that might appear.” An evil smile spread across his face “It’d undoubtedly scare the living Christ out of the local population into he bargain. Any associated mass panic could trigger an exodus that’d further overload their military’s logistic networks throughout the Home Counties, and that can’t be a bad thing.”

“There’s an excellent chance this facility might be considered dangerous enough to bring the aircraft of Hindsight against it,” Müller mused softly.

“I’d considered that also,” Reuters nodded slowly, “and I’m not certain that would be a bad thing either. Even their jets would be hard pressed to get in and out of a low-level strike in one piece with the masses of flak we have there, and this might just be the bait we need to lure them down.” He turned his gaze back to Schiller. “Albert, please have our remaining Flankers on alert and ready for take off: we may need them.”

Lifting the phone back to his ear, Reuters took another moment to take a deep breath before continuing. It was true he’d never wanted the massive guns built in the first place and considered them a terrible waste of resources, but even then, his pragmatic nature had meant that the moment he’d realised the Führer wouldn’t back down on their construction, Reuters was determined to demand modifications that would drastically improved their usefulness on the battlefield.

The most significant change was to the design of the loading equipment the guns used, increasing each weapon’s nominal rate of fire from no more than two rounds per hour to perhaps one ever five minutes: a rate that was still quite low but was nevertheless enough of an improvement to actually make the weapons potentially useful in a tactical as well as strategic sense. Another was the insistence that they be installed in fixed mountings on the coast rather than be left as railway guns as per their original design. They could still be used in that role if necessary, but their fixed positions overlooking The Channel in this case meant a significant increase in accuracy and also assisted the new loading system in achieving its higher rate of fire.

“Herr Obergruppenführer,” Reuters finally spoke after releasing a held breath. “’Gustav’ and ‘Dora’ are ‘weapons free’… you have permission to fire. Eliminate all opposition and conduct further registration bombardments if required.”

“Very good, Herr Reichsmarschall,” the voice at the other end replied instantly with obvious eagerness. “Orders received and understood.”

The massive guns began to elevate with the whine of powerful hydraulics, each weapon moving in unison as their muzzles turned toward England and their gun crews donned ear protection in preparation for firing. No one bothered to warn the POWs — their welfare was unimportant, after all — however it was painfully obvious that action was imminent as new klaxons began howling all over the compound. Whittaker, Dupont and a few of the others began screaming terrified warnings for the rest to seek whatever scant cover they could find as they pressed their hands to their ears as tightly as possible, hoping to muffle as much of whatever was coming.

The next moment seemed to stretch for an age as ‘Gustav’, the northernmost gun, discharged and a huge, visible shockwave rippled away from the massive muzzle brake on either side, knocking many of those nearby off their feet. The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck, and the heat and deafening roar of the shot washed across all of them as it spread around the firing site at the speed of sound. Whittaker feared for a moment or two that he might lose his footing as the hot winds whirled past, tossing up stones and dust from the ground by the shovelful and filling the air with debris that battered many of the prisoners who’d been unable to find cover.

Gustav’s muzzle began to lower once more as his crew prepared to go through their five minute reloading process. The first shell was already well on its way by that time and travelling at three times the speed of sound as it arched high across the English Channel, leaving a thunderous ‘ripping’ sound in its wake as it tore through the air toward the opposite shore. The artillery observers watching from Shakespeare Cliff spotted the unexpected firing across the Channel immediately, and had already radioed a warning by the time the shell had reached the English coast, although it was far too late to take cover in any case.

It was a small consolation to the men in command of railway gun Gladiator that the deafening, tearing sound overhead a second later meant Gustav’s first shot had gone long. It hadn’t overshot by enough for the crew to remain calm or collected about the experience however as the five-tonne, 800mm HE projectile impacted with British soil a little less than two kilometres west of their position. The shell punched deep into the earth, not far from Sandling Junction, and the subsequent detonation blasted a huge crater thirty metres wide and the same deep into the Kent countryside, throwing earth and debris hundreds of metres into the air in a billowing cloud of smoke and flame.

The blast wave struck the gun a few seconds later, bringing with it a strong, hot wind stinking of earth and smoke that battered the Royal Marines with more than just its physical effects. They could all see how much power that enormous shell had carried, and how much damage it might’ve caused had it landed on target. The gun commander quickly brought his crew back to the matter at hand as clods of earth, stone and shrapnel began to land around them. The same was happening in all directions, over a huge area, as a rolling cloud of black clawed its way skyward from the point of impact above a boiling pillar of smoke and dust.

Sceneshifter fired its first shell a few seconds later, but with a flight time of more than a minute across a distance of almost forty kilometres, they had some time to wait before the nearby observers could plot the fall of shot and issue any adjustments to aim. All knew without doubt that they were in a gun duel now, and it was a duel against what appeared to be an incredibly powerful enemy. They were three to one, and the match up could perhaps be likened to three hyenas pitted against two lions: they could split the enemies’ attacks, and retaliate in greater numbers, but just one hit from either enemy could ruin any one of them, while they would need all their strength to bring either of their targets down.

The unmistakeable plume of Sceneshifter’s muzzle blast was the first warning to the Luftwaffe observer high above The Channel that there was a second gun involved, this one firing from within Dover itself, close to the port. Dora, preparing for her first shot, had already adjusted aim and elevation based on the fall of Gustav’s first shell, and as such was ordered to remain on target with Gladiator. Gustav, in the middle of reloading, was accorded this second target, and even as its next shell was being rammed into the breech, powerful hydraulic motors were already rotating the weapon onto a new point of aim.

Dora fired next from the southern side of the complex as Gustav’s crew continued their reloading process, the experience no less terrifying for the extra distance. Again the earth shook and all around were battered by a powerful shock wave, its huge muzzle brake lessening the effect of recoil by diverting the bulk of the massive blast to either side rather than directly ahead. With corrections to aim already made, it was expected that second shell to land on target, but as was the case for their opponents across The Channel, the SS gunlayers were not forced to endure more than a minute of flight time before they’d discover how accurate their amendments had been.

Initial warning of the firing of a British gun was late, but was in any case largely unnecessary as far as Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS personnel were concerned. All of those not involved with the actual firing and control of the gun were already under cover as part of the battery’s alert status, and German casualties, if any, were likely to be minimal as a result. The POWs and forced labourer present weren’t so fortunate, of course, and as that first, half-tonne shells landed among them, 500m short of Gustav’s position, the earth and smoke thrown skyward by the explosion was filled with their broken and shattered bodies.

Gladiator was never given a chance to fire as Dora’s first shell landed. All three British guns were still making adjustments to aim and angle of traverse based on the fall of Sceneshifter’s ranging shot, and its diesel locomotive was edging it carefully along the curved track to a new point of aim as the five-tonne projectile fell directly on the railway line itself, two hundred metres behind, and obliterated everything around it in a blinding flash and upheaval of earth that instantly became another huge crater. A savage blast wave rippled away from the explosion, radiating outward to all points of the compass, and its full force hammered into the rear of the locomotive and railway gun in just a fraction of a second, blistering heat and irresistible winds laced with lumps of earth, stone and shrapnel that shattered the weapon and all but vaporised the gun crew in an instant.

The engine itself was tipped and cast from the tracks as if it were no more than a toy batted aside by some child’s hand. The ammunition wagon, positioned between it and the gun exploded also, its shells and propellant charges adding to the power of the blast that struck the gun in that same moment. The combined force was great enough to momentarily lift all 240 tonnes of the weapon and carriage off the tracks and deposit it a metre or so to the left, derailed and noticeably askew, with its rear section a devastated mass of twisted wreckage and broken human flesh.

With one of their own already lost, Piecemaker and Sceneshifter fired in unison a few seconds later, sending two more shells toward France and their deadly opponents. The 13.5-inch Mark V had proven to be a powerful and accurate weapon in naval service, and it was no less true for the railway guns as their fire landed within two hundred metres of Gustav’s position and more prisoners died in a shower of shrapnel and debris. Safe behind its high blast walls, Gustav however remained undamaged and it fired for a second time, thirty seconds later. Ahead of its muzzle, trees close to the beach that were already burning and stripped of vegetation — those that hadn’t been torn out completely or obliterated by the first firing — were battered and assaulted again as its second projectile roared past overhead on its journey toward England.

At that same moment Gladiator’s destruction was confirmed, the existence of Piecemaker to the west of Dover was also discovered upon its first firing, and again the information was relayed back to the battery commanders from their observer’s high above The Channel. Having fired its ranging shot on Sceneshifter, Gustav was once more directed onto this new target as it began to reload while Dora — now halfway through its own reloading cycle — was assigned to Sceneshifter, its crew waiting patiently for notification of the fall of shot so further corrections could be made.

“All crews! Left one minute… up two hundred… fire for effect!” At the observation post atop Shakespeare Cliff, points of impact were noted on the fall of both shells, and the captain in charge of fire direction called in final corrections, bellowing his orders into the radio. The only advantage Sceneshifter and Piecemaker now possessed against the two behemoths on the opposite side of The Channel was their substantially greater rate of fire, and their crews intended to put that to use. Each shell fired from France might well be almost ten times the weight of theirs, but they could fire ten rounds in return in the time it took Gustav and Dora to fire two. Their task now would be to make sure that volume of fire was used to good effect.

The men of the Royal Marine Siege Regiment went through their reloading processes with the kind of precision expected of professional artillerymen, and both guns had fired again before Gustav’s first shot on Sceneshifter had landed. To the relief of all concerned, it impacted harmlessly in the harbour a thousand metres short, launching a huge geyser of water into the sky as it exploded, but actually doing no real damage whatsoever. None of the crew had any illusions however as to any deficiencies in the training of their opponents, and they all knew the next shell coming their way would undoubtedly be much closer.

There was nowhere for the POWs to hide — digging tools and heavy machinery were no shelter whatsoever in the face of a bombardment from naval guns — and many more were killed and badly wounded as the second British salvo landed directly ahead of Gustav’s main protective blast walls. The thick barrier of earth and reinforced concrete wasn’t affected in the slightest by the detonations however, although the reloading process was slowed somewhat as the crew were showered by a rain of earth and debris thrown up by the twin explosions.

A third salvo landed forty seconds later, also to no great effect, as Dora finished her next loading cycle and fired again, this time on Sceneshifter, and four more 13.5-inch shells would land in the time it took Dora’s next shot to fire and cross The Channel. None would have any more effect on the pair of huge guns, although several light AA emplacements nearby were destroyed and a small magazine explosion ensued, killing many in the immediate area.

There was no time for congratulation of any kind however as Dora’s second shell howled in unerringly on its target. At ranges of over thirty-five kilometres, vagaries of wind and errors in observation meant it was difficult, if not impossible to obtain pinpoint accuracy from any long-range artillery piece. The majority of the weight of any normal artillery shell was predominantly ‘dead’ weight due to the thickness required in the shell walls to withstand the pressures of firing and by the stress of being propelled along a rifled barrel at great speed.

In the case of the British 13.5 inch gun for example, the nominal weight of the ‘light’ HE shell was 567kg however the actual ‘bursting charge’ of explosive within the projectile was just eighty kilos. This could certainly produce a quite lethal blast, but the size of actual charge was nevertheless comparatively quite small in comparison to an aircraft bomb of similar size, where there were no such pressures placed on the weapon and far more of its overall weight could be dedicated to explosive power. The same applied to the shells fired by Gustav and Dora, however it was all a matter of scale, and in the case of a projectile weighing five tonnes, the bursting charge stood at around 700kg: almost ten times the destructive force of its opponents’ weapons. This constituted a substantial amount of high explosive, producing a massive blast and shockwave, and as such there was no pressing need for pinpoint accuracy.

The second shot on Sceneshifter landed just 150 metres short of its intended target and was also rather unfortunately a direct hit on the historic Archcliffe Fort. The main buildings disintegrated, and the resultant blast was also powerful enough to collapse a number of houses on Archcliffe Rd and shatter the nearby viaduct across the rail lines. Wreckage and debris from the explosion rained down over a huge area as a pall of thick, black smoke rolled slowly skyward.

Sceneshifter was far too close to escape unscathed. As the fortifications above were obliterated, the shock of the impact and resultant crater were such that a section of the retaining wall below the fort instantly collapsed and spilled violently out onto the tracks ahead of the gun. The overpressure from the detonation and the masses of shrapnel that came with it were more than sufficient to topple the gun from its tracks and kill or severely maim every crewman into the bargain. Those few left alive — barely — were given little opportunity to consider their fate as the ammunition wagon behind was subjected to that same blast wave and its contents exploded a split second later, reducing what was left of the weapon and its locomotive to ragged lumps of twisted metal in the process.

General Sir John Dill, standing with his aide and several artillery officers inside the observation post atop Shakespeare Cliff, watched through the large telescope in futile anguish as a continued shower of British shells fell all around the German battery across The Channel yet failed to have any appreciable effect. The news of Gladiator’s destruction had barely been reported just moments before, and even as he watched, the huge plume of a muzzle blast rose through the haze of smoke now shrouding the target area, clearly signalling that one of the huge enemy guns had fired again.

It had taken just two shells to despatch Gladiator, and another ranging shell had already fallen into Dover Harbour near Sceneshifter, clearly indicating the second of their three guns was now in grave danger. It was a call he was loath to make, but the continued risk of losing their remaining assets in what was quickly proving to be an ineffectual barrage was something he wasn’t willing to accept any longer.

“Jameson!” He lifted his eye from the eyepiece and turned toward the captain beside him, who was staring through the lens of a similar telescope. “Advise both units to cease firing immediately and withdraw to safety!” There was no mistaking the urgency in his tone as he gave the orders. “Get them out of there!”

Captain Jameson instantly picked up the microphone of a radio placed on a small bench to his left and began relaying the change of orders to the gun commanders on site. Piecemaker responded with confirmation within seconds, however there was no reply from Sceneshifter whatsoever despite several attempts to raise them directly. It was a minute or two later before news came in over the same radio from another source notifying of the loss of the second weapon, along with the destruction of a substantial section of residential Dover and the demolition of Archcliffe Fort.

Across The Channel at that moment, Obergruppenführer Paul Strasser stood within his own command bunker and stared out through the viewing slots with a restrained but confident smile. There was nothing he could actually see from his position, save for the explosion of British shells about the compound and the decimation of his POW workforce — for which he cared little — but the reports from their Forward Air Controller flying high over the Kent coast with its J-4A fighter escort had verified the destruction of two of the three identified enemy railway guns.

The faint smugness was just a hint of the pleasure and pride he inwardly felt: Reichsmarschall Reuters’ first thought upon hearing of the discovery of the British guns was to immediately call in air strikes, and it was only due to Strasser’s desperate persistence that he’d finally give the green light for Battery 672(E) to deal with the problem directly. He’d known of Reuters’ negative feelings concerning the drain on Wehrmacht resources the two weapons represented from the moment he’d assume command of the unit twelve months before, but Strasser had been determined to prove the man wrong right from the start, and believed his unit was well on the way to a major victory in that regard that afternoon.

Long before the lieutenant-general had appeared on the scene, the pair of ‘superguns’ known by their official Wehrmacht order-of-battle nomenclature as SK-100[E] (and only ever referred to as ‘Gustav’ and ‘Dora’ by everyone else) had been proposed in a design study by the armaments manufacturer Krupp as a weapon capable of defeating the defences of the Maginot Line. Any such weapon would need to be able to penetrate seven metres of reinforced concrete, or up to one metre of hardened armour plate, and Krupp’s had theorised that a super-heavy artillery piece of between 70- to 100cm calibre would be required.

A calibre of 80cm was eventually settled upon, plans were drawn up, and construction of Gustav commenced early in 1936. Kurt Reuters had opposed the concept from the beginning and had consistently lobbied the Führer for the massive resources the weapons design and manufacture was consuming to be directed elsewhere to more useful projects, such as the Kriegsmarine’s accelerated naval building program. In spite of his pleas — or possible to some extent because of them — Adolf Hitler remained unmoved on the matter, and the pair of superguns were completed just prior to the outbreak of war at the end of 1939. The fluid nature or the German Blitzkrieg in Poland and against the Western Allies to that point had been such that there’d been no call for the guns’ use, but in Strasser’s opinion they’d now been given the perfect opportunity to come into their own, and were proving their worth admirably.

It was those thoughts that lingered in his mind as an Abwehr intelligence office attached to the battery staff entered the bunker from one of the main access tunnels at its rear and approached Strasser, a freshly-typed report in one hand.

“Herr Obergruppenführer,” the major began, coming quickly to attention and presenting a ‘Heil Hitler’ salute as Strasser turned to face him. “We have some interesting intelligence reports from a listening post at Wissant…”

“Go on, Herr Major…”

“The unit has identified radio traffic between the British gun crews and their command post. There’s an experienced intelligence officer in charge at Wissant, and he believes a high-ranking British officer is on site at the CP.” He paused for a moment. “The intelligence officer feels there’s a strong likelihood the general present may be Sir John Dill, the Chief-of-General-Staff.” Strasser’s eyes flew wide upon hearing that information.

“He’s certain of this?” His mind was already working over the possibility of staging such a huge military coup as eliminating the highest-ranking army officer of the British Empire.

“Not certain, Mein Herr, but he’s very confident.” The major tilted his head slightly as if conceding a point. “The man is one of our best, sir… I’d be inclined to believe him…”

“Have them work on locating this command post!” Strasser commanded without a moment’s thought. “Work with our spotter aircraft and see what you can find out while we deal with this third gun.” The Abwehr major saluted once more and immediately disappeared back down the same tunnel from whence he’d come, his mission clear and urgent.

Piecemaker was already securing for withdrawal as Gustav’s ranging shot fell substantially long, blasting a huge crater in the Dover Road to the north, near Westcliffe. Smoke and earth from the explosion was hurled skyward as the diesel shunter began to pull away, gun and ammo wagons in tow, and the driver needed no more incentive than that nearby impact to open the throttles wide and accelerate as quickly as the locomotive could manage. The safety of Guston Tunnel was at least five minutes away along the curved branch line, and every man riding that train at that moment recognised how incredibly vulnerable they’d be throughout that short journey.

In command of Piecemaker, and riding in the locomotive with the driver and a radio operator, a hatless Major Sebastian Pruitt hung his body half out of the left side of the cab, ignoring the wind flying past as he kept a keen eye out for further shell strikes or the ever-present added danger of air attack. The radioman beside him had already been advised of the loss of Gladiator, and news had also now come through of the destruction of Sceneshifter. The entire mission was clearly a complete and quite disastrous failure, and the recognition of that fact showed clearly in Pruitt’s grim expression as the train continued to build up speed heading into a long curve around to the south that would take the branch line back toward the East Kent Railway main line and Guston Tunnel.

Piecemaker was now the only remaining target, and as such had now attracted the attention of both German ‘superguns’. Dora’s first shell, with aim adjusted based on Gustav’s ranging shot, landed within a hundred metres of their original position, and it was of small comfort that they’d managed to vacate the area in sufficient time to avoid being completely vaporised: something that would’ve been a certainty had they not withdrawn so quickly. Even so, the shockwave hurtling past them carried enough force to shake the entire train and sting the exposed men on the gun carriage with debris and shrapnel that left some with superficial wounds.

Accurate as they were, the huge artillery pieces were intended for use against static fortifications and had never been expected to engage moving targets. With a rate of fire that at best allowed 10-12 rounds per hour, there was no way either weapon could be expected to land a shell even close to Piecemaker as its towing locomotive hit the junction onto the main East Kent Line at better than forty kilometres per hour and the welcoming northern mouth of Guston Tunnel came into view ahead.

As both guns were now running through differing stages of their respective reloading cycles following the impact of Dora’s last shot, there were several precious minutes for Strasser and Battery 672(E)’s gunlayers to consider the information being relayed to them from their FAC aircraft regarding Piecemaker’s hurried retreat. The speeding shunter with gun in tow was just a minute or two away from entering the tunnel and relative safety, although the train would need to slow down somewhat to have a chance of coming to a halt while still within its cover.

Then again, there was no real need for it to slow down at all — it was practically invulnerable to bombardment at speed, and by the time an air strike could be called in, the British gun could be many kilometres away and completely out of range should they decide to continue on rather than halt within the tunnel. Obergruppenführer Paul Strasser had other plans however, and had no intention of allowing the last of their targets escape.

“Gustav… new target…!” He quickly barked the order at his plotters, the experienced artillerymen immediately verifying their coordinates with their FAC flying above Dover before quickly working out their new firing solutions and passing the information on to Gustav’s gun crew. “Dora… mission change! Clear breech and load VRRD round!”

Those orders were also passed on instantly, and within seconds there was a complete halt to the reloading process within Dora’s gunpit. The high explosive shell halfway through being rammed into the gun’s breech was hoisted out of the way by a heavy-duty loading crane as the main ammunition lift was lowered to the waiting crew below, only to return a moment later with a gigantic, ‘needle-pointed’ armour piercing round almost four metres long and weighing almost seven tonnes.

Piecemaker and her crew powered into the northern mouth of the tunnel at a steady forty kilometres per hour. Pruitt and the others inside the driver’s cab could see the dim flicker of light at far end, now just 1,200 metres away and drawing nearer at a fast pace. Initial plans had been to shelter inside the tunnel itself, but Pruitt had countermanded that order and instead directed the driver to continue on to the west toward Canterbury and more certain safety. So long as they kept moving, there was little chance the German guns could zero on them accurately, and keep moving was exactly what Pruitt intended to do.

All of them heard and felt the impact of another huge shell seconds later, although there was no way to tell where it had landed from their position underground. It was only as the tunnel mouth ahead drew ever closer that the first evidence of thick smoke became visible against the open landscape beyond. The strike wasn’t close — that much was clear from what little they could see — and for a second or two it seemed strange that even despite their speed the shot should’ve been so far off course.

It was only a few more seconds however before they all realised the shot had in fact been right on target. Guston Tunnel had been gouged out of the surrounding landscape and as a result, each end opened into a deep, steep sided cutting that trains gradually climbed out of heading away in either direction. Gustav’s latest shell hadn’t landed a direct hit on the mouth of the tunnel — it hadn’t needed to. Instead, 4,800kg of pointed steel and high explosive travelling at over 800 metres per second had simply been aimed at the cutting beyond, and it had been a perfect shot.

A narrow country lane crossed above the tracks a little more than three hundred metres past the tunnel mouth, supported by a short stone bridge. The shell had landed just a few dozen metres away, punching into the upper edge of the western side of the cutting and blasting away a thirty metre hole. The bridge collapsed immediately, dumping huge stone blocks and rubble across both sets of tracks in an impenetrable wall. The driver hit the brakes as heavily as he dared without risking immediate derailment and brought the train to a shuddering halt just forty metres from the opening as dust and smoke from the explosion rolled down the tunnel past the train in an acrid, choking wash of heat.

A little more than thirty-eight thousand metres away, super-heavy gun SK-100(E) ‘Dora’ fired a specially-loaded shell that was known to the Wehrmacht as a 80cm VRRD. The acronym stood for verlängertereihe rüstungsdurchstossen, and roughly translated into English as ‘Extended Range Armour-Piercing’. The huge gun’s conventional armour piercing shell (if anything about the weapons could be considered ‘conventional’) weighed more than seven tonnes and was designed to penetrate seven metres of reinforced concrete. The extended range version looked almost identical, but weighed 350kg less and was equipped with a special feature that in post-war Realtime would become known as ‘base-bleed’ technology.

The base of the VRRD shell was slightly recessed instead of tapering to a flat bottom, and a flare-like mechanism into was fitted the resultant cavity that generated a small but significant amount of inert gas. The gas created filled the small area of vacuum that normally occurred at the very base of an artillery shell — a vacuum that brought with it a significant amount of aerodynamic drag. By eliminating that vacuum (and the drag it created), the VRRD or ‘base-bleed’ shell was able to extend its range by approximately thirty percent.

A standard 80cm HE shell could reach approximately 48km range (and its own VRHE version out to better than 62km), but the conventional armour-piercing round, being more than two tonnes heavier, could make barely 38km, and at the very boundary of its extreme range it couldn’t hope to hit its intended target with anything close to the necessary accuracy. The VRRD variant however could reach out to almost 50km, and as such the Guston Tunnel was still close enough to allow excellent accuracy, if with a minor reduction in explosive and penetrative performance due to its slightly reduced weight.

Oblivious to all the technology and design surrounding it, the shell itself flew on through the clear sky on its supersonic ballistic arc, reaching the zenith of its journey high above the middle of The Channel. Far too heavy to be even the slightest bit affected by wind or turbulence around it, it tipped back toward Earth and the green fields of Kent far below.

Dora’s shell went long, completely by chance landing on the exact centre of the intersection of the A2 with Dover Road, three hundred metres to the north. The shell punched deep into the soft earth before exploding too far down to reach the open air above. Instead, the blast created a large, artificial underground cavern beneath the surface known as a camouflet, into which the land above immediately collapsed. A roughly circular section of intersection and surrounding land approximately five metres across immediately fell into the newly-formed space, leaving a crater several metres deep.

Inside Guston Tunnel, everyone felt and heard the impact. The earth shook dramatically and a shower of earth, dust and some larger fragments of brickwork rained down on the train and their heads as the structure shuddered under the nearby blast. They couldn’t see the cracks that had appeared in the darkness of the tunnel roof above their heads, but they could hear the shifting and grating sounds of movement overhead, and the larger chunks that fell about them were a terrifying warning that all was definitely not well.

“The boys are going to make a break for it, sir!” Lieutenant Carstairs, his 2IC, was clearly terrified as he clambered up the side of the locomotive and into the cabin to confront his commanding officer.

“We can’t afford to get caught in the open out there,” Pruitt replied, also frightened but forcing himself to remain in control. “That cutting’s a death-trap for a hundred yards beyond the tunnel in either direction: we’re done for if the Luftwaffe catches us.”

“One more hit like that and we’re done for anyway!” Carstairs shot back, his voice almost breaking under the strain and fear. “I’d rather take my chances with Jerry fighters than with these bloody ‘superguns’!”

Unable to reach HQ on the radio from inside the tunnel, Major Sebastian Pruitt was left to make his own decisions and he needed to make one quickly. The sides of the cutting at either end of the tunnel were far too steep for he or his men to have any hope of climbing to safety, and that situation continued on for some distance before the tracks levelled out into open fields. Pruitt wasn’t about to allow his men to become trapped in such a fashion. That being said, as he craned his head out through the open doorway of the driver’s cab and stared back down along the length of the train, he could already see some of his men jumping from the gun and making their way toward the far end.

“Get us out of here, Dennis!” He ordered the driver, making that quick decision in a moment. “Take us back out the way we’ve come: as soon as we’re past the cutting and out in the open, the rest of you can ‘jump ship’. I’ll take the train back into the tunnel myself and secure the gun if Jerry gives me enough time…”

“Oi reckon you’ll need some ‘elp driving her back in, major,” the driver replied with a shrug and a matter-of-fact grin. “Might as well come back for the ride with you…”

As Pruitt gave a nod of thanks and appreciation of the man’s offered help, the driver turned back to his controls and began to reverse the train back out in the same direction from which they’d originally entered. It was difficult to see clearly past the ammo wagons and the bulk of the gun itself, and as a result the train moved a good deal slower than it had on the way into the tunnel with the shunter at the front and the view ahead completely clear.

They were perhaps three hundred metres from daylight at the northern end of the tunnel as Gustav’s next VRRD shell hit. The roof of the tunnel was a dozen metres or more beneath the earth at that point, and in most cases that would’ve been considered more than enough protection from even the biggest bombs. The armour-piercing shell however, capable of penetrating better than six metres of reinforced concrete, punched through the layers of earth and flint-streaked chalk as if it were soft as butter.

A delayed fuse detonated its 250kg explosive charge as it broke through the ceiling of the tunnel and struck the tracks below, almost exactly halfway along. In such a confined space, the blast was concentrated and significantly magnified as it was channelled along the length of the tunnel in either direction, with smoke and flame bursting into the open air from each end simultaneously and sending twin black clouds rolling skyward. What was left of the train, gun carriage and attendant wagons was crushed as the already-weakened tunnel collapsed completely on itself. Everyone was already dead in any case; killed instantly by the blast from an explosion they never saw coming.

General Sir John Dill died with the rest of the men inside the OP atop Shakespeare Cliff a few minutes later. The German radio direction-finding unit at Wissant on the French coast had managed to narrow down the location of their radio transmissions enough for the airborne FAC and its fighter escort to carry out a visual search of the cliff tops in the area, and the sharp-eyed artillery spotter had quickly picked out a pair of armoured cars in the trees behind the OP that clearly indicated their presence. Dill had feared the worst the moment they’d lost contact with Piecemaker, and was devastated by the loss of so many men in such a futile and one-sided exchange. His entourage of aides and escorts were so preoccupied with packing their equipment and preparing to leave that no one spotted another two gigantic muzzle flashes from across The Channel through their viewing scopes.

Shakespeare Cliff rose ninety metres above the surface of the water below, and the pair of high explosive shells stuck simultaneously roughly halfway up the cliff face — which had been exactly their point of aim. The cliffs weren’t particularly solid in geological terms, being comprised almost entirely of white chalk streaked with black flint, and the area of Shakespeare Cliff had historically been prone to infrequent landslides already, at times causing the closure of the railway line between Folkestone and Dover that ran along the coast below their heights.

The combined force of 1,400kg of explosive in close proximity was more than enough to shatter the integrity of a huge section of cliff face and bring it tumbling down into The Channel below in a billowing white cloud of chalk and rubble. As the dust settled once more over the area, and the guns of SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E) finally fell silent, no evidence of the observation post remained. It and everyone inside it were now crushed and buried beneath thousands of tonnes of chalk that had also closed the rail tunnel below and obliterated the Shakespeare Cliff Railway Halt nearby into the bargain. Now much closer to the edge of the White Cliffs than they’d bargained for, the crews of the pair of armoured cars parked on the road behind where the OP had been were now the only survivors, and they could only look on in stunned horror at the destruction below them.

Strasser lowered his field glasses and placed them on a nearby workbench before turning to congratulate the gun laying crew on a fine job. The mission had been a sterling success, and he fully intended to recommend both gun crews and the gunlayers for the Iron Cross, with the Knight’s Cross for the commanding officers. All radio traffic between the OP and the guns had ceased, and although it was no guarantee they’d annihilated the opposition, the general’s gut feeling was that this had certainly come to pass.

He turned to leave the observation bunker and head off to a rest area in the rear where he could get a cup of coffee. Above the bulkhead doorway to the exit tunnel, the unit’s motto had been fixed on a plaque for all to see. Flanked by the Nazi Reichsadler coat-of-arms on either side (a black eagle with spread wings and head turned to the right grasping a swastika in its claws), the Latin phrase Ultima Ratio Regum was printed in large, stencilled black lettering against a white background.

Ultima Ratio Regum: The Final Argument of Kings. The phrase had been famously cast on the French cannon during the reign of Louis XIV by his decree, and was a shortened variation on the metaphor ‘the Last Resort of Kings and Common Men’ in reference to the issuance of a declaration of war. It was Strasser, a keen student of history and an artilleryman in the Great War, who’d chosen the motto for SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E). By his own reasoning, what greater embodiment of the phrase could there be in any artillery weapon than the pair of incredible guns under his command.

As Reuters hung up the phone he was almost smiling: the first operational use of Gustav and Dora had been an unqualified success. The incident had shown up some deficiencies in the alertness of the air defence units in place, but no real harm had come of it and there’d be constant fighter patrols over the area as well from that day on, with extra radar units posted to the area to provide better early warning. The guns’ existence had been revealed a little earlier than they’d have preferred, but the British would certainly have found out about them eventually, and the success of the mission had been so absolute that it was difficult to find anything negative in the outcome at all.

“We can forget any reservations regarding the capabilities of Battery 672(E).” He stated with a wry grin as Albert Schiller entered through the briefing room’s main doors.

Sitting at the main map table that had almost become his office desk by proxy, a bottle of fine French brandy was already sitting beside the Reichsmarschall along with a pair of filled snifters. Lifting both glasses, he offered one to Schiller as he approached.

“Here’s to taking out the British Chief-of-General Staff and to turning the County of Kent into a moonscape in the process!” Reuters raised the toast, beaming all the while, before raising the glass to his lips.

“Cheery fellow…!” Schiller observed, chuckling as he lowered his glass once more. “Good to see you in such a good mood. I take it, however, that I wasn’t called in this afternoon to discuss the use and subsequent success of our ‘popguns’, heartening as the news is, of course?”

“All business today I see, Albert!” Reuters shot back with a smile. “Müller put dry ice in your bath again this morning?” The pair laughed lightly for a moment before the Reichsmarschall moved on to more serious subjects. “No… I didn’t bring you in for that. Yesterday’s ‘testing of the water’ at Scapa Flow went remarkably well…”

“…Unless you were one of the pilots…” Schiller added dryly with dark irony.

“…Remarkably well…!” Reuters continued, intentionally ignoring the remark. “I’d very much like to make use of that success before the bastards have a chance to find their feet. They’re going to at least suspect they’ve a traitor in their midst, but it’ll take them some time to dig anything up doing the usual background checks and such like… I don’t intend to allow them that time. We know they still haven’t received any conventional aircraft from Fighter Command to assist their defences, and I’ll be very surprised if they receive any at all… everything the RAF has is already needed in the south to combat our bombing campaign down here. They’ve already had to bleed Twelve Group white to the point of non-existence, and Ten and Eleven Groups aren’t much better.”

“So all they’ll have are flak guns and the two jets.”

“Exactly… Raeder is planning a breakout of Carrier Group Two in two days time, and there’s an excellent chance we could see most of the Home Fleet sortied from Scapa Flow in response. Müller’s guaranteed us two days of heavy fog patches along the eastern side of the North Sea that’ll make it difficult for the Englanders to track us, but they’ll have to come anyway — the Royal Navy’s never shied away from a fight yet, and I don’t expect them to this time, either. The Marineflieger will have some surprises prepared for them if they do, and it’ll also mean the anchorage will be relatively empty, meaning no large warships to provide Hindsight with extra heavy flak protection.”

“So our ‘asset’ — as you so eloquently put it — takes out their radar again, this time for good?”

“Yes… a proper job this time… and they’ll get precious little warning as a result. SKG1 will carry out a massed bombing run at high altitude: the commanders are already briefed and prepared.”

“We’ll lose a lot of planes, even if they do just have the jets!” Schiller winced at the likelihood of survival as the crewman of a propeller-driven heavy bomber in combat against missile-armed, 21st Century fighters.

“If he has time, our asset will also try to take the fighters out… or at least delay their take off. There probably will be heavy casualties, but one F-35 and an F-22 can only carry a finite number of missiles and shells for their cannon. They’ll probably knock the whole of One Gruppe out of the sky within minutes, but they shouldn’t have any missiles or guns left after that and will be forced back to base to reload. They’ll not get a chance to get airborne again. Sufficient numbers will carry the day.”

“Well, that should make the Führer happier…” Schiller observed sourly, little humour showing, although his face then suddenly brightened as he recalled the news he’d come to advise Reuters of originally. “By the way… just got a report from one of or ‘contacts’ at the Abwehr: a ‘little bird’ told him our ‘good friend’, Oswald Zeigler has been seen swanning about an awful lot closer to the front lines that any of that lot would be at all used to.”

“Do tell?” Reuters urged, a sudden and keen interest showing in his eyes as he took another sip of his brandy.

“Apparently, the esteemed Herr Zeigler arrived in Boulogne-sur-Mer yesterday for the purpose of an afternoon hunting trip in the woods with…” he paused to bring some suspense to his next words “…another fine ‘supporter’ of ours, Brigadeführer Ernst Barkmann.”

“Well… well… well…” The Reichsmarschall mused softly, finding the news more of interest than of any real concern. “It seems that scum, much like water, eventually does find its own level. Any insight into what might’ve been discussed?”

“None at all — our sources never got close enough to monitor conversations,” Schiller shrugged. “Never going to be anything good with those two involved, though.”

“No doubt,” Reuters agreed with a nod. “Do keep an eye on that would you? There’s a good fellow.” His mind chewed over a few thoughts for a silent moment, before he added: “Another thing: our man on the ground there probably won’t last long after the attack — they’ll know we have an insider for sure by then. Make sure our man has orders to kill Max Thorne if he gets the chance.”

“Thorne, dead or alive, won’t make much difference if we take out the hardware…” Schiller pointed out, well aware that his commander already knew that.

“No, it won’t at that…” Reuters admitted after another pause, a dark fire in his eyes now. “But it’ll make me a good deal happier, Albert… See that it’s done…”

Downing Street, Whitehall

Westminster SW1, London

It had taken far less red tape than anyone had expected to organise Hindsight’s meeting with the Prime Minister, as if Whitehall had somehow already been awaiting their call. Thorne and Donelson had flown down to RAF Stanmore in the F-35E that evening after sunset, and rode in a black government car through the heart of the blacked out city. There was no light whatsoever save for the almost non-existent illumination of their large Humber sedan’s masked headlights, and the trip was quite nerve-wracking for passengers far more accustomed to motorways and powerful quartz-iodine driving lights.

They were stopped numerous times by both military and police checkpoints and roadblocks, although their papers and authorisations allowing them instant passage, and on three separate occasions, Luftwaffe bombings on industrial targets had forced wide detours as ARP wardens waved them on and behind them, fire-fighters fought desperately to contain several major fires. The scenes they witnessed, so much like the old black-and-white footage they’d seen of The Blitz countless times growing up, were now right there before them in living, deadly colour. It was an incredible, eerie sight that left them on edge throughout the trip.

On arrival they were met by an army staff captain who escorted them directly to the Cabinet Room. Already seated at the long, polished table was the Prime Minister ,accompanied by two other men, one of whom — wearing a general’s rank and staff officer’s uniform — Thorne found vaguely familiar, while the other — a young man dressed in an expensive suit — he’d never seen before in his life. Several folders lay on the table before the men, whose identities were soon revealed as all three stood upon Thorne and Donelson’s arrival.

“Mister Thorne… Commander Donelson,” Churchill began with a familiarity that seemed a little forced “…so glad to have you both here with us this evening. May I introduce a young fellow I doubt you’ll know… Rupert Isaiah Gold. Mister Gold is here acting as proxy for a businessman who’s long been a supporter of mine, even before I became prime minister, and who’s also a steadfast opponent of Nazis. His employer has already provided unmeasurable support to England, and has some further assistance to lend to the Hindsight Unit, but more on that later in the evening…” He paused for a moment before continuing. “I would also like you to meet General Sir Edmund Ironside… he’s sitting in as Chief of the Imperial General Staff tonight.”

General Sir William Edmund Ironside CGB, CMG, CBD DSO was a tall and solid man of sixty-one years, with greying hair and a similarly-coloured moustache. Dark eyes filled with knowledge and surrounded by the lines of ageing were complemented by a serious and intelligent expression. Ironside had served the army for over forty years, and had seen action in the Second Boer War, the First World War and the North Russia Campaign prior to the outbreak of World War Two. Thorne instantly recalled the man upon mention of his name: it was Ironside who’d been succeeded by Sir John Dill as CIGS earlier in the year, and had gone on to successfully fill the post of Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces.

“A pleasure to meet you both, gentlemen,” Thorne stepped forward, coming to brief attention to salute Ironside before shaking both men’s hands in turn. “We’ve never met, General, but I do know of you by excellent reputation and your fine work with the Home Forces. Is General Dill unwell this evening that you’re sitting in for him?”

“General Sir John Dill is unfortunately no longer with us,” Ironside informed with all the solemnity that would’ve been expected, the news leaving both Thorne and Donelson utterly astounded. “He was killed in action near Folkestone this afternoon while observing an exchange between cross-channel guns.”

“The incident is something we were hoping you might be able to cast some light upon this evening,” Churchill continued, taking one of the folders from the table top and sliding it across to Thorne as he and Donelson took seats close to the others.

As Thorne opened the cover, he found copies of the aerial photographs taken of the battery at Sangatte two days before. A magnifying glass lay inside on top of the pictures, and Thorne lifted it with the first of the images, studying if carefully after passing the rest across to Eileen: with her eidetic memory and far greater technical knowledge, she was the best person to look at the bulk of the information. There were a few seconds of tense silence as they poured over the pictures, in the process throwing each other a concerned glance or two as they in the end came to a similar, unpleasant conclusion.

“Gustav and Dora,” Thorne said finally, not really explaining anything and leaving Eileen to clarify as Churchill and the rest stared on quizzically.

“We believe these are what were in Realtime two of the largest guns ever put into production anywhere in the world,” she began slowly, choosing her words carefully as she recalled the information from her memory. “The Wehrmacht originally designed and built them to combat the defences of the Maginot Line, but in Realtime it took longer than expected to finish production and they were instead eventually put into action against hardened targets in Russia after 1941.” She paused for a moment, still staring at one of the images. “Assuming they’re the same here as the Realtime examples, they have a calibre of eight hundred millimetres — thirty-one-point-five inches — and can fire a high explosive shell of four-point-eight tonnes to a range of twenty-nine miles, or a concrete-penetrating projectile of seven tonnes to twenty-three miles or more.” She paused again, then realised: “These weapons are on the coast! These weapons were involved in the cross-channel bombardment earlier today?”

“South of Calais, near a place called Sangatte,” Ironside answered, grimacing and shaking his head in terrible recognition of the capabilities she’d given on the guns.

“What’s The Channel… twenty miles across at that point? Maybe less…?” Thorne noted, thinking quickly as always. “Makes sense… vitally important area for heavy guns in the event of an invasion.” He jabbed an index finger down hard on one of the closer, oblique shots. “These weapons can hit probably ten or twenty miles of English coastline from where they are, with Dover pretty much smack-bang in the middle. They’ll also probably be able to throw HE maybe another eight or ten miles inland at least, which could make life bloody difficult for defenders to muster for counter-attack if an force does hit the beach in that area.” He paused for a moment, looking at Eileen for agreement, to which she nodded faintly. “These appear to be static emplacements too, rather than the railway mounts the Realtime units were fitted to… I’d imagine that’d give them a significant increase in accuracy and rate of fire.” He paused for a deep breath as Eileen took up the conversation.

“Gentlemen, the appearance of these weapons on the French coast is incontrovertible evidence that Hitler is serious about an invasion — particularly when factored into the information we already have: that a massive increase in combat air patrols over every major ports from The Hague to Le Havre is making it impossible to get any kind of aerial reconnaissance.

“In Realtime, neither the RAF nor the Luftwaffe held air superiority over The Channel. As such, Britain was able to keep far better track of what was going on in French ports and monitor the build up of any invasion force. As it stands at the moment, the appearance of these new Focke-Wulf fighters in the last month or so means even if one of our PR aircraft gets in to take pictures, they’ve so far not been able to get out. These fighters are faster than anything the RAF can field, save for the new Mustangs that are barely becoming operational, and they’re able to overhaul anything else we have in the air before they get to safety.”

“All this points rather unpleasantly toward a serious invasion build-up, as you both indeed warned,” Churchill noted with more than a little disappointment at the thought. “…And very possibly sometime in the next month, as you also predicted.”

Thorne nodded in agreement. “The tides will be a factor, and the moon as well if they wait as long as the last week of September. I’d expect the Kriegsmarine has been provided with better assault and landing vessels than they fielded in Realtime, and with what’s now become total air superiority over The Channel and Southern England, I’d be very concerned Reuters’ may indeed have locked in ‘S-Day’ for sometime around mid-to-late September.” He fixed Ironside with a solemn stare. “Would I be correct, Sir Edmund, in the assumption that this cross-channel bombardment duel didn’t end well for us?”

There was a long pause as the general took a deep breath, rubbed at his eyes and ran a hand back through his grey hair.

“As you’re no doubt aware, it’s not been possible to complete any lasting fixed gun emplacements of any size along The Channel Coast due to constant aerial attack. Three railway guns of the Royal Marine Siege Regiment were brought up last night to prepared firing positions at Sandgate, Dover and St. Margaret-at-Cliffe. Due to the appearance of this new site being relatively recent, we originally believed it was not yet operational…”

“Christ on a crutch…!” Thorne whispered, lowering his eyes and raising a hand to his forehead as he stared at the photographs once more. Both he and Eileen saw what was coming next as Brooke paused and took a breath.

“Quite to the contrary, we discovered the weapons you speak of were both indeed operational. These two ‘Gustav’ and ‘Dora’ guns — as you call them — engaged our 13.5-inch weapons: they displayed remarkable accuracy and — we believe — were aided by observation aircraft and radio direction.

“The subsequent artillery duel lasted no more than twenty minutes… possibly a good deal less… and by the time it was over, all of our guns were destroyed with great loss of life. Our longest surviving gun — Piecemaker — was buried inside Guston railway tunnel after it was collapsed by what appears to be some kind of delayed-action or ground-penetrating shell. Substantial damage and casualties were also inflicted upon Dover’s civilian population, and General Dill was killed by a landslide at Shakespeare Cliff after two shells from these weapons sent a huge section of the cliff below their OP crumbling into the sea. No observable damage was inflicted on the German guns: both continued to fire after all of our assets were wiped out.” He took another breath and released a soft sigh of frustration and sadness. “Knowledge of the incident has been impossible to contain…”

“Rumours are spreading already, Mister Thorne: lots of them!” The Prime Minister took over as Brooke’s voice faltered. “Morale that was worse than terrible to begin with has fallen even further as a result.” Churchill’s voice quavered slightly, more out of indignance and anger than fear or despair, as he slapped his palm down hard on the surface of the table in irate punctuation. “The RAF is on its knees. The army has been decimated at Dunkirk, and we cannot get enough ships across the Atlantic in either direction to properly resupply it. Our navy — on paper the greatest sea power in the world — huddles in defended anchorages, unable to sally forth lest they incur the wrath of U-boats we cannot find, and aircraft we cannot stop that find us!” The man was in a mood that showed the desperation of the times… there was still the defiance, but the Prime Minister was clearly aware of the magnitude of the danger they now faced across The Channel.

“I commend Hindsight’s intentions in coming to our aid as you have, and the information you’ve already provided has made a difference, I cannot deny…” He shook his head with finality. “…But this ‘difference’ is not enough! For the last year we’ve discussed at great length with Brigadier Alpert the whys and wherefores of your United Nations’ decision to send Hindsight back to June of 1940 rather than earlier, and I understand on a level of rationality why this was done… but this is not a rational time!” The last part of the sentence was not a shout, but the intensity of the words didn’t suffer for lack of volume. “In your making this vain attempt to influence history as little as possible, the result has been only to leave us hamstrung! We now know that the Germans will come… we know they will bring with them vastly superior technology… but we have no time to do anything about it!” His hand swept back off the table in a frustrated and dismissive manner.

“I do not pile this anger at your door alone, Mister Thorne… nor yours, Commander… but you both must see the bittersweet irony of this. All your unit has ultimately been able to accomplish is take away our hope… there’s no time for anything else. We’re sending everything we have into harm’s way… and it’s not enough! One of the reasons I was grateful of the opportunity to meet with you both tonight is so that I might ask you for help, now, in dealing with this menace… help that will make a difference and have some greater effect that merely showing us in stark clarity the doom that awaits us. I will not demand… I do not believe that is necessary… but I ask Hindsight for help right now. There’s a chance this may mean the sacrifice of one, or both of your aircraft, and I understand the severity of this, but I ask all the same. When the enemy comes to This Island, and I say ‘when’ because we all know now that he will, then every man in uniform will be asked no less — and many more planes and many more lives will be sacrificed in our defence. I ask nothing more of Hindsight than I ask of them… or of myself, should the time come when I must also take up arms and put my own meagre capabilities to the test.”

And as his last sentence came to an end, his proud and piercing stare burned Thorne’s eyes and spirit with the force of it. Already pushed to the limit of his physical and mental endurance last few days by the stress of command and problems with alcohol — mostly alcohol — he was forced to lower his eyes and stare silently at the tabletop. He felt almost on the verge of tears, such was the power of that impassioned and defiant plea, and although the other men in the room couldn’t see it, Eileen Donelson certainly could. He felt her hand reach gently across beneath the table where it couldn’t be seen gave his hand a squeeze. He was grateful for the gesture, although he really felt like a drink… followed by a good many more.

After a very long moment, during which the Prime Minister — an astute judge of character at any time — allowed the man time to collect his thoughts, Thorne raised his eyes once more and met the man’s gaze head on. His expression was almost fathomless, save for the faint whiff of a mirthless smile at the corners of his mouth. He released a breath that was half sigh and half snort and was obviously and deliberately a signal of decision.

“Put up or shut up, eh, Mister Prime Minister?” He observed, resolve forming in his features as Sir Winston gave a single, faint nod of accord and recognition. “When we get back to Scapa Flow, I’ll have our best people start drawing up some possible alternatives for some kind of meaningful, strategic strike. At this point, I can’t give you any details — I don’t have any to give — but I will say it’ll be unlikely that any attack will be directed at that gun emplacement. Reuters will know Hindsight may be the only way to destroy those guns, and he’ll have preparations in place as a result.” He paused for a moment, and Eileen knew he was arguing with himself as to how much to tell the Prime Minister and Ironside. “There may be other, alternative targets that would be far more effective in dissuading the Wehrmacht from mounting an invasion… Either way, Mister Prime Minister, I make this guarantee that we will make use of the force we have at Hindsight, and that we’ll have an outline of the use of that force to you by the end of the week… Fair enough, sir?” This time, Thorne’s eyes defied the other man to find fault or flaw.

“More than ‘fair enough’, Mister Thorne… and thank you… I make no apologies for these desperate times, but I acknowledge this must be doubly difficult for people such as you, who have come from a time of freedom and peace.” He took a breath, and there was another pause as the tone in the room lightened decidedly. “Now, dear people… on to other matters… what was it that you wished to ask of us?”

“Mister Prime Minister,” Thorne began, nodding his acceptance of the change of subject. “You’ve no doubt been informed of the enemy’s probing air attack this morning. The most pressing of our problems is the ongoing issue of fighter support. I recognise the RAF has little to spare, but if we’re to have any hope of survival at Scapa Flow, or anywhere else for that matter, we must have enough fighters to provide a constant barrier air patrol during daylight hours and, that being done, enough reserve aircraft to mount some kind of credible defence should a threat materialise. If that attack had been a massed assault, there’s every chance I’d not be here with you at all.

“If one thing has come out of today’s debacle,” he continued, “it’s that Reuters knows our current weaknesses, and he’ll want to exploit those quickly before we have a chance to bolster our defences. Next time they come, they’re certain to come in force. I’ve seen the reports of raids against supply centres and railheads by medium and heavy bombers over the last month… they’re testing their new toys, and they know that they work. Everything else we need, we can take care of through normal channels, but give us those fighters and I guarantee you we’ll do everything we can to stop the German War Machine dead in its tracks.”

“In anticipation of just this request, I’ve been in direct communication with Air Chief Marshal Dowding this afternoon,” Churchill began slowly, a smile barely playing across his lips. “The Air Vice Marshal sends his regards by the way, and his regrets that pressing matters kept him away tonight. We have, I believe, found a workable compromise that is acceptable to all parties. Ironically, this has only become possible due to information that your own Nick Alpert provided us soon after his arrival: plans that have resulted in the creation of that quite superlative Mustang fighter. You’re aware, no doubt, of the arrival of the first shipments of these Mustangs last month, and we now have two squadrons finishing their conversion training. These squadrons will be posted to your facility within two days: the planning for it has been in the making for several weeks now, but wasn’t finalised until today — both Air Chief Marshal Dowding and Chief of Air Staff Newall extend their apologies for not keeping you informed of our progress in this area.”

Thorne nodded instantly in acceptance of the situation, the axiom of looking at Gift Horses the wrong way telling his instincts to ignore the likelihood that the explanation of why he’d been kept out of the loop probably being no more than an excuse. Considering they were finally getting what they wanted, he was willing to cut a good deal of slack.

“One thing we’ll also need, sir, regarding planning for what direct action Hindsight may take against the Wehrmacht, would be access to any information the SIS has regarding the expected movements of all the enemy’s high-level figures: from Hitler and Reuters through to the commanders of the various army groups… particularly in the Western Theatre. Also, the most current data we have on major German production centres — where the industries are and what density. All of that may be important, depending on what options we ultimately come up with.”

“Everything we have will be delivered to you by special courier within forty-eight hours… I just hope that it will be of some use to you…”

“God willing, Mister Prime Minister — as you said… God willing…” There was a long pause as Churchill locked eyes with him again, as if sizing him up once more.

“You’re personally intending to fly whatever mission you decide on, aren’t you, Mister Thorne?”

“Yes sir, I am.” That answer caused some surprise and emotional consternation with Eileen Donelson, although her military training enabled her to display none of it. “I wouldn’t ask such a thing of anyone else under the circumstances…”

The PM nodded appreciatively, the proud fire of understanding in his eyes. “You’ll have those reports, dear fellow, and you’ll have those fighters… they’re a small price to pay compared to what has already been sacrificed.” And as Sir Winston Churchill rose from his chair, the rest following suit a second later, Thorne accepted the solemn hand that was extended. Inside, he shuddered at the magnitude of the thoughts running through his mind, and he badly wanted a drink…

“Now that all that’s out of the way,” the Prime Minister continued, sitting once more, “there’s another matter we need to discuss… a matter for which I shall hand you over to the capable Mister Gold here.” As he glanced across at Rupert and gave the slightest nod, the young man required no further urging.

“Mister Thorne; I represent a man with widespread business interests and a good deal of wealth. I’m here tonight at his request, and at the request of the British Government, to present to you his offer of financial assistance.”

“‘Financial assistance’…?” Thorne repeated, caught completely by surprise. “I mean no disrespect, but we’ve already been given as much allocation of British industry as can be spared for our development projects, and the War Department hasn’t refused any request we’ve made so far for funding… exactly what ‘assistance’ are you offering? An honest question, Mister Gold: no offence intended.”

“…And none taken, sir,” Rupert replied without batting an eyelid. “The assistance to which I’m referring isn’t intended for use in the current climate. My employer is of a similar opinion to that of yourselves, it appears, in that the Germans are certain to invade England. My employer is also of the firm belief that should the enemy establish a beachhead on English soil, the war is basically lost for us.” He paused just long enough to allow Thorne to acknowledge what he was saying.

“That’d be fairly close to our assessment of the situation, yeah,” the Australian agreed grudgingly, unsure as to where the conversation was going.

“To that end, we’re all interested in seeing to it that even if Britain is lost, the battle against the spread of Fascism and dictatorship is continued throughout the Americas, and the rest of the Commonwealth and Dominions. My employer believes that you’re the man best suited to continue this effort, and that to do this effectively you’ll need — if I can put it so bluntly — money, and lots of it. It’s my employer’s intention to ensure you have all the necessary funding you need to do whatever’s required to continue that fight.”

“Exactly how much ‘assistance’ are we talking about?” Thorne was suddenly very interested in what Rupert had to say. The issue of what would happen once Britain fell to the Germans had been discussed, and escape plans for the immediate future had been worked out in advance, but there still remained the question of what would be needed in the long term. Without current specific backing from any friendly government, it was difficult to predict how Hindsight would be able to maintain their opposition to the New Eagles and continue their plan to correct the course of history.

“The details are all here, including the conditions of acceptance,” Rupert answered, sliding across his own manila folder. “I suspect there should be sufficient funding for any project you deem worthy, in whichever part of the world you so desire.”

Thorne and Eileen huddled close together, reading the information inside the folder together as he opened it out onto the table. There were just two sheets of paper within: one an inventory, while the other was a short list of prerequisites Thorne would be required to sign off on if the funds were to be handed over to him.

“Jesus!” He exclaimed softly, forgetting for a moment that he was in the presence of the prime minister and a high-ranking officer. “Three-point-six long tons of gold…” he nodded his head slowly. “At the current price of gold… what’s that… a million pounds Sterling or thereabouts?” He gave a wry smile. “A million quid would definitely come in handy…”

“Max…!” Eileen cut him off as she laid a hand on his arm and squeezed with some force to gain his attention. “That’s not a decimal point!” As he looked closer at the typed page, he also saw what Donelson had realised: that the mark he’d taken to mean a decimal point was actually a poorly-struck comma. The blood drained from his face as he then finally recognised the ramifications of that discovery.

“Th-three thousand, six hundred and fifty-three tons of gold…?” He stammered eventually.

“Almost three thousand, six hundred and fifty-four tons, if you take note of the actual decimal point,” Rupert replied with a nonchalance that belied the incredulity he’d experienced over the very same revelation just two weeks earlier. “Approximate current value just a little more than one billion in Sterling. As we speak, the gold is being loaded onto HMS Repulse for transport to the United States. Departure should be within the next day or so, and upon arrival it’ll be secured at the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York for safekeeping. The only question that remains is exactly who it will legally belong to when it arrives…”

“Conditions… conditions…” Thorne muttered, mostly to himself, as he desperately lifted the other sheet of paper and studied it carefully. “Fine… fine… fine… fine…” he continued to murmur under his breath, running through each requirement in turn and finding no problem with any. The last, although still on the face of it acceptable, did cause him to raise an eyebrow. “It says here you’ll be working for me as a personal assistant if I choose to accept all this? What need do I have for a PA?”

“Whatever need as may arise,” Rupert answered deftly. “I’ve a degree from Cambridge and a wealth — no pun intended — of experience that I’ve gained while working for my previous employer. You may have no use for me now, but you’ll almost certainly have a use for me eventually.”

“And you’ll be reporting to your ‘previous employer’ as a matter of course as well…? What if our work involves matters that need to be kept confidential?” The intent in Thorne’s words was clear, and the question was a legitimate one in any case. Rupert decided it best to answer honestly.

“I’ve been told there’ll be times when I may be contacted by my former employer, but these times will be rare and never in person. I would also say that I don’t intend to serve two masters: if I’m to work for you, then your directions and privacy would take first priority over all other matters. I’ve already been paid enough to last me a lifetime and am now incredibly wealthy in my own right… as such, there’d be no danger of my being tempted by offers of money or any other kind of riches by those who’d seek to harm you or your operations.”

“You’re a very bloody direct bugger… I’ll hand you that,” Thorne conceded with a faint smile. “You may be of some use, I’ll warrant… and I could really use the money. I suspect you’ve made us an offer we can’t refuse.”

“It would be foolish to disagree,” Rupert replied with a half-smile of his own, deciding that perhaps he liked this man that was about to become his new boss.

“One thing I do want to know, though,” Thorne added, the good humour vanishing from his face and tone once more. “Every time you’ve mentioned this boss of yours, you’ve referred to him as ‘my employer’. You’ve used the same term every time. Who are we actually talking about? I don’t see any clause in this list regarding non-disclosure of the source of this gold: I want to know the name of the person we owe all this to.”

Rupert thought long and hard about answering that question. The name ‘James Brandis’ was barely known to anyone, and even fewer would recognise it as belonging to a man of any wealth or power. He knew that Brandis actively sought to remain anonymous, and he was reluctant to reveal the man’s identity as a result. He’d also meant what he’d said to Thorne, however, about where his loyalties would lay should the man accept the deal being offered, and he needed to back that up with real action if Thorne was to consider him a man who could be trusted. Brandis himself had suggested the name wasn’t the first identity he’d used in his life anyway: who was to say tat the information would have even the slightest impact on Thorne.

“The man’s name is James Brandis, and I’ve worked for him since leaving Cambridge ten years ago. I’ll answer whatever questions you have about him as best I can, but as strange as it may seem, after a decade in his employ I actually know surprisingly little about the man save for the business dealings I’ve been involved with.” Rupert shrugged with vague resignation. “I myself was completely unaware of the existence of this gold until just over two weeks ago, and I can assure you I was as astounded by the revelation as you both are.” Thorne stared long and hard at the young man, carefully thinking over what he’d just said, and saw nothing but open frankness in the returned gaze.

“Well, I guess I need to welcome you aboard then,” he said eventually, rising from his seat to lean across the table and extend a hand as if that made everything official. “There’ll be bugger-all use for you at Scapa Flow, and things are probably going to get nasty up there all too soon, so I’d suggest to that you get yourself onto that battlecruiser begin with and keep an eye on all this gold that now appears to be mine.”

“Based on what little information I already had, and what extra the Prime Minister has been kind enough to furnish, I’d already made the assumption that there’d be no requirement for my presence at your base. I’ve made arrangements for accommodation upon my arrival in the United States, and will make sure your communications officer — Brigadier Alpert, I believe? — is made aware of how to contact me as soon as I have full details myself. You’ll have an office waiting for you in New York by the end of next month.”

“How long will it take you to have one established in Australia as well?” Thorne asked with a grin, already impressed by the man’s professionalism and confidence.

“End of October,” Rupert replied without a moment’s hesitation. “Would you prefer Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra?” Thorne almost managed a chuckle as he turned in Eileen’s direction.

“I think this bloke is going to come in handy!”

“Do you buy that kid’s story about not knowing much about his old boss?” Eileen asked over the intercom three hours later as the F-35E cruised north back toward Scapa Flow. “How could you not know about three thousand tonnes of gold?”

“Actually, I kinda do believe him,” Thorne replied after a moment of silent thought. “His story’s just crazy enough to have the ring of truth to it, and besides: even if he’s telling the truth, there’s no guarantee this Brandis bloke is being straight up to him!”

“Might be helpful to find out some more about this James Brandis,” Eileen mused. “I’ve never heard of him, but I think I’ll try searching through our databases for his name and see what they throw up.”

“Don’t bother,” Thorne shook his head in response. “You won’t find his name in any records we have.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“When I was in high school, I did a project on John D. Rockefeller, the oil magnate. He’s generally considered to be the richest man in history, and was the first man on Earth ever to reach a net worth of one billion US dollars. That was in 1916, and by the time he died in 1937, his estimated wealth was around one-point-four billion.” Thorne shook his head in appreciation of the immensity of it all as he remembered the details from his secondary school days. “Roughly translated into 21st Century money, that equates to somewhere between $400 to $600 billion, give or take… kinda pisses all over the amassed wealth of modern billionaires of our time when you put it into those terms. He ended up heavily into philanthropy at the end of his career too, just like Buffett and Gates are… were…” Thorne realised he was digressing.

“Anyway, if that gold is worth one billion pounds Sterling, then that makes it the equivalent of about four billion US dollars at 1940 exchange rates — almost three times the wealth of Rockefeller when he died. Buffett… Gates… Branson… Alan Sugar… shit, even Ross Perot — all modern billionaires, and all recognisable names. I could throw in names from the past like Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Carnegie or John Jacob Astor, and most educated people would know of most, if not all of them.” He paused for a moment to add effect to his words. “You ever heard of a ‘James Brandis’? Anyone that rich, we would’ve heard of… no need to look that up in a database.” He paused for another moment to gather his thoughts.

“Think about it…” he continued. “Three thousand tonnes of gold doesn’t just appear overnight… and the name of anyone collecting that kind of amount is never going to remain practically unknown to the rest of the world. It takes years to amass that kind of fortune, even if you’re going about it openly, and you can also bet handing that lot over hasn’t cleaned him out. There’s no way ‘James Brandis’ is this bugger’s real name.”

“Supposing what you say is true,” Eileen countered, playing agent provocateur. “If this Brandis is using an assumed name, then who is he really? There are bloody few men of this era that know anything about Hindsight, and this fella seems to know enough about us to know the kind of good use we can put all that gold to…”

“Ay, well there’s the rub,” Thorne quipped, paraphrasing Shakespeare. “Who is he indeed? That’s something I think we should have our friends at MI6 look into for us and see what they can dig up.”

‘Shouldn’t be too hard to organise for the newly-appointed richest man in history,” Donelson observed, a faint smile crossing her lips.

“Don’t remind me!” He replied with a grin, mostly managing to stay in complete denial regarding the incomprehensible fortune that had just come into his possession. “All this wealth won’t change me though… don’t worry: I’ll still remember all my friends, Miss… ahh… Miss…” He feigned a momentary lapse in memory, as usual using humour to move away from a potentially threatening subject.

“Smartarse…!” Eileen growled in return, trying not to smile for a moment before another thought occurred to her, and the smile left of its own accord. “You’re really going to fly that attack yourself, Max?”

“That’s the idea,” he replied grimly. “Even if we could get a Halifax over the target, there’s no guarantee we’ll get it out again. Bloody likely we won’t manage it, and I’m not going to expect that of anyone else. Regardless of the shit Jack keeps gives me, I’ve got more flight hours on this bitch than he has — particularly in ground attack modes.” He was silent for a moment as they flew on at barely subsonic speed through the dark, English night. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll need you and Hal to arm one of the ‘Three Stooges’…”

“Jesus, Max, I was afraid that was what you were thinking about…”

“We’ve really got no choice now,” he reasoned slowly, not exceptionally happy with the idea either. “It’s the only option we’ve got that has a chance of really doing the Krauts some damage. If we can hurt them enough, we may be able to force them to back off and give us some breathing room.”

“And if it doesn’t stop them?”

“…Then Christ help all of us…!” Thorne replied, finally.

13. Lay Down Misere

Hindsight Training Unit, HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Saturday

August 17, 1940

He was in the Soho lane again, but this time it was much darker. His wife was walking ahead in her woollen jacket, and the skinheads were behind him as usual. There was her scream, the fight, and suddenly he was no longer Max Thorne. In that moment, he instead became one of the thugs, and saw everything through the other man’s eyes. He waited for the Australian to dispatch the first two ‘Skins’ before coming in and putting him down. He felt the blow jar his leg as he threw the toe of his Doc Marten against the man’s skull. He saw everything, horrified as he felt the anticipation — the anticipation — as the animal turned and reached out for his wife. She was screaming continually now as his hands reached out for her, and as she turned toward him, the hood of her jacket fell away to reveal the gaunt, festered face of a decaying corpse… and it was still screaming…

Thorne awoke with a savage jolt, a cry on his lips and tears in his eyes. He slowly checked his watch, his chest heaving as he tried to calm down in the cold darkness of the early morning. It was just gone 3:00am — he’d had less than two hours sleep since they’d arrived back at HMS Proserpine — and although he knew it’d be ridiculous to even consider sneaking across to the Officer’s Mess, reason was in short supply at that time of the morning. He dressed quickly in windbreaker and track pants and slipped out of his quarters in search of the pointless oblivion of alcohol.

Up already and patrolling as usual, Kransky was the only man to notice as Thorne made his way slowly along the gravel path outside the billets and stepped inside the mess door. The American watched from a few hundred metres away and shook his head slowly, otherwise motionless and all but invisible in the shadows of a nearby stores building. Illumination within the base wasn’t great at night, but it was good enough for Kransky to recognise the Hindsight CO well enough. As he was often up and about in the wee hours of those cold mornings, the sight of Thorne sneaking into the Officers Mess wasn’t an unexpected sight in any case: it’d been happening regularly enough for the security chief to generally prefer to be elsewhere and save the awkwardness of knowing what was going on.

He couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it officially for a variety of reasons: he had a great deal of respect for Thorne, and whatever was destroying the man’s soul was surely powerful indeed. Kransky had seen his share of nightmares over the years, and still kept enough of his own ‘demons’ at bay to know how fine the line was. He didn’t seek solace in alcohol these days, or the other stupidities such as opium or morphine, but he knew how close he’d also come to going under in his time. So far, Thorne’s illicit nocturnal wanderings hadn’t caused any undue difficulty, so he let the man be.

Luftwaffe Airbase at Stavanger

Sola, Southern Norway

Last minute changes to mission orders were always problematic at best, and Carl Ritter had been more than a little unimpressed with the sealed orders he’d received from local HQ late on Thursday afternoon. The staff flight and I Gruppe of ZG26 was to be temporarily reassigned to Luftflotte Five and transfer immediately to Norway to become part a large-scale air assault scheduled for that weekend. Chaos had reigned as his staff flight and I Gruppe — barely returned to St Omer following completion of flight conversion to the new aircraft — underwent complete upheaval once more, with overnight bags packed and aircraft readied and equipped with extra fuel tanks for the long trip ahead. Departing early on the Friday morning, a four hour flight had taken the unit almost 1,000km north to Stavanger Airbase at Sola, Norway.

Stavanger was the country’s second oldest airport and had been opened personally by the King of Norway in May of 1937. It was a modern facility right from the beginning, and was the second airport in all of Europe to have a concrete runway installed. Fallschirmjäger from the 7th Flieger Division attacked on April 9 of 1940, and the ensuing battle lasted no more than an hour. The installation was now the Luftwaffe’s Norwegian headquarters, and was in the process of significant upgrades and construction which had already included the extension of the main runway — runway 18/36 — out to almost three kilometres in length.

Runway 11/29 was also now being built, cutting across the southern section of 18/36 at an oblique angle, and around both of these were placed numerous taxiways, hardstands and revetments to provide shelter for the multitude of aircraft that currently called Stavanger home. The units assigned to Luftflotte-5 included sections of KG26 and KG30, a gruppe of fighters each from ZG76 and JG77, and a variety of lesser types assigned to reconnaissance and coastal patrol units. Added to all that were a further collection of ‘visiting’ aircraft that’d been collected for the mission at hand.

First and foremost were the bombers of the newly-formed SKG1. The B-10A ‘Amerika Bomber’ was a huge aircraft, with four radial engines of the same type that powered the S-2D. Thirty metres long, and with a wingspan of over forty-three metres, the B-10A mounted eight 13mm machine guns in two dorsal and two ventral turrets, remotely-controlled by gunners aiming from Perspex sighting ‘blisters’ protruding from above and below the central section of the aircraft. Two 23mm cannon were fitted to a manned tail turret that provided its gunner with some added ‘sting’ against any enemy fighter attempting an attack from directly behind. The spacious bomb bays could carry up to 9,000kg of bombs, and do so out to a range of 5,000 kilometres or more at altitudes where most fighter aircraft would have trouble reaching them. The sight of fifty-six of the huge aircraft at one time, spread about the periphery of the airbase, was an impressive one indeed.

Then there was the arrival of I/ZG26 and the entirety of JG54, its J-4A fighters flown in to provide top cover for the heavy bombers and for Ritter’s aircraft. With an entire geschwader of the B-10A strategic bombers already assigned, the Oberstleutnant had wondered why Luftflotte HQ would bother adding a single gruppe of S-2Ds to the mission, but an experienced pilot operating in the real world quickly gave up questioning the logic of higher authority. An assault by more than fifty heavy bombers would leave little of any base standing, and Fliegerkorps presumably wanted to make sure the base was out of action and nothing more. A low-level, follow-up flight could confirm what damage had been done by the heavies, even if there’d most likely not be much left for his aircraft to actually attack.

Despite following the general planning of the coming air raid on the Scapa Flow anchorage, Reichsmarschall Reuters was completely unaware that it now also involved part of Carl Ritter’s unit. Zeigler, true to his word, had spoken to Herman Göring and had indeed convinced the Chief of the Luftwaffe to issue surreptitious extra orders for Ritter’s inclusion in the attack. It hadn’t been difficult in truth, as there was some personal involvement in the issue for the OdL also.

Never realising how close to the mark he actually was, Herman Göring always felt Kurt Reuters had ‘stolen’ the rank of Reichsmarschall that should rightfully have been his. That Zeigler had made it clear… or at least implied… that the loss of Oberstleutnant Carl Ritter would significantly hurt Kurt Reuters was more than enough impetus for the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe to make the appropriate calls.

Göring was also one of few men in Germany who actually knew the truth regarding the New Eagles, their origins, and their ultimate goals; and as a result, he was also aware in a vague sense of the existence of Hindsight. Although not clear on what futuristic aircraft or equipment the enemy possessed at Scapa Flow, this fighter ace of the Great War had enough of an understanding of what he’d seen of the Sukhoi strike aircraft New Eagles had fielded to recognise the risks involved in attacking the Hindsight unit were great indeed. He had no problem whatsoever in assigning Ritter’s Staff Flight and I/ZG26 to a secondary assault of the base at Scapa Flow.

Zerstörergeschwader 26 carried out final pre-flight checks in the cold Norwegian darkness of early morning; Ritter, Meier and the rest of I Gruppe watching as ground crew milled around their aircraft, loading fuel and weapons. There were new types of bombs being loaded beneath each wing of these new aircraft, outboard of a fuselage-mounted 600 litre auxiliary fuel tank. Each S-2D was being fitted with four long, sleek 500-kilogram bombs (the instructor at Orly had called them ‘low-drag’), and along with them were two tank-like canisters of a strange substance the pilots had never before experienced outside the bombing range. A mixture of gasoline and naphthalene flakes, the end product was a lethal incendiary substance able to lay fiery waste to whole areas. Even the name was strange and non-explanatory: napalm.

Ritter and Kohl waited patiently as their own maintenance staff completed the necessary pre-flight checks. There was little of interest to look at outside, other than the work going on around their aircraft: most of the airfield itself was still invisible in the pre-dawn darkness, and Ritter’s short experience of Stavanger during daylight hours the day before suggested that the presence of sunlight wouldn’t have helped matters all that much, being autumn and freezing cold… it was Norway after all. Ritter’s disdain for the country was based primarily on the upheaval the transfer had caused to his unit and his personal situation, rather than any real dislike or knowledge of the country itself.

He looked down for a moment and stared a small black and white photograph fixed to one side of his instrument panel. Within the image were captured the smiling faces of Maria and Antoine, with the stunning backdrop of the Eiffel Tower behind. She held the sleeping baby in her arms, and the natural feel of the picture could’ve been a depiction of any normal, happy family.

He smiled faintly as he stared down at the photo, but there was also a vague sense of pain and longing as he felt the separation from his beloved wife and the new-found family they’d now tasked themselves to protect. The days in Paris had been the most wonderful he could remember in far too long, but the requirements of military service were never far away, and in the end he’d of course been forced to return to his unit and to active duty. It was this that left more of a bitter taste in his mouth than any disruption of the unit’s normal daily routines.

He checked his instruments once more — the tenth time in half an hour — and reassured himself everything was in order as the crew outside finally gave him the all clear.

“All set, Wolff?” He called to his rear gunner over the intercom as he kicked the S-2D’s huge radial engine over for the first time. “Ready to head ‘once more unto the breach’…?”

“Ready for a few more hours’ rest, sir thanks all the same,” Kohl replied with a grin. The joke was an old one: that the rear gunner was only ever needed over the target, and as such could catch some extra sleep during the early parts of any long flight.

“With any luck, the ‘big boys’ will have taken care of the opposition by the time we get there and there’ll be no need to wake you at all.”

“That would be just wonderful, Mein Herr: if you could have a word to the bomber crews about, that it would be a huge help.”

“I’ll see what I can organise,” Ritter chuckled, feeling better already as the ground crew finally removed his wheel chocks and he moved his throttle forward, slowly at first as the Lion began to move toward the middle of the long taxiway they were using as a secondary airstrip.

Not long after 0300 hours that morning, Staff Flight and I/ZG26 staggered woozily into the air, twenty-six aircraft sharing between them close to eighty tonnes of offensive hardware. The flight formed up loosely in the darkness at 5,000 metres, pilots navigating by instruments and keeping pace with each other by carefully watching the pale formation ‘strip’ lighting fitted to each of the aircraft’s wingtips and fuselage sides. At their best economical cruising speed, they were the slowest of the aircraft by far, and although the heavy bombers would ultimately arrive first over the target at the end of their 600 kilometre journey, the B-10A’s were only beginning to taxi out to the flight line for take off as the Lions flew on. Scapa Flow lay two hours away, and there’d be plenty of time for ZG26 to form up properly in daylight with their fighter escort before they reached their distant destination.

Hindsight Training Unit, HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

He checked and rechecked his equipment several times as he prepared himself carefully for the morning ahead. A final, coded radio message the night before had been quite clear in its instructions, and he’d follow orders regardless of the fact that he’d not be likely to survive their execution. With a little good fortune and a good deal of planning, he might at least survive long enough to carry out all of the aspects of his mission: after that, he’d happily let the cards fall where they may.

Originally a German-born British citizen, Kristof Klein was also a dedicated and fanatical Nazi. He operated under a different identity of course, in his undercover role as a British Army officer within the Hindsight base, but he’d grown up in the Realtime late 20th Century as a rabid anti-Semite, and idolised Adolf Hitler as if the man had been a god. As a young man, he’d trained with the British SAS and had served well for several years before an anonymous report had alerted his superiors to several racial hatred articles posted on his Facebook page.

He’d been summarily dismissed — the Europe of the 21st Century took an exceedingly dim view of anti-Semitic or racially-based hate propaganda — and had spent a year or two in unemployment limbo before being ‘found’ by the New Eagles. The group had seen his training and personal ideology as perfect to fulfil their requirement for a sleeper agent to be infiltrated into 1930s British society, join their officer corps and become a ‘model citizen’. For an angry young man suddenly lacking in direction, the offer of an opportunity to not only fight against Judaism but also become a part of the creation of Hitler’s greatest dream of Grossdeutschland was a dream come true, and Klein had leaped at the chance.

The aftermath of the previous air attack had resulted in doubled guards at each of the four radar units around the island, and a pair of armed men also stationed outside the control room itself. The partially-buried bunker was sunk into open ground between the Hindsight airfield and the main base at HMS Proserpine, on the north-east coast of Hoy Island. A crooked line of zigzagged slit trenches ran north and south from the entrance, and it was thereby possible to enter from some distance and approach unobserved. Klein checked his watch for the third time in ten minutes as he crouched by the far end of the southern trench line. It was 0523 hours: few personnel were out and about at such an early hour, and dawn itself was still just barely threatening the eastern horizon.

He slipped into the trench line and made his way between the hardened earth walls at a crouch to ensure his head remained unseen below ground level on either side, silently glad the weather had remained dry so far, and that there’d been no rain to turn the ground around him to mud. As he neared the last turn leading to the bunker entrance, he could hear the soft conversation of the pair of guards stationed outside, and paused to draw a silenced Walther PPK from within the folds of his bulky combat jacket.

Drawing a deep breath of preparation, he cocked the hammer and waited another moment as he checked to ensure there were no sounds of anyone else nearby. Stepping quickly around into the next trench, he raised the pistol before either guard could react. Their first thoughts were that the man who’d appeared before them was a familiar and trusted superior officer, and it was far too late by the time they also realised there was a pistol in his hand. The Walther was barely audible as he fired a pair of ‘double-tapped’ shots into each man’s forehead without a moment’ hesitation, and the thud of their lifeless bodies against the hard floor of the trench was far louder than the suppressed gunfire that had caused their deaths.

He quickly exchanged the weapon’s magazine for a full one taken from his jacket, wasting no time checking for signs of life that he knew wouldn’t be present: the sound of the bodies falling would’ve been audible from within the bunker, and although the cause of the commotion would be a mystery, those inside would nevertheless be alert. Holding the weapon behind his back, he opened the closed wooden door and stepped inside. As it closed behind him once more, the only sound remaining was the soft rustle of the surrounding grass in the cool morning breeze.

Rifle and pack at his shoulders as always, Kransky squatted at the water’s edge and ignored the biting cold that morning as he watched the ships cruise past at good speed. From his vantage point on the beach at South Walls, near the southern entrance to the anchorage between Hoy and South Ronaldsay, he couldn’t fail to be impressed by the grand sight as the Home Fleet steamed out. The battleships Malaya, Warspite, Queen Elizabeth and Nelson and the battlecruiser Renown were leaving under full steam, accompanied by a support force of cruisers and destroyers. In line-ahead formation, they stretched over quite a few kilometres as the ships headed out and turned off to the east, the battleships in the van and the destroyers forging ahead to screen the fleet as they reached open waters.

It was a sizeable surface force — most of the Home Fleet — and Kransky knew where they were bound. As security chief he worked closely with his opposite number at HMS Proserpine and was therefore privy to classified information that most weren’t cleared to know. There’d been a full alert some time before dawn following word that a British submarine had reported a large enemy surface force heading north-west off Jutland. The sub had lost contact soon after in heavy patches of low-level fog off the Norwegian coast, but there’d been sufficient time to note the presence of at least one battleship and possibly also an aircraft carrier.

That’d been more than enough information to warrant mobilisation of the fleet that was now steaming past before him through the Pentland Firth: with heavy fog predicted across large sections of the North Sea, it was unlikely the Luftwaffe would be able to prevent the Royal Navy’s attempt to interdict a Kriegsmarine ‘breakout’ into the North Atlantic. An aircraft carrier that couldn’t launch its aircraft was a juicy target indeed, and was well worth the risk of sending the Home Fleet into battle.

Kransky was still watching as a Daimler Dingo armoured car powered over a low rise to the west and slid sharply to a halt a dozen metres away. He turned and rose to his feet, instantly spotting Sergeant Drews, one of his primary security team, at the controls. The expression on the man’s face clearly told him something was seriously wrong as he jogged across to the vehicle.

“The radio at the command bunker was… out of action, sir, so I thought it best to come and get you directly…” He began, almost breathless.

“What’s up, Neil?” Kransky demanded as he drew up beside the car.

“There’s been an ‘incident’, sir… I think it’d be best if you had a look for yourself. I’ll give you the details as we go…” He insisted, and Kransky was inclined to take his word for it based on the man’s expression.

Kransky had no easy time fitting himself, his pack and weapons into the vehicle, but it was finally accomplished, and a moment later the Dingo was roaring away at close to top speed, the unevenness of the gravel track making both men feel every single one of its eighty kilometres per hour speed.

Warrant Officer Harold Clarke lay against the inside wall of the command bunker as Kransky, Drews and two SAS troopers — one of them Corporal Evan Lloyd — stood there no more than five minutes later, surveying the scene in stunned silence. Neither Clarke nor the two guards lying on the floor beside him could tell the others what had happened, but they gave silent evidence well enough in death. A pair of dark, bloody bullet holes in each man’s forehead made the situation clear enough. Clark’s issue Browning pistol lay secure in its holster, and the guards submachine guns were unfired: it was clear there’d been no warning whatsoever.

“The radar controller’s been shot full of holes…!” Lloyd observed as he hurriedly went through the process of connecting a second, laptop-like console to the incoming network feeds and forced himself to ignore the corpses lying nearby. “I grabbed this back up unit out of storage.”

“One of the guards at the Tor Ness emplacement raised the alarm when they couldn’t raise Doghouse for a scheduled status check.” Drews explained quickly as Lloyd brought the spare unit back online. “They reported it to me, so I came down to investigate and found this…” The tone of his voice made it clear he’d been rattled by the discovery, and no one could blame the man in the slightest for that. “That’s when I came to get you, sir.”

“Getting a reading on multiple bogies,” Lloyd called with breathless excitement as the control unit finally powered up, confirming exactly what Kransky had feared. An aerial attack was the only possible reason there could’ve been for bringing the system down so comprehensively. “Picking up fifty-plus in three distinct formations to the east, but the distance is still too great to get a clear number… range about than one-fifty klicks, and they’re at very high altitude: close to ten thousand metres.” Lloyd turned and fixed Kransky with a deadly stare. “We’ve got fuckin’ heavies coming in!”

Kransky was already lifting the collar-mounted speaker/mike to his lips. “Max — this is Richard… come in please!” He’d set the radio to a frequency that could only be picked up by Thorne, but he received no answer whatsoever. A second call was to no avail, and elicited the same response. Although he couldn’t know for certain, he had a fair idea why there was no reply: the radio was in Thorne’s quarters, and the Hindsight CO would no doubt still be in the Officers Mess, probably drunk and/or passed out.

“Neil, get everyone to their posts: we’ve got a major raid coming in!” He ordered as he disengaged the portable radio set from his belt webbing and handed it to Lloyd. “Find out where the fuck Merrill is as well: I want to know where my fucking second-in-command’s been hiding with his dick in his hand while someone’s been doing such a swell job of fucking over our security! Evan… you’re in charge here… you know this equipment better than most, and you’re one of the few I can actually trust. Stay alert and keep us informed.” He turned his attention to the second armed SAS trooper standing by the doorway with Kalashnikov rifle in hand. “Dicko… make sure no one comes in here… those are my specific orders! Unless it’s me or Max Thorne, they stay out — got it?”

“Got it, sir!” The private assured with the characteristically relaxed professionalism he’d become accustomed to receiving from the Australian soldiers. The man’s first name was Richard also, but preferred the unlikely nickname of ‘Dicko’ — something which suited Kransky and kept things simple as far as identification was concerned.

“Anyone else tries to get past you, shoot them!” The stare was enough to convince the SAS trooper of Kransky’s seriousness, and the young man simply nodded in recognition.

Kransky turned in an instant, pausing by the bunker entrance only to slam his fist against the alarm switch mounted on the near wall before ducking out into the trench beyond and clambering up onto the open ground, leaving his pack but taking the huge sniper rifle with him.

Klein hadn’t found Thorne in his quarters as should’ve been the case that early in the morning, and the discovery — or lack thereof — had created some significant consternation and irritation in his mind. He knew there’d only be a window of mere minutes before the impending air raid was detected and the alarm was raised, and in that short space of time he was expected to kill Max Thorne and disable both fighters if possible. Logic suggested the jets should have been the higher priority, but his last received orders had stressed how important it was to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht that Thorne be taken care of.

Finding the Hindsight CO however was now proving to be a less simple task than Klein had originally planned, and he spent just a moment standing in the middle of the empty room with gun in hand before leaving to continue looking. Keeping the weapon and his right hand tucked inside his half-open combat jacket for concealment, he stepped out of the barracks once more and broadened his search.

Another five minutes passed before both alarm bells and the air raid sirens rose simultaneously around the base, alerting all of impending danger. He knew then that he had no time left for this futile search, and decided instead to head immediately for the flight line in the hope there might still be a chance of disabling one or both of the jet fighters. It was as he jogged past the entrance to the Officer’s Mess that the door flew open, and a stumbling Max Thorne crashed straight into him without warning.

The pair sprawled to the ground in opposite directions, and Thorne was about to mumble an embarrassed apology as he quickly regained his feet, but was stopped in his tracks by the sight of the silenced Walther in the man’s hand. Thorne recognised the man instantly — he knew him as Captain Merrill, Kransky’s security 2IC — and instinct told him that he was undoubtedly also staring at their suspected infiltrator.

Klein leaped to own his feet in an instant, catlike and on edge. Just a quick glance about told him there was no one in the immediate vicinity, and as he aimed the Walther at Thorne’s head, he dared to hope he might actually make good an escape in the ensuing confusion of the air raid. His face was forming into a smug grin, finger tightening on the trigger, as the upper part of Klein’s torso exploded into a spray of crimson gore and blood. His right arm was thrown sideways, taking the pistol’s aim along with it as the PPK discharged into the ground by Thorne’s feet.

Travelling at around three times the speed of sound, the energy of the 750-grain, fifty-calibre slug that had struck Klein wasn’t completely spent by its impact with a human body, and continued on to punch its way through the near wall of the Officers Mess. As flesh and blood spattered the wooden boards around the hole, it finally embedded itself in the stone fireplace on the far side of the room beyond, blasting a large chunk out of the mantelpiece. Klein lived just long enough before he fell to realise what had happened and stare shakily down at the huge hole where his chest had once been as the sound of the shot finally reached them. Another second and he lay dead on the gravel path, almost blown in two as Thorne, still drunk, fell to his knees once more and vomited savagely over the sudden, shocking nature of the man’s death.

Standing more than four hundred metres away across an open expanse of grass between the main buildings and the flight line, Kransky lowered the smoking Barrett rifle from his shoulder and unfolded the bipod legs, leaving the weapon propped on the ground as he began running toward Thorne at full speed and armed men appeared from all around at the sound of the shot.

Personnel were taking their battle stations all over the base as Kransky reached the kneeling Thorne, the Australian still recovering from his bout of retching. Davies, Donelson and Trumbull had emerged from their quarters by that stage and were also converging on Thorne’s position outside the Officers Mess.

“We’ve got a large group of aircraft inbound from the east at high altitude,” Kransky wheezed heavily, gasping for breath after his run as Thorne finally began to struggle to his feet. He angrily kicked at Klein’s corpse. “This son of a bitch here killed WO Clarke and Privates Collins and Hamish before taking out our radar… it was only luck we picked it up as quickly as we did.”

“He’d have done for me as well, Richard,” Thorne observed shakily, unable to take his eyes away from the body for much more than a moment, but sending the American a meaningful glance all the same. “Thanks mate…”

“No worries,” the security chief replied, using vernacular he’d picked up over the last six weeks from the Australians on the base. “My pleasure…”

“Jesus Christ, Max — are you all right?” Eileen cried out anxiously as she reached his side ahead of the others, clutching at his shoulder and drawing a startled breath as she got a good look at what was left of Kristof Klein.

“Thanks to Richard here, yes,” Thorne said softly, aware there was pressing business to attend to and struggling to gather his wits completely. He turned back to Kransky, his mind finally functioning a little clearer as adrenalin began to force shock and drunkenness from his thoughts. “How much time do we have?”

“Fifteen minutes… maybe less. They were out at a hundred miles… Evan thinks they’re heavy bombers.”

“They will be,” Thorne stated simply, his professional mind kicking in as he started to act. “This is the ‘big one’ we’ve been worried about… they won’t have sacrificed their agent here for anything less.” He turned to Eileen. “Get over to the flight line and get those crews into the transports… I want both planes up and out of the area in less than ten minutes! I also want both Tunguskas moved as far away from the base as possible: we haven’t time to get them loaded onto the Galaxy, but if we can get them somewhere safe, they may still be able to help fight off the raid. Get on that now…!”

“Right away, Max,” she acknowledged, turning away slightly and issuing orders through the radio speaker/mike at the throat of her combat jacket.

“Jack: get the Raptor loaded with as many AMRAAMs as you can and get airborne — you’ve got five minutes!”

“Gotcha…!” The Texan grinned excitedly, spinning on his heels and running away toward the flight line. He was already dressed in his flight suit.

“Alec!” Thorne snapped, turning to Trumbull as the man stepped toward him in response. “Suit up — you’re flying the Lightning.”

“Me…?” Trumbull’s jaw dropped. “You want me to take that thing into combat…?”

“You’re good enough and you know it,” Thorne snapped impatiently, the statement true enough. “It took you no time to pick up the shit you didn’t know already, and you’ve been flying brilliantly both in reality and on the simulator. You have to be able to fly that thing in actual combat, and this is as good a time to start as any.”

“Max… I don’t think I’m ready for this yet… give me a Spit and I’d be up there in a flash, but…”

“I don’t have time to fucking argue with you, Squadron Leader!” Thorne snarled angrily, reaching the end of his short tether. He jammed an outstretched finger across to the aircraft on the distant hardstands. “Get suited up and get that fucking airplane off the ground!” He’d been wearing the rank of Air Vice Marshal long enough now for the authority to carry some real weight, and the never-before-seen ferocity of his words forced Trumbull into automatic action.

“Yes, sir…!” He snapped in curt reply, instantly turning and running in the same direction as Davies. The exchange had surprised Kransky with its ferocity, and hadn’t escaped the shocked attention of the nearby Commander Donelson, momentarily distracted by the outburst as she continued to issue orders over her radio.

“How many aircraft…?” Thorne snapped testily, turning back to Kransky.

“Uncertain, but Evan called it ‘fifty-plus’…”

“Fuck…! Get on to the reserve crew at Eday, and have ‘Alternate’ made operational. We’re gonna need it if a couple of those bastards get through — and they will.” Without waiting for a reply, Thorne stormed off toward his quarters to find his uniform — the windbreaker and track pants suddenly felt both incredibly cold and inappropriate.

Ground crew were wheeling away the access ladder as Trumbull seated himself properly and began to set his harness. The engine was already reaching full power as the cockpit canopy closed and he fixed the HMDS system over his head, connecting everything to the appropriate cockpit interfaces. A moment later, the F-35E was in the air and he was climbing sharply away, circling above the airbase to gain altitude as he turned onto an easterly heading at full throttle.

“Yo, Harbinger — you ready to kick some ass?” That was Davies’ voice, deafeningly loud in his ears, or so it seemed to the nervous RAF pilot. “You readin’ me, Max…?” Davies asked with interest a moment later upon receiving no immediate answer.

“Ah… Phoenix-One… this is Harbinger reading you loud and clear, over,” Trumbull began uncertainly, his normally fluid flying mind more than a little stressed. “I’m afraid Max isn’t on this flight, Captain…”

“Is that you, Trumbull…?” The decidedly unimpressed reply came back in an instant. “Son of a bitch…!” A second, longer pause did Trumbull’s confidence no good whatsoever. “Okay, kid… this is how we’ll play it. Don’t use your missiles on the fighters: bombers take priority. Fighters’ll need to come in for a strafing run if they want to do any damage, and that’ll be close enough for the Tunguskas to take them on with cannon, but the bombers can stay well out of range. I’ll fire first… wait for mine to hit before releasing your AMRAAMs: we can’t afford to have any duplication of targets. Once we’re both out, we can go in with cannon. The Tunguska’s missiles will take over once we’re out of ammo, but they only have a slant range of about twelve miles, so we’ve gotta do what we can before the Krauts get that close…!”

“Roger, Phoenix-One,” Trumbull acknowledged, speaking faster as he started to feel more comfortable with the controls and his professionalism began to take over. “Reading you loud and clear…” His mind ran through the procedures he’d learned in computer simulators, and practised many times on training flights with Thorne, switching the F-35E’s APG-81 radar system over to air search mode and arming his AIM-120D AMRAAM missiles.

In stealthy flight modes, the Lightning II carried all its weapons internally, and on aerial combat missions could carry just two AIM-120s and two AIM-9X Sidewinders within its pair if fuselage weapons bays. The F-35 also possessed the option to carry extra ordnance in non-stealthy modes however, and possessed numerous wing and fuselage hardpoints for just such situations. The aircraft’s 25mm GAU-22/A four-barrelled rotary cannon was mounted in a stealthy pod beneath its centreline fuselage pod, while each wing was loaded with an extra five AIM-120s just as the F-35E had been at the time of the first attack three days earlier.

“You an ace, Trumbull…?” Davies’ inquiry was short and sharp, and Trumbull finally caught sight of the Raptor far below him as it roared from the end of the Hindsight runway at full afterburner. The F-22 took longer to get into the air, but it would make up for that in very short order once actually airborne.

“Affirmative, Phoenix-One: eighteen confirmed kills…”

“I guess you’ll do just fine, then — just remember to keep your eyes on your altimeter and stay out of the Tunguskas’ four thousand metre ‘exclusion zone’: we’ve deactivated the safeguards on their IFF transponders after the last attack, and they’re now free to fire on anything that comes into range, friendly or otherwise. The air overhead’s gonna get real busy soon, and those boys at the fire controls will have their hands full trying to work out who’s who… better if we make sure they only have Germans to shoot at! Good luck, buddy… over and out!”

Oberstleutnant Johann Bauer sat at the controls of his B-10A strategic bomber as the North Sea slipped past almost 10,000m below. The first twenty aircraft of Staff Flight and I/SKG1 were now just seventy kilometres from their target at Scapa Flow, flying in a three-tiered box formation that could supply excellent concentrations of massed fire against a would-be attacker from any direction. Although his crews were new and barely tested in real combat, they were nonetheless confident, well-trained and quite calm. The RAF was all but destroyed, and whatever the enemy could field would be up against heavily armed bombers that could hit at British fighters with their heavy machine gun turrets long before the enemy was close enough for their .303 Browning machine guns to be effective.

A few kilometres behind them, II/SKG1 followed in a similar formation, and III Gruppe behind them. The air was freezing cold at that altitude, and the moisture and condensation from the hot exhausts of the bombers’ four powerful BMW twin-row radials crystallised and formed long, streaming contrails of ice stretching back the way they’d come. Those contrails could be seen from great distances, and were a clear indicator as to the formations’ positions at any given moment.

The Amerika Bomber was a huge aircraft, and was completely state-of-the art. Its streamlined, ‘glasshouse’ nose provided a superb view for its flight crew, while its gunners commanded their remote-controlled defensive turrets from a pressurised, heated compartment amidships. New analogue, computing gun sights produced by Carl Zeiss AG took into account aircraft speed, range and numerous other factors to produce accuracy far superior to manually aimed weapons, giving the turrets’ 13mm weapons an engagement range of almost 1,000 metres — close to double what would otherwise be possible.

Everything about the Messerschmitt Model 264 — designated B-10A by the RLM — was new and technologically advanced. Bauer and the rest of their crews felt as if they were flying aircraft years ahead of their time. Had they been provided the same insight into the future that some others possessed, they’d have known exactly how accurate those feelings were.

Fighters of I/- and II/JG54 circled around above the bombers in ‘finger-four’ formations, straining at the very limit of their service ceiling with pairs of 300-litre drop tanks beneath their wings. Most of the mission planners believed the bombers alone would have enough firepower to deal with whatever air threat the RAF could field, but it paid to be cautious. The fighter pilots kept a watchful eye on the skies around them — unlike their bomber colleagues, they were all hardened veterans who knew better than to take anything for granted.

The crews of the lead bombers and escorting fighters caught sight of distant contrails rising into the sky ahead to meet them a few moments later. To a man they almost laughed with relief and smug confidence as it became apparent that just two lone enemy aircraft had taken to the sky against them, albeit a pair of enemy that seemed to be approaching at extremely high speed. Bauer felt as if it were almost too easy, but transmitted orders for his crews to man and prepare their gun positions all the same. As each aircraft’s turrets powered up, they swivelled to face in the direction of the expected threat.

“We’ve got fighters buzzing around the heavies, Harbinger, so keep your distance and keep your airspeed up — they can’t catch you, but they can still hit you if you’re slow enough to give ‘em a chance,” Davies ventured over the radio as they drew to within forty kilometres of the lead formations, now climbing side by side.

“Roger, Phoenix-One… understood…” Trumbull’s sounded more confident and relaxed now: he was becoming accustomed to the environment around him, and his natural instincts as a fighter pilot had taken control.

“You’ll be okay, buddy,” Davies reassured, noting the increased confidence that had crept back into Trumbull’s tone. “Their guns can still hurt us close in, but they’ll only have old-fashioned ‘Eyeball-Mark-One’ to aim with, and a jet can be damned hard to hit at speed with manual guns. Trust your gun sights and your systems, and trust your instincts.” He paused and then added: “I’m going to start firing, so follow my lead. Good luck pal, and good hunting.”

With that encouragement, the Texan slewed the Raptor off to the north, giving himself some firing space before rippling off a salvo of AMRAAM missiles. Like the F-35, the F-22 was a stealthy aircraft that was designed to fly into combat ‘clean’, with all weapons stowed internally. Again, like the F-35, it was also fitted with the option to carry extra external ordnance in a ‘non-stealthy’ fashion. A pair of twin-rail launchers were also fitted beneath each of the Raptor’s wings, giving it eight extra AIM-120D missiles to complement the six normally carried within its main weapons bay. All eight of those extra missiles now streaked away from beneath the fighter, each leaving a trail of grey exhaust as they hurtled toward the enemy bombers at four times the speed of sound.

Bauer and his crew spotted the launch immediately, although none of them knew what they were now facing save for the obvious fact that whatever was at the head of these new smoke trails was approaching at an incredibly fast rate. In the last seconds of his life, Oberstleutnant Bauer began to suspect that perhaps these were rockets… guided rockets much like the new Dreizack missiles the Kriegsmarine had been testing against surface ships. Even so, he couldn’t believe that such a guided rocket could travel so fast, or so accurately that it might be able to hit an aircraft in flight.

His B-10A was shattered seconds later by the direct hit of an AIM-120D, the 22kg fragmentation warhead vaporising Bauer and everything else forward of the wing. The remains of seven other aircraft fell out of formation at the same time as each one of the AMRAAMs struck their intended target head-on, hurtling past flights of shocked and incredulous fighter pilots in the process. Some fell in sheets of fire as the warheads set fire to fuel tanks or blew off the wings that held them. Two of those eight disintegrated completely as the bombs in their bellies, detonated in far larger secondary explosions that proceeded to indiscriminately take out another six bombers around them that also fell out of formation and plummeted toward the distant sea below in flames.

Just six of the lead formation now remained as the fighters of JG54 dumped their auxiliary fuel tanks and turned toward the pair of far off attackers, their pilots struggling to understand what had just transpired. Davies launched his second salvo of six missiles from his internal weapons bay, and they too hurtled toward the enemy, with a flight time of less than forty seconds. The rest of SKG1’s lead formation fell from the sky a moment later, destroyed completely by the deadly guided weapons.

“I’m out of missiles… the next formation’s your show, Alec,” Davies called out, forcing any elation out of his system as he reminded himself the job was far from over. “Remember to stay as high as you can: your service ceiling’s about fifteen thousand feet better than theirs, and you can use that to your advantage when things get personal… tally ho, buddy!”

Steeling his nerves, Trumbull pulled back slightly on the Lightning’s stick and sought higher altitude. The HUD built into his helmet sighting system clearly picked out the mass of potential targets ahead of him, and it was relatively easy to identify the fixed formation of bombers in contrast to the faster fighter escorts that flew in smaller groups, and were now all racing ahead of their charges in a desperate attempt to intercept.

He used the buttons on his control yoke to cycle through the range of targets until his systems had locked onto one of the eighteen bombers of the second formation — what had now rather unexpectedly become the lead formation.

“Weapons: select ‘Fox-Three’…” Thorne had taught him the standard NATO brevity codes for weapons launch in air-to-air combat, and ‘Fox-Three’ was the appropriate call for release of an active radar-guided missile. The verbal command was instantly recognised by his avionics systems, and the first of his twelve AMRAAMs was assigned as a green box appeared around the selected target, below which the range reading displayed as -35246- and continuing to fall at a great rate.

One after another, Trumbull released all twelve of his own AMRAAMs, cycling through target after target as each missile streaked away from beneath his wings. By the time the last two had left his internal weapon bays, the first of the missiles was just ten seconds away from impact. He waited with his heart in his mouth as the jet continued to climb through 12,000m, watching desperately as a dozen more streaks of grey arrowed in toward an enemy that still invisible to the naked eye.

One of his AIM-120s malfunctioned midway through its flight, suddenly losing lock and veering off into the blue at an oblique angle before its failsafe systems caused it to self-destruct a moment later. The remaining missiles ran as true as the others, and eleven more of the huge bombers were blasted from the skies in clouds of smoke and flame, leaving just seven of that second group to fly on through the debris.

It worked! Trumbull could hardly control his elation, but his instincts kept him cool and he immediately activated the gun pod beneath his aircraft’s belly.

“‘Fox-Four’ now, Harbinger,” Davies broke in across the radio, confirming it was time to switch to cannon. “Take what’s left of the front formation, while I see if I can break up the group at the rear… that should keep us out of each other’s way. Watch for the fighters, and remember to keep your altitude and your speed up!”

The Raptor’s afterburners flared and it pulled easily away, climbing beyond even the Lightning’s service ceiling of 18,000 metres as Trumbull locked onto the nearest of the remaining bombers with his radar predictor. The circular, green ‘pipper’ gunsight that appeared in his HMDS wavered and bobbed as he lowered the nose slightly to bring the central aiming dot to bear on the luminous square surrounding the target.

He checked the ammo count in the top corner of the readout to confirm what he already knew: 220 rounds of ammunition to feed the four-barrel cannon beneath him. He gave a reassuring grin as the jet roared on at close to the speed of sound. His old Spitfire had carried eight machine guns, and each of those had carried only 300 machine gun rounds: with the massive hitting power of the F-35’s 25mm cannon and radar-assisted gunnery, he was certain he’d be able to take out quite a few aircraft. He was feeling quite confident as he and Davies reached the closing J-4A fighters, the German pilots staring on in stunned impotence as both jets roared past above, well out of range.

Alec Trumbull missed his target completely on the first pass, badly underestimating his approach speed and hurtling through the group of remaining bombers before he’d even squeezed off a shot. The late burst he did eventually fire out of reflex was long, and sprayed sixty wasted rounds through empty sky before he could relax his grip on the trigger. Cursing the mistake, but also learning from the experience, he jerked back on the controls and took the F-35E upward again before stunned fighter pilots or B-10A gunners could target him, barely losing airspeed. A few streams of tracer followed him but they too were wasted, falling away far short.

He circled tightly around in the open space between the formations, climbing back above the enemy once more and turning back on one of the bombers from behind. This time, prepared gunners began to send deadly fingers of tracer out to meet him as he closed the distance, but again they found it difficult to fire accurately on an enemy that moved twice as fast as anything they’d trained for. At a range of fifteen hundred metres, gunsight centred on his target at the rear of the group, Trumbull opened up again with a pair of short bursts that filled the air about his target with shells. The second of the tracer streams tore across the back and wings of the bomber, turning it into a ball of fire in an instant as fuel tanks went up.

He pulled up again and swept past above the flight, clawing his way skyward as the German fighters milled about below in a state of disarray, unable to give chase or even reach his altitude. Trumbull gave the Lightning some room, banking around again and cutting back his throttles just a fraction as the remaining six pilots of that second formation finally lost their nerve and broke ranks, turning away from their approach to target.

The sight of the huge bombers trying to turn tail and run elicited an almost primal whoop of joy that was quite out of character, and recognising that those six aircraft were now no longer a threat, Trumbull turned back toward the last formation and picked his next target. Three more bombers fell to his 25mm shells before he’d exhausted his supply of ammunition.

Davies cut his own swathe through the rear formation at the same time in the Raptor, his 20mm Vulcan gun spraying shells this way and that. However although he carried 480 rounds for the six-barrelled weapon, it fired at twice the rate of the F-35’s gun and he was also out of ammunition after only five enemy had fallen from of the sky. None of the escorts had been in position to cover the rear echelons of the flight — they’d been forward, expecting to intercept anything that came up against them — and Davies’ only concern was enemy fire from the bombers themselves. He made certain he kept well above them, breaking away the moment he’d pumped enough fire into a target to ensure it was out of the game.

He was forced to pull away for good at about the same time as Trumbull, both men forming up again at high altitude as they heading back westward at high speed.

“Phoenix-One to Eyrie — come in Eyrie,” Jack called out on the radio, looking for a response from Thorne down on the ground.

“Receiving you loud and clear, Phoenix-One,” Thorne’s immediate, anxious reply came through over the radio. “What’s your status, over…?”

“Harbinger and I are quitting the battle area now, Eyrie — all Fidos gone and guns empty.” He paused. “You still have at least ten bombers inbound… sorry, Max…”

“You guys did all you could, Phoenix-One, and you have our thanks. Be advised ‘Alternate’ has been activated and you’re being diverted there for refuelling and rearmament. We can’t guarantee getting you off again here before the rest of the bad guys arrive… over.”

“Acknowledged, Eyrie… better get yourselves to safety as well…” Davies affirmed, then added: “Be advised, Max… I’ve visually identified the enemy bombers as B-29s… repeat: enemy heavies have been confirmed as Bravo-Two-Nine Superfortress.”

There was a pause before the reply came back over the radio. “Thank you again, Phoenix-One. Information received and noted… we’ll take appropriate action… Eyrie over and out…”

“We’re heading for ‘Alternate’, Alec,” Davies informed Trumbull as they flew in formation, a hundred metres apart. “Be prepared for a fast turnaround: we may not stop the rest of these bastards getting in, but we can sure-as-shit stop ‘em from living long enough to brag about it!”

Personnel down below at Hindsight and HMS Proserpine were all well-prepared now, with all anti-aircraft positions on the island ready and waiting for the enemy to fly within range. All could now see faint contrails far off in the eastern sky and heading their way, along with an equally-faint haze of cloud and smoke where the distant air battle had raged. Thorne watched the radar screen in the command bunker as aircraft mingled, wheeled and died and the survivors continued on.

The bodies of Harold Clarke and the two guards had been removed, but in spite of several attempts at scrubbing, the awful red stains on the walls and floors where they’d fallen faintly remained to the distaste of all present. SAS Private Dicko Cassar stood beside Thorne as Neil Drews operated the radar system and passed on information by radio.

His mind now mostly clear of alcohol and running on adrenalin, Thorne ran through the appropriate equations in his mind and recalled what he knew of the Boeing B-29 that Reuters had copied to produce the Luftwaffe’s B-10A. Each aircraft could carry about nine tonnes of bombs in its internal bomb bays, meaning they had approximately ninety tonnes of ordnance heading their way. The range was low enough for aircraft staging out of Southern Norway to carry full bomb loads: an eleven or twelve hundred kilometre round trip was nothing for a strategic bomber that could fly across of the Atlantic without refuelling. No matter how he looked at the figures, the answers he came up with weren’t good.

He was roused from his thoughts as Nick Alpert stepped through the entrance to the bunker and approached to stand at his shoulder.

“The Extender’s in the air and the Galaxy’s ready to go… we’re just waiting on the last essential personnel to get aboard.”

“Then get over there, make sure you and Eileen are on that big bastard, and get it the hell out of here!” Thorne replied without taking his eyes from the radar screen.

“You’re the one who should be on that plane, Max,” Nick shot back, cutting his commander off before the turning man could voice his protest. “It’s vital you’re safe… other than perhaps Eileen, no one else is as important to this mission. Dicko, Neil and I can take care of things from here, but you must get to safety!”

“He’s right, sir…!” Cassar agreed, looking up only briefly, and speaking as if referring to the appropriate choice of a new suit. “There’s nothing you can do here that can’t be done by one of us, and it’d be better for everyone if you’re safe.” There was a long pause as Thorne’s logic and emotion battled silently.

“I don’t like this, Nick… I don’t fuckin’ like it at all…!” He stated firmly, torn between two possible decisions.

“We don’t have time to argue, Max,” Alpert shot back as he gave a wry grin. “As a very wise man I know is sometimes fond of saying, ‘Don’t give me the shits! Just do as you’re bloody well told!’…!”

“Wise man, my arse…!” Thorne snorted with a soft chuckle, but his defences crumbled all the same. He clamped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You watch your arse, too!” He cast his gaze around all of the men present. “All of you look after yourselves!”

“Get out of here, Mister…!” Was all Alpert could say, still grinning, and Thorne was gone an instant later, running at full speed for the Galaxy as it waited at the near end of the runway.

He was the last man aboard as the rear-loading ramp began to close, and the C-5M immediately began to roll along the strip. He found a piece of solid airframe as the huge aircraft continued to accelerate and grabbed hold of it, close to where Eileen Donelson and at least a dozen others were crammed in, surrounded by ceiling-high crates of different sizes. The Galaxy clawed its way skyward with a deafening howl a moment later, and their stomachs lurched as the secured load around them creaked and groaned and gave all a few nervous moments.

The C-5M banked immediately after take off and continued to climb, seeking safety in an altitude no propeller-driven aircraft could reach as the KC-10A Extender, already far ahead of them, circled high above awaiting the outcome on the ground. Thorne found he was shaking quite noticeably as he held on tightly in rear of the aircraft, and for a change it wasn’t the dry horrors of the ‘morning after’. The one-time fighter pilot had never actually faced live combat before save for his encounter with Reuters’ Flankers of six weeks before, and the current situation of being forced to wait impotently through an air raid without being able to personally fight back was affecting him a great deal. For the first time in his life, he was experiencing what it was to command men in combat in real life, rather than an exercise: to be forced to ask men to risk their lives, and make decisions that determined whether those men lived or died. The experience was one that he found incredibly stressful and particularly difficult.

“Transmission for you, sir…!” An ex-USAF loadmaster shouted over the howl of the engines, tapping Thorne on the shoulder and handing him a miked headset connected to a wall jack nearby by a long, spiralled lead. The Hindsight CO snugged the gear over his head, adjusted the mike in front of his face, and spoke for a few minutes.

“About fucking time…!” He snarled nervously as he lowered the microphone stalk momentarily and nodded his thanks to the loadmaster.

“What’s happening?” Eileen asked loudly beside him.

“Just got notification from Nick that those squadrons of fighters we’ve been expecting finally fucking turned up. They got a call advising they’re expected in within the next ten minutes or so… thank you very fucking much, Air Chief Marshal!” He shook his head angrily at the poor timing of it all. “Could’ve been a bit more use to us by turning up yesterday…!”

Eileen reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder in support, seeing more in his stressed reactions than he’d have liked, had he known that his agitation was so visible. Thorne lifted the microphone level with his lips once more and continued to receive a running commentary of the battle from the bunker control room down on the ground.

At almost 28 square kilometres in area and aligned roughly north-south, Eday was the ninth largest island in the Orkney chain that was a narrow, irregularly-shaped landmass approximately twelve thousand metres long. Comprised predominantly of heather-covered moors, the island’s main economies consisted of limestone quarrying and the extraction of peat, and had never carried a population much greater than a hundred and twenty. It was known for its varieties of seabirds, and as the site of Carrick House, where the pirate John Gow had been captured in 1633. There were also a number of historic, chambered cairns scattered about the island, and toward its northern end was the standing stone site known as the Stone of Setter. There was little else on the island save for one or two small settlements and an observation post for air defence… little except for the covert installation known as ‘Alternate’ where Trumbull and Davies were now bringing their fighters in to land.

Alternate was little more than a concrete runway approximately 2,000 metres long running exactly north-south. Almost in the very middle of the island, the strip — although substantially longer — had been constructed in the exact position as that of grass runway 18/36 of Eday’s Realtime ‘London Airport’ (so named due to its proximity to the nearby Bay of London). There were few facilities to break the otherwise featureless landscape: just two large, circular hardstand areas, one or two large supply huts and an underground fuel tank, all constructed near the runway’s southern end.

Still under construction as Hindsight had arrived at the end of June, and only completed in the last few weeks, it’d been designed to provide an emergency landing strip should the main runway at Hindsight be disabled for any reason. Large sections of camouflage netting lay across the strip’s length when not in use, making it invisible to the prying eyes of enemy reconnaissance to all intents and purposes. At first warning of the impending raid, the skeleton ground crew stationed there on rotating shifts had commenced clearing the netting from the strip in preparation for the jets.

Davies brought the Raptor in from the north to touch down at about the same time Trumbull was settling the Lightning into a vertical landing over one of the southern hardstands. The six-man crew were well-trained and were already prepared with fuel hoses and two trolleys; one carrying replacement missiles while the other carried large crates of 20- and 25mm ammunition along with equipment to reload both fighter’s guns. It took three men to lift one AMRAAM at a time between them and secure it to the launch rails beneath the Lightning’s wings, each 3.6m long weapon’s weight of 150kg no easy lift. At the same time, two men controlled refuelling while the sixth turned a crank handle on the second trolley and replenished the empty ammunition tray at the rear of the F-35’s cannon pod.

Four missiles had been fitted to each wing’s inboard pair of twin-rail launchers by the time the Raptor came to a halt on the hardstand beside the F-35. It was another five minutes before the crew had finished rearming Trumbull’s aircraft and could turn their attention to the Raptor. Neither aircraft would receive a full complement of missiles: there was only space within Alternate’s storage shed to carry twelve of the AIM-120s and these were split equally between the two jets. It took less time to refuel the F-22 than it had to top up the F-35’s tanks. Neither aircraft had used up their entire fuel load in the short distance they’d travelled into combat and back that morning, however vertical landings did consume a substantial amount of fuel in comparison to the Raptor’s conventional approach.

Both of the Hindsight jets were turning back onto the runway at Eday in preparation for take off as the leading B-10As began to release their bombs, the huge bombers’ combination of altitude and range ensuring they were still too far away for the base’s pair of Tunguskas to effectively launch any missiles against them. As each aircraft’s bomb bays were cleared of ordnance, it banked tightly away to the south and headed for home as long range AA fire from the conventional heavy guns of HMS Proserpine began to burst in the sky around them.

There were only a few guns at the very eastern edge of the base able to fire effectively, but they were able to make the few shots they had pay, with Nick Alpert providing everyone with accurate readings on range, altitude and airspeed. One bomber fell to a direct hit from a 4.5-inch shell, trailing flame as it spiralled downward to eventually smash into the waters of the anchorage off Flotta and Hoxa Head. Four more were left damaged and trailing smoke as they desperately made off back to the east and the safety of Norway.

The first of the bombs hit a few moments later. None of those in the KC-10 and C-5M, circling high above the North Atlantic to the west, could see or hear anything of the destruction that followed, nor could Davies in the F-22 as he dragged the jet’s stick back and lifted it from the runway at Alternate, seeking altitude once more. Alec Trumbull was also too preoccupied with more immediate issues as he carried out a rolling take off of his own that consumed less than a third of the runway’s length and also consumed a substantially smaller amount of fuel in comparison to a vertical lift off.

Neither could the ground crew at Alternate get any clear sight of the attack: their view would’ve been obscured by the intervening island of Mainland, even if their vision had been capable of picking out details at a distance of 50km, which of course was impossible. Most of those placed best to witness what was going on at Hindsight and HMS Proserpine in general were those actually there on the ground, and unfortunately they were far too busy having bombs rained down upon them to take in the spectacle objectively.

Each B-10A heavy bomber had loosed more than thirty bombs from its weapons bays, the wobbling dark shapes plummeting downward out of the sky in elongating strings as the rules of ballistics and aerodynamics opened the distances between them in the sky as they fell. Other than active gun crews, almost all of the personnel at Hindsight were already in slit trenches and heavy air raid shelters, and even those at the guns were relatively well protected by high walls of earth, concrete and sandbags. In most cases, although material damage might be unavoidably high, there was an expectancy that human casualties would be comparatively light: there’d been adequate time to get everyone into positions that were a reasonable approximation of safety.

The objective of the attack had of course been to inflict maximum damage to equipment and materiel anyway, ideally with the element of surprise, and the main targets were aircraft and specialist personnel. Both were extremely susceptible to damage in many forms, and it wasn’t necessary even to destroy the aircraft, as sufficient damage minor might well be enough to ground them and render them useless in a world devoid of advanced maintenance workshops or stores of spare parts. As it turned out, the damage inflicted on the ground at Hindsight was anything but minor. Rather than using only conventional high-explosives, the attacking bombers instead carried a mixture of weapons that included HE and also two of the most savage and despised weapons of modern warfare: napalm and white phosphorous. Phosphorous was a volatile substance that was self-igniting, and would burn viciously if exposed to the open air.

The first two sticks of bombs slammed into the base to the left of their intended target, the runway and main buildings, and their shattering explosions rippled across the landscape in a long, deep path that tore through Hindsight’s officers’ billets, the mess and beyond. Great torrents of terrible red flame rose along the path of the rolling impact immersed in black smoke, pillars of thrown-up earth, and the hissing grey clouds of phosphorous as it instantly spread and ignited on contact with the atmosphere. Everything the bombs hit disintegrated under the onslaught, consumed in seconds by fire with the intensity of hell itself. The structures were predominantly wooden in construction, and there’d been no rain for weeks: everything was tinder-dry, and the flames instantly began to spread.

The next three sticks of bombs fell basically on target, the first striking half way along the main runway and ‘walking’ its way up to the hardstands and tower as the other two overlapped on either side and ran on into the hangars and associated buildings beyond. Concrete shattered and cratered under the assault, the tower was blown to pieces by a direct hit from a 250kg HE bomb, and the napalm and phosphorous again consumed a deep strip of land hundreds of metres wide in total destruction.

As the control tower toppled and disappeared into clouds of fire at its base, the hangars collapsing down on themselves as the instant, searing heat melted the iron sheets on their sides and roofs. Blast and shrapnel shattered their framework and brought it crashing down as stores of ordinance and flammables held within those hangars and attached buildings added their force to the devastation. Wayward tracer sprayed in all directions as crates of 20- and 25mm cannon shells cooked off in their crates.

Nick Alpert watched all this from slit trench by the bunker’s entrance, an army ‘tin hat’ helmet jammed tightly on his head. The heat was intense all about as the Hindsight base basically burned to the ground before his eyes, but he continued to relay information back to Drews inside, who in turn passed it on via radio to Thorne and the rest of the aircraft; fighters and transports alike. Something in the periphery of his vision suddenly caught Alpert’s attention, and he turned his head to the east. Looking out across the earth-covered roof of the bunker, there was just enough time to see one of the last five bombers’ bomb ‘sticks’ falling directly toward them.

The men inside the bunker detected a second formation of aircraft on their radar systems at that same moment, again approaching from the east but this time at very low level: as a result, these new bogies had been able to get much closer before being discovered. No one was given a chance to alert anyone else of these new aircraft’s presence however, and Alpert’s last, desperate thoughts were the realisation that those last patterns of bombs were right for them. Fire and death reached them seconds later and swept past. The bunker’s roof and walls were thick and reinforced by iron mesh — high explosive alone wouldn’t have been enough to harm its inhabitants — but phosphorous and napalm were weapons that could kill without penetrating thick concrete or armour plate.

As entire area became saturated with both burning and hissing substances, there was suddenly no oxygen for living creatures to breathe. Alpert, with no time to get under cover, was engulfed in flaming, sticky gasoline and died within seconds. Neil Drews and Dicko Cassar, inside the bunker and ‘protected’ from the immediate effects of napalm and WP, took longer to die from a combination of suffocation and asphyxiation by noxious fumes. They had no chance to give a warning to anyone… instead, the radio simply went silent in a sudden and rather permanent fashion.

Davies didn’t wait for Trumbull as he turned the F-22 to the south-east at full throttle, thundering across Stronsay Firth between Stronsay and Shapinsay, and out across the North Sea in pursuit of the remaining bombers. He quickly left the F-35 behind as a result, and went supersonic even as he continued in a shallow climb. The retreating enemy bombers hadn’t been able to get far and he picked them out instantly on radar while they were just twenty kilometres east of South Ronaldsay, and it took just seconds for him to release his last six AMRAAMs against the nearest of them, six more bombers falling in fire and wreckage a moment later.

Davies was prevented from pressing home his attack with guns however as his radar suddenly picked up more aircraft at low level, this time still heading inbound. At first, he thought them to be the expected two squadrons of RAF fighters, but quickly realised that couldn’t be the case as he quickly identified far more than the expected twenty-four aircraft.

“Bogies… bogies…!” He howled over the radio to anyone who’d listen. “New targets… fifty-plus… twenty klicks out at extremely low level and heading for Hindsight…! Harbinger: I’m out of missiles! Forget what’s left of the heavies and vector onto this new threat!” He tried twice more to raise Hindsight on the radio with no success, and began to have grave fears for the men left on the ground beneath that onslaught.

“Top Hat to Eyrie control — Top Hat to Eyrie control…” The unexpected new and obviously English voice on his radio caught Davies completely by surprise. “Come in please, Eyrie control…”

“Top Hat, this is Captain Jack Davies of Hindsight Training Unit — call sign ‘Phoenix-One’,” Davies broadcast to the new arrivals as the expected RAF fighters finally appeared on his screens, also at relatively low level and approaching from the same direction as the second flight of enemies he’d just detected. “I’ve been unable to raise ground control and fear the worst. Authorisation code word is ‘Phalanx’: I’m assuming command from the air immediately. Be advised there are enemy aircraft in your vicinity, bearing approximately three-three-zero from your current heading. If you have guns and fuel, then we need your assistance urgently with this new threat… Please respond… over…”

‘Phalanx’ was the current version of a weekly code-word that was part of briefings for any pilot operating out of the Hindsight base. The word was intended to provide confirmation that the user — Davies in this case — was cleared to issue direct orders and take command if required, which he was now required to do. The approaching Mustang pilots would’ve all been briefed on the same information prior to departure for the trip up that morning.

“Reading you loud and clear, Phoenix-One… Orders received and understood…”

“Stay out of the Hindsight area until cleared to land, Top Hat,” Davies added, relieved they were all up to speed and that he and Trumbull suddenly had some welcome assistance. “Ground batteries on base are cleared to fire on any aircraft that approaches within a four thousand yard radius and will do so… proceed with caution… over.”

“Information noted and understood, Phoenix-One — thank you for the advice. Have sighted low-level raiders and turning in to engage now… Tally Ho, chaps!” Better late than never, twenty-four long-promised British fighters Davies couldn’t yet see threw themselves into the fray.

Ritter and his aircraft were just five kilometres south-east of South Ronaldsay as an alert call came in from the escorting fighters of I/JG54. The sudden appearance of RAF Mustangs from the south was totally unexpected (even the existence of a previously unknown aircraft was itself a complete surprise) and it was the Luftwaffe pilots’ turn to be caught unawares by the appearance of an unidentified and powerful new opponent.

The Mustangs came in from much higher altitude, using the sun at their backs to blind their quarry until the last moment. The fighters of 93 and 96 Squadrons wore the standard RAF temperate land scheme camouflage of brown and green patches, and unlike their photo-reconnaissance relatives, they were all armed with a pair of high-velocity 20mm Hispano cannon in each wing firing outside the disc of the propeller. They were at least the equal of the J-4A in performance, manoeuvrability and firepower, and their pilots — all drawn from experienced units — were also equal to the challenge of JG54 Grunherz.

Five unsuspecting J-4As were stricken by cannon fire in the first pass, and another two were so badly damaged they were forced to break away from combat. As drop tanks fell from the bellies of the remaining J-4As, the two waves of Mustangs streaked past unscathed through their ranks, their dive speed carrying them on toward the lower-flying S-2D Lions the German fighters had been tasked to protect. Two Mustangs pressed their attacks too closely and were shredded by fire from several rear gunners’ twin 13mm guns, but the attack nevertheless signalled the destruction of three S-2Ds and forced another two to dump their weapon loads and extra fuel in order to escape pursuit, the end result being that I/ZG26 had been effectively stripped of five attack aircraft in one pass.

With the benefit of surprise lost however, the RAF fighters now found themselves engaged in a twisting, low-level dogfight with the remaining J-4As as the S-2Ds opened their throttles and continued on toward their target. The battle was evenly-matched, with both aircraft exhibiting similar performance and manoeuvrability at low level, however the German fighters’ ability to delay the Mustangs was all that was required for them to accomplish their mission: even if the RAF was ultimately victorious, the delays the dogfight created would be enough to ensure the Lion attack aircraft reached their target safe from pursuit. The S-2Ds swept on in formation, passing over the east coast of South Ronaldsay close to the centre of the island.

As they crossed water once more on the other side of South Ronaldsay, the destruction already meted out by strategic bombing became clearly visible for the first time. Smoke rose along a broad stretch of the horizon; thick, black smoke with the flickering of red flame at its base. The pilots of ZG26 could see little else at that distance, but it was clear that serious damage had already been done. Ritter was about to advise his men to drop tanks and prepare for attack as something trailing grey smoke, travelling impossibly fast snapped across his nose and the first of six AIM-120 missiles exploded in the formation’s midst.

Five were either direct hits or detonated close enough to destroy an aircraft, each missile tearing its target from the sky, but at such a low level it was more difficult even for an advanced missile like the AMRAAM to pick targets out of ground clutter. The sixth missile had been targeted on Willi Meier’s S-2D and resulted in a near miss, detonating angrily in the aircraft’s wake as it flew off Ritter’s port wing. The shrapnel that filled the air was more than enough to damage the aircraft badly, and it immediately pulled up and away from the flight, streaming smoke.

“Willi…!” Ritter cried out in shock as his friend’s plane reared upward, seemingly out of control. “Willi…!”

“I’m okay, Carl… barely…” The reply came back over the radio instantly, but Meier’s voice was strained and weak as Ritter craned his neck to see his XO’s plane level out unsteadily behind them. “Johann’s bought it, though. I don’t think I can hold her through an attack run — it feels like she’s going to break up around me!”

“Get out of here, Willi… that’s an order. Just get her home… we’re going in…!”

“I’m sorry, Carl…” The despondent reply came a moment later, Meier’s S-2D lurching and banking away to the west as its tanks and offensive load fell away to explode harmlessly on the surface of the ocean. “God be with you, my friend…!”

“Here we go, boys,” Oberstleutnant Carl Ritter observed with a tense voice as he shifted himself slightly in his seat and reluctantly turned his thoughts back to the target ahead. “Keep it tight and locked up: you all know your jobs and we know what our targets are. Make me proud…”

Auxiliary fuel tanks fell away as the remaining fifteen Messerschmitt fighter-bombers fanned out, barely skimming the wave tops as they swept across the channel between South Ronaldsay and Hoy. His pilots were nervous, and there was a lot more radio chatter than normal as a result. Something unseen had hit them that they couldn’t identify and had thinned their ranks badly… something that had barely appeared for a moment before Ritter’s eyes and was gone again as quickly… and five of his aircraft were down, and a sixth had been forced out of formation as a result.

They were desperately scanning the skies as Davies roared right through the middle of them, faster than most could comprehend. He’d stayed well back until the last of the missiles fired by Trumbull had hit home from a distance of more than fifteen kilometres, before powering in to bring his gun to bear. Wolff Kohl barely had time to cry a warning before a torrent of heavy tracer streamed past off Ritter’s starboard side and tore the plane beside him to pieces.

At such a low altitude however, and now so close to the base, an increasingly desperate Jack Davies momentarily misjudged his approach and suddenly found himself travelling too fast to pull up and away from the formation of German planes as he roared through. As the Raptor thundered above Ritter’s Lion at close to supersonic speed, Davies for just a moment presented an unbelievably juicy target. Acting more out of reflex and instinct than any conscious thought, the commanding officer of ZG26 gave a sharp flick of his joystick that took his gunsights across the disappearing shape of the jet fighter for the most fleeting of opportunities, and the subsequent burst he fired was an extremely lucky one indeed.

His four 20mm wing cannon hammered in concert, filling the air about the Raptor with angry red tracer for a few desperate seconds. Of the hundred or so shells that sizzled past the F-22, just five hit and penetrated the jet’s airframe along its port side. Compressor blades snapped and shattered within, and the American pilot instantly found his aircraft losing vital thrust in one engine. The Raptor began to shudder and yaw violently with the sudden imbalance in power output, and with just enough time to cry “Son of a bitch!” in shock and fear, Davies suddenly found himself fighting for his own survival.

The crews of both 2K22M Tunguska flak vehicles had been watching the air battle with intense interest. Both had been driven out of the main base area at full speed, heading for safer positions in open, high country to the south west, however the relocation had also meant they’d lost some range with which to deploy their missiles against the approaching bombers. The sudden loss of the radar control bunker and the network connections that went with it had also significantly reduced their ability to pick up the approach of the new group of low-flying attackers.

Their own systems were capable of detecting and tracking targets out to thirty kilometres or more, but the contours of the land in the area they’d withdrawn to had unexpectedly created a ‘blind spot’ that had blanked out a large part of what their own internal radar systems could ‘see’ to the east. As such, they were late in locking on to the flight of S-2Ds as the aircraft crossed between South Ronaldsay and Hoy, and only picked them up at the moment Davies swept through their ranks with his cannon blazing.

Parked within two thousand metres of each other, the turrets of both turned almost in unison as their gunners selected their first targets and they prepared to fire. Each vehicle could engage up to three targets at any given time (two with missiles and one with cannon), and a secure wireless link between the pair’s fire control systems ensured neither locked on to a target already selected by the other. Two missiles hissed into the sky in sequence from each Tunguska’s launchers as the twin cannon fired together in concert.

At a range of 4,000 metres, the flight of S-2Ds had barely crossed into the guns’ firing envelope, but it was ultimately the presence of the Raptor within their midst that saved Carl Ritter’s life. The Tunguskas’ IFF receivers had been shut down intentionally to prevent any automatic systems blocking the engagement of enemy targets due to the proximity of friendlies, as had happened during the previous attack. There was therefore no alarm raised within either vehicle that one of the aircraft approaching low against the eastern horizon was in fact Jack Davies’ F-22, invisible to radar as it was in any case. The cannon of the nearer of the two 2K22M had been targeted on Ritter’s aircraft, and fired in the seconds after Davies had roared past and been hit by fire from the German’s wing guns. It was of no consequence to the Tunguska’s fire control systems that another aircraft had strayed into the path of its own cannon as it released a half-second burst that sent fifty-odd 30mm rounds into the sky in twin streams of tracer.

At least ten of those high-explosive shells ripped through the stricken Raptor as it strayed into the path of incoming fire that also slammed into its damaged rear end and basically blew apart everything aft of its twin tails. Alarms and warning lights immediately flooded Davies’ screens and instruments with information, although by that stage he was already all too aware of the massive damaged the F-22 had sustained. All control and power was lost, and he was far too close to the surface of the earth to delay choosing his next course of action.

Captain Jack Davies, never one to hesitate at the best of times, instantly weighed up the situation and made the most difficult decision of his life without a second thought. Tucking his feet in tight beneath him to ensure they cleared the Raptor’s instrument panel, he reached up above his head for the yellow and black striped loops at each corner of his pilot’s seat. He dragged those loops savagely forward, pulling a Kevlar protective ‘shield’ over his head as explosive strips shattered his cockpit glass. He felt the aircraft shudder as rockets ignited beneath him and his Martin-Baker ejection seat blasted a hole through the bottom of the Raptor’s fuselage, propelling him upward and sending him high into the air, away from any danger. The shattered wreckage of the F-22 turned nose-over and smashed itself to pieces against the surface of the water below just seconds later.

The rest of the burst that finished off the Raptor continued on past without hindrance, and two of the remaining shells slammed into the tail of Ritter’s S-2D. Huge chunks were blown out of its aft fuselage, followed by an immediate loss of tail and rudder control. At the same time, five more of his fellow pilots were blasted from the sky around him, four by missiles and another by heavy cannon fire, leaving just his and nine other aircraft flying. Struggling with his own controls, Ritter immediately ordered his remaining pilots to dump their ordnance and abort the attack: he’d rather face his chances with a possible court-martial than see the rest of his men killed.

The remnants of I/ZG26 broke apart and began a turn to the east, bombs falling away unused as they hugged the ocean once more in search of safety. Five more fell to the missiles and cannon of the Tunguskas before they managed to slip back into ground clutter behind Cantick Head and the northern end of the island of South Walls, and Ritter’s dismay over the continuing losses was compounded as the deadly 30mm cannon again sought his out S-2D, dealing it a second glancing blow as several shells this time blasted away a substantial section of his port wing. Combined with the damage already sustained in the earlier attack, it was sufficient to send the aircraft into a nose-high stall for a moment before it turned over onto its back and fell back toward the sea, completely out of control.

Ritter gave the order to bail out and struggled from his own harness as the S-2D reached the apex of its last flight. Both men leaped from their cockpit, and Ritter gasped as his parachute unfurled and sharply retarded his descent moments later. He could only look on in total despair as a second incredible, previously unseen fighter swept down out of the sky and destroyed the last of the S-2Ds as they fled to the east. Wolff hung from his own chute a few hundred metres away, and further off in the distance Ritter could see the pilot of the strange aircraft he’d hit, also floating toward the sea from higher altitude beneath his own parachute.

Carl Ritter closed his eyes as he felt his strength suddenly drain away. He released a weary groan as he descended slowly, the breeze swaying him this way and that. All he could think about was the destruction of an entire third of his geschwader, and the deaths of so many of his men. Just three aircraft — Meier’s and the two forced to abort their attacks earlier — might be fortunate enough to make it back to Stavanger. Most hadn’t been so lucky, and with most of those aircraft lost today destroyed so suddenly and completely, it had been impossible for any other crews to bail out.

Ritter was also baffled as he considered the appearance of those two strange, grey aircraft, and it was a small consolation indeed that he’d been able to damage one of the things sufficiently to contribute to it being brought down by ground fire. The thing had displayed American style insignia… admittedly not the ‘red-spot-in-a-white-star’ of the US Army Air Corps… but it’d been close enough to easily draw conclusions. The aircraft had shown a pale five-pointed star along with the letters ‘USAF’. Had the Americans changed the air arm’s name to United States’ Air Force and he’d merely not heard… could he be certain that he’d seen the words ‘United States’ on the aircraft’s fuselage in the same faded lettering? Surely the American’s couldn’t be so openly aiding the British as to risk an act of war?

…And if they were to declare war against Germany, how could anyone oppose aircraft like that? He gave up agonising over questions he couldn’t hope to find answers for as he opened his eyes and saw the cold, dark water coming up fast to meet him. He grimaced and closed his eyes once more, wondering if his life jacket was going to work now he needed it for the first time… as he thought of the men he’d already lost that day, he wondered for a moment if perhaps it might be better if it failed.

14. Post Mortems

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Saturday

August 17, 1940

The trip back from Alternate by motor torpedo boat had taken three hours, the sleek craft cruising down the east coast of Mainland and around South Ronaldsay to Hoy. Smoke still hung in a pall over most of the Hindsight base as the craft docked at HMS Proserpine, and very little of what remained was recognisable. Davies had been picked up by a boat out of Longhope, on the western side of South Walls, and had been collected at the lifeboat station there as the MTB had passed through. He was wet, cold, battered and bruised, but was otherwise physically sound despite his ordeal. His mental state was another matter however, and as the group continued on to HMS Proserpine, the Texan was unnaturally silent… as were they all, for that matter.

Black: everything was burned black, and the smell of ash and soot was all-encompassing and pervasive. As Thorne, Davies, Trumbull and Donelson walked across the open ground south of the anchorage, they entered a landscape alien enough to have been another planet. Fires were still burning in isolated areas, although damage crews using water tankers with powerful hoses had most of them under control, and most of Hindsight had been burned or completely destroyed. The hangars… storage buildings… the tower and the personnel quarters: nothing much remained other than smouldering foundations or burned out, skeletal frameworks of charred wood and twisted, scorched metal.

The concrete runway that had taken so long to build in anticipation of their arrival, six weeks earlier, had been rendered useless in seconds. Huge craters scarred the surface at irregular intervals along more than half its length, and the intense heat of incendiaries had opened jagged, longitudinal cracks right across it in many places. It’d be weeks of constant repair work before any of their aircraft could use it again, and the real truth was that they all knew that that work would never commence.

Much of the supplies for the aircraft had also been destroyed, along with a large proportion of their cannon ammunition and most of their remaining AMRAAMs, all of it lost in flames as the hangars and storerooms went up. At least the underground tanks buried at the far end of the strip remained intact along, with their thousands of litres jet fuel. It was a small mercy in light of what had been lost.

Kransky and Kelly appeared together, separating from a crowd of fire fighters near the ruins of the main hangars and walking toward them. Their clothes and faces were singed and blackened with soot, the tracks of tears dry against both men’s dirty cheeks. To what extent those tears had been as a result of the heat or of the horror of it all was anyone’s guess. Kransky carried a long-handled shovel, but dropped it the moment he caught sight of the group of Hindsight officers approaching. The men almost staggered over to their position near the remains of the collapsed tower, and they stood together for just a few moments, all silent.

“You’re all right there, Mister Kelly…?” Trumbull asked in a faltering voice, noting the thick bandages that swathed both of the man’s arms from wrist to elbow.

“I’ve been better, to be certain, Mister Trumbull, but I’ll live,” Kelly grimaced in return, trying to make light of his situation but unable to find any humour, “which is more than I can say for some o’ the poor bastards they’ve got down at the infirmary right now.”

“Kelly nearly died trying to get through to the control bunker with a group of fire fighters after the raid… as well as dragging a dozen men or more to safety before that…” Kransky added, feeling the Irishman had left too much unsaid.

“There was work to be seen to,” Kelly shrugged, playing down his actions and in no mood to be lauded a hero when so many others had died, “no need for exaggeration…”

“At least two sticks of bombs bracketed the bunker,” Kransky began softly, his voice almost breaking with emotion. “Another scored direct hits on the closer trenches…” He shook his head slowly. “It wasn’t just explosives… they were using phosphorous and a persistent incendiary that stuck to anything it touched…”

“Napalm…” Thorne muttered softly, knowing that putting a name to what Kransky was speaking of was meaningless even as he spoke.

“Drews… Cassar…” Kransky continued, his voice faltering a second time, “Nick…” Eileen groaned softly, her eyes closed in despair as he spoke that last name. The list continued: more personnel from the SAS… several of Kowalski’s marines… British troops posted to the base after their arrival whom they’d all come to know well.

Kelly, whose temperament generally leaned toward one of light-heartedness even in the face of the adversity he’d suffered in his own life, suddenly found the terrible and overpowering sense of loss unbearable and turned as if to leave. He took a few steps past the group, only to stop momentarily at Eileen’s shoulder as he turned his head to speak.

“I’ve no time for stupid principle in times like these, missus…” He spoke gently, the honest sincerity in his voice obvious. “I’m mighty sorry for yer loss… all o’ ye.” Unable to look directly at him as she struggled to retain control of her emotions, Eileen could do no more than give a single nod, but that recognition was in itself more than enough. With a silent acknowledgement in return and a grim, mirthless smile, Kelly set off in search of something productive to do to aid the cleanup operations.

Thorne stared off into the empty space over Kransky’s right shoulder rather than directly at him, his fists clenching at his sides as Davies also walked away, composed on the surface but inwardly distraught and needing to be alone. Trumbull, holding back his own tears through sheer willpower, reached across and placed a comforting arm around Eileen’s shoulder. She instantly turned to him completely and buried her face against his neck, her whole upper body wracked with sobs as she wrapped her arms tight about him.

“I need to see…” Thorne said with simple softness as he finally found the strength to stare directly into Kransky’s eyes. The intensity of his expression almost chilled the tall security chief out of his own despair, and he could only nod slowly. A moment later he led Thorne off in the direction of the command bunker.

The burial ceremonies were carried out quickly that very afternoon. Most of those present at the services were suffering from what might’ve been considered at the very least a mild state of shock, and many would later have difficulty remembering any real detail, had they been asked. Thorne was unsteady in both his stance and speech as he delivered what seemed to be an endless procession of eulogies, speaking a few words for each of the dead as they were lowered into newly-dug graves at Lyness Naval Cemetery, situated to the west of the docks and main buildings of HMS Proserpine. The ceremonies would by-and-large exist in the mourners’ memories as no more than a blur of sadness and pain, and most would be grateful for the lack of clarity.

Sunday

August 18, 1940

Corporal Cecil Thomas was a professional soldier. He’d be forty-seven years of age in a few months, and he’d experienced his fair share of good and bad fortune during his lifetime. He’d signed up for the British Army in 1909 at just sixteen years of age. The son of an illiterate blacksmith from Coventry, there’d been little work about upon leaving school, and he’d joined up simply because there seemed nothing better to do.

His father had died of influenza during the winter of 1913, and from that very next payday he’d religiously sent half of everything he earned back to his widowed mother and six younger brothers and sisters. In twenty-eight years of army service, he’d never failed to send a portion of his wages on, even during the time spent on the fields of France during the Great War of 1914-18.

Thomas had been an infantryman in his younger years. He’d fought at Cambrai, Ypres and all three battles of the Somme and survived all of it. Even by 1940 standards, he wasn’t a well-educated man, but he was loyal, hard-working and attentive, and those three attributes often made up for any lack of wit or cunning in an honest man. These were qualities that had been clearly recognised in Thomas, and were the reasons for which he’d been given the assignment as Max Thorne’s orderly.

It was a job that was his pleasure to perform. The newly-promoted air vice marshal was a generally quiet man, and domestically-speaking was also remarkably self-sufficient for an officer. Thorne asked little of Thomas most of the time, and requests that were made were always taken care of immediately and efficiently — Thomas saw to that.

He was the CO’s orderly, a posting that required total loyalty and trust; one of the reasons he hadn’t reported Thorne’s alcoholic episodes in the Officer’s Mess after the first night he’d found him there… nor after the many that had followed. The other main reason was that Thomas couldn’t think of whom he should report it to anyway. Thorne was the ranking officer at Hindsight, and he had no idea who below the CO would be the most appropriate person to speak to: he didn’t know any of the other officers well enough to decide who would be the best option. Thomas eventually let the matter drop in the hope that it would just ‘go away… something that was of course not to be.

A great despondency had settled over the entirety of Proserpine and the anchorage. The remaining Hindsight survivors — both those who’d flown to safety on aircraft and those who’d weathered the maelstrom on the ground — were shell-shocked and stunned at the losses they’d suffered. The personnel at the main naval base were also subdued and solemn, as much out of silent relief they’d been spared the savagery of the attack that had shattered their neighbouring units. All were also aware of how fortunate they’d been that the two jet fighters had been available: without their vast technical superiority, the two dozen Mustangs couldn’t have prevented the destruction from being far worse, even had they arrived early enough to intercept the entirety of the attack.

Short-term accommodation had been hastily arranged for all the displaced officers and other ranks within the barracks of Proserpine, as all of the billets at Hindsight had been destroyed during the raid itself or in the spreading fires that followed. The gesture had also been extended to the use of the various messes, and it hadn’t only been Max Thorne who’d required a drink or two dozen that first night to settle their nerves.

Cecil Thomas was enjoying an off-duty smoke in the Proserpine Ratings’ Mess that evening as Commander Eileen Donelson appeared at the open doorway. The mess was a large structure of slatted wood planks and heavy roof beams, with enough internal volume to require wooden pillars as support for the high ceiling at regular intervals. Décor was all but non-existent, save of course for the de rigueur picture of the King above the Bar, and the tables and chairs, while numerous, were of the simplest construction and an odd assortment in their style and construction.

The bar and a plain fireplace occupied the centre of one long wall, and the only entrance, a pair of plain double doors at which Donelson now stood, sat at one end of the opposite wall. The one exception to the generally austere nature of the large room was a small, low stage at the far end on the same side as the bar. A set of rather worn old instruments sat forlornly on that stage, an upright piano and battered set of drums among them.

Along with the thousands of sailors that regularly filed through as their ships came and went, there was also a core of regular personnel posted permanently to HMS Proserpine involved with the operation and upkeep of the base itself. Among those men were enough with reasonable levels of talent to form a swing band for their own entertainment on special occasions. Few officers at Scapa Flow were imprudent enough to enquire as to the where the instruments had originally come from, and those who did were quickly shown the error of their way by their peers, as the band also regularly played for other messes, including the officers’.

There were no more than two dozen naval ratings and junior NCOs present that day, yet Donelson didn’t step beyond the threshold of the entrance: she was as aware and respectful as any career soldier of the sanctity of Mess regulations. She was an officer — her Realtime naval rank had been recognised immediately by Whitehall — and officers weren’t permitted to enter an OR’s or Sergeant’s Mess without an express invitation. All of the men present took note of the female officer at the door, and none who did missed the fact that she was also quite attractive. Fortunately, none were stupid enough or thoughtless enough to make any remark on her appearance that she could actually hear.

The NCO on duty left the bar and approached her. They spoke for a moment before Eileen stepped back outside to wait patiently as the petty officer walked over and passed the message given to Corporal Thomas. He appeared apprehensive as he stood and walked toward the door, and Eileen had a feeling she knew why.

“In addition to your duties as CO’s orderly, I believe it’s been your job to keep tabs on the bar stocks at the Hindsight Officers’ Mess, corporal… would that be correct?” She asked the moment Thomas had joined her outside, the coolness of evening quite brisk as a light layer of mist floated below a clear and darkening sky.

“Yes, ma’am, that’s right. I kept records on what was brought across from the Proserpine Q-Store from week to week. Wasn’t a hard job really: yourself and the other Hindsight officers never drank much, even when you were off duty.” He shrugged. “All gone in the fire now though, of course… more’s the pity…” but his tone made it seem as if the fact were more of a bonus than something to be regretted.

“Yes,” Eileen agreed dubiously, falling back on her ability for perfect recall. “Yes, it seems stocks hardly dropped at all since we’ve arrived, considering the numbers of healthy young fellows on base — particularly healthy young officers.” She almost smiled ruefully, honestly acknowledging that she was herself one of those ‘healthy young officers’ who’d had more than her share on occasion. “Stocks of everything that is, except for the rum… isn’t that right?” She added finally.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that, ma’am,” Thomas dodged desperately, fear in his expression now. He glanced nervously to either side, as if worried someone else might be listening. “I can’t say that I noticed stocks of anything being used up at any greater rate than any of the others…”

“Bollocks!” Eileen snapped softly, the use of language surprising Thomas somewhat: ladies weren’t supposed to use words like that. “That’s complete bollocks! Squadron Leader Trumbull remarked two days ago that the mess had almost run out, and that surprised me, because I was the Duty Officer when the last delivery of alcohol for the mess turned up three weeks ago, and I know I signed in six quarts of rum that day. I have a photographic memory, corporal, and I remember it quite clearly, yet when I checked the stocks after hearing that remark I found just one bottle left.”

“Is that so, ma’am…? If you’ve all the answers already, you don’t need any confirmation from me, do you?” Thomas’ reply was almost petulant. He didn’t like being spoken to by a woman in such a manner, regardless of rank.

“Don’t get smart with me, soldier!” Donelson hissed sharply. “You’ll keep your answers straight and to the point, or I’ll have you up on a charge as soon as look at ye!” The venom in her reply rattled the corporal somewhat, and knocked any remaining arrogance out of him in an instant. “If I’m right about what’s been going on, it’s vitally important we get the problem fixed up quickly; for Air Vice Marshall Thorne’s sake and ours!” Her eyes narrowed as she went directly for the ‘kill’. “How long’s he been drinking at night?”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am,” Thomas stammered.

“Yes you do, corporal,” she countered, not letting up. “Understand this: I’ve known our CO for over ten years, and I’ve gotten to know him one hell of a lot better than you ever will! He’s a good man — a great man — but he’s had problems in the last few years that it seems he hasn’t completely resolved yet. Added to that are the pressures of the last few months, and his first command under combat… none of which are small issues either! He’s already showing difficulties in making decisions that are affecting this unit, and his judgement will continue to be severely impaired and become far worse unless this is resolved. This base has suffered enough already… I need to know what’s going on!”

“There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know, ma’am, if you know the CO as well as you say,” Thomas’ tone was one of resignation, yet he still couldn’t bring himself to implicate his commanding officer.

“How long…?” The seriousness of her expression required a straight answer and Thomas gave one.

“As long as I’ve been assigned to him…”

“Thank you, corporal…” She paused for a moment before adding: “… I appreciate your honesty… and your obvious loyalty… the air vice marshal could do a good deal worse for an orderly.” But as she turned and walked away, Cecil Thomas felt as if he’d just been handed thirty pieces of silver.

Eileen found Richard Kransky walking alone among the rows of new graves at the Lyness Naval Cemetery, preoccupied with his own thoughts as he stopped to read the words on some of the headstones at random. He wore his usual khaki fatigues under a camouflage-patterned combat jacket, but for a change he was completely without weapons, although his radio remained clipped to his belt. The lack of a rifle over his shoulder somehow made his appearance seem almost alien or unreal.

“Got time for a word, Richard?” Eileen called softly from a distance as she walked up the slight incline from the naval base. “…If I’m not coming at a bad time…?” He turned toward her with a start, almost as if she’d actually caught him by surprise.

“What…? No… of course not,” he replied quickly as he realised who it was, barely managing a thin smile. “Glad of the company.” The time following the raid hadn’t been a good one for any of those who’d survived, and Eileen’s unexpected appearance now left him strangely shaken and cognisant of how lost in his own thoughts he’d actually been: no one should’ve been able to approach that closely without detection.

“Have you seen Max?” Eileen began, trying to hide her discomfort as she drew near, but Kransky didn’t have to stretch his imagination for the reasons behind the question as he noted the look on her face.

“Not for a while.” He replied honestly. “Alec and Evan were helping him reposition the radar units and one of the Tunguskas, but that was a few hours ago.”

“Any idea where I might find him… you do know what goes on around here most of the time…”

“If I knew about what went on around here, Drews, Cassar and Clarke and the rest of the men here would still be alive today,” he said softly, his eyes lowering slightly and his voice turning a little hollow. Eileen was glad he’d deliberately not mentioned Nick Alpert, who’d been a good friend for a long time, or she mightn’t have been able to contain the tears that welled up within her the moment the other’s names had been spoken.

“You know there was nothing more that could’ve been done,” she said with equal softness, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder and nodding sadly as she saw the look in his eyes. “And I know that doesn’t make it any easier… c’mere, laddie…!” She insisted suddenly, deciding both of them needed a hug, and pulled him close to embrace the man. The gesture was greatly appreciated, and the pair remained together for some time, allowing simple human contact to help assuage their feelings of sadness and loss a little.

“I know this won’t make him feel any better,” Kransky began, “but tell him from me that losing men’s lives never gets any easier…o matter how many times it happens…” As she stared up at him, Eileen suddenly realised the man somehow knew exactly what she suspected of Max Thorne’s problems.

“Taking them doesn’t either, does it, Richard?” She queried gently, stepping back from him slightly but holding both his hands in hers between them. The time they’d spent working together during the time at Hindsight so far had produced strong feelings on both sides, and their close friendship contained a great deal that both had chosen to leave unsaid.

“No… that doesn’t either…” He said simply after a long pause indeed. Kransky wasn’t the type to cry all that often, regardless of the circumstances, and he was mightily glad of that at that moment. “That never does… ever…”

The following silence between the two was palpable in the extreme, and recognised a great deal of feeling on both sides that’d never been given voice or expression. Eileen reached up for a moment and brushed an imaginary hair from the man’s cheek, the intimacy of her touch in a ‘grey’ area somewhere between innocent friendship and the ‘something more’ that both felt.

“Why is it, mister…” she began, almost smiling for the first time “…that in all these weeks, you’ve never made a pass at me?” Eileen hadn’t been blind to some of the feelings he’d shown for her, and she couldn’t honestly say that at least some of those feelings weren’t reciprocated on her part.

“I’ve sometimes seen Max down near the Martello Tower at Hackness when he feels like a little privacy,” Kransky’s answer came with an ironic smile, and she knew that remark hadn’t been a change of subject. What he’d said was as clear and perceptive an answer to her question as any might’ve been.

In a moment of instinct rather than conscious thought, Kransky lowered his head just enough as Eileen again stepped in close and lifted to touch her lips softly against his, the movement so quick and so light it’d almost never happened.

“You see far too much, Richard,” she said finally, only half sad as she stepped away from him and began to walk back toward Lyness Naval Base, raising a hand as a farewell without breaking step or turning back.

“More than you’ll ever know,” Kransky muttered softly, staring after her. He could only watch for a few moments before he felt the need to turn away and stare at one of the nearby headstones instead. He knew that his own nightmares were going to be bad that night, and years of experience told him that all the alcohol in the world wouldn’t help.

‘Glad of the company’, he thought sadly of what he’d said as she’d approached, then thought of where he stood. A shudder ran through him as he noted there were plenty of new piles of earth for company in that cemetery now. Being alone was something Kransky was no stranger to — his whole ‘working’ life had been spent alone, in one hellhole or another — and as such he hoped things would work out between Donelson and Thorne… they could both do a good deal worse than each other in both an immediate and a broader sense, and neither deserved the loneliness under which they both clearly suffered. The shudder ran through him once more, and he decided he’d probably spent as much time in the company of others for the time being as was prudent. His thoughts were becoming darker than anything he could imagine, and he started to once more relish the idea of solitude on the field of combat.

More than you’ll ever know… He thought sadly in silent response to Eileen’s parting remark. More than you’ll ever know…

Martello Towers were a common theme for defensive fortifications built by the British at home and around the Empire during the 19th Century. Standing up to twelve metres high, and with two or three floors (and sometimes also a basement), the round, cylinder-like structures were built with thick masonry walls that were highly resistant to the cannon of the time. Usually garrisoned by around twenty men and one officer, the forts normally carried one or two cannon on the rooftop terreplein, mounted on pivots that allowed a 360̊ firing arc. Beneath the gun platform, barracks, food and ammunition storage would all be housed within its walls, and the structure was usually built upon a well or cistern that could be refilled with rainwater drained from the roof.

The inspiration for the towers had come from experience in combat against a similar type of round fortress that had been part of Genovese defences at Mortella Point in Corsica. On the 7th of February 1794, two attacking British warships with a total of 106 guns between them were beaten off by the fort’s two 18-pounder cannon. Unfortunately for the tower’s garrison however, its design meant that its two main guns could only fire out to sea while there was only a single six-pounder cannon that could be used for defence against attack from the rear.

The tower eventually fell to a landward attack after two days of heavy fighting, but the impact the structure’s capabilities had made upon the British was nevertheless significant. Within just a few years, a huge construction program saw Martello Towers (the name incorrectly taken from their inspiration — Mortella Point in Corsica) appear all over the British Isles and in other Empire colonies around the world. Intended to protect against French invasion forces during the Napoleonic Wars, over a hundred were built around the English coast alone, and another fifty in Ireland.

Only three towers were built in Scotland. One, known to locals as the Tally Too'er, was erected during 1807-09 at Mussel Cape Rocks (on what is now the land-locked eastern breakwater for Edinburgh’s Leith Docks. The remaining two could both be found at Scapa Flow; one at Crockness on Hoy, about 2,000 metres south-east of HMS Proserpine, while the other stood at Hackness on the north-east coast of South Walls, both guarding the Bay of Longhope and the south-eastern approaches to the anchorage. The Hackness Martello Tower stood in open fields, a hundred metres back from the water and perhaps twice that distance to the south-east of the disused Hackness gun battery, also dating from the 19th Century.

A narrow track ran past the tower and on to the battery, and an old, flatbed Ford truck stood parked beside that track, in the lee of the tower. A small concrete pillbox stood at the shoreline directly in front of the tower, and from that point it was possible to look straight out across The Flow and the surrounding islands. Flotta lay to the north-west, and the NEB Coastal Battery on that island’s southern-most tip was clearly visible across the water. As Max Thorne sat on the grass, not far from the pillbox, he could also look out across The Flow to the north-west between Flotta and Hoy, and stare in silent wonder at the silhouettes of warships anchored there in the fading light of dusk.

Among them stood Malaya, Warspite, Queen Elizabeth, Nelson and Repulse; a powerful collection of battleships and battlecruiser that should’ve put the fear of God into any prospective enemy battlefleet. Yet Nelson, completed soon after the signing of the Washington Treaty in the mid-thirties, was the only ship present that wasn’t of World War One vintage. In Realtime, none of those capital ships anchored there would still exist by the time of his birth in 1965: Repulse would be lost in action off Malaya in 1941, and the rest would be struck off just a few years later, having succumbed to post-war navy cut backs and that last, terminal voyage to the breakers’ yards.

Just the Americans’ Iowa class battleships had ‘fought’ on, clinging to sporadic periods of service in Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts as floating batteries and then, during the 1980s and ‘90s, as refurbished combat vessels intended to counter new Soviet warship classes. They’d fired Tomahawk cruise missiles and their 16-inch shells into Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, but they’d been decommissioned again soon after, this time for good.

For many students of modern military history living at the end of the Realtime 20th Century, the age of the battleship was the last great, ‘romantic’ era of naval prowess prior to the ascension of the aircraft carrier and sterile air power. It was to some extent a symptom of comfortable hindsight produced of having not lived through the age itself, and Thorne had been one who’d sometimes ascribed to it. To be able to now sit and stare out across such a collection of powerful warships was almost as intoxicating a drug as the white rum he carried in his often-used hip flask… the same flask at which he now sipped carefully.

He knew his alcoholism was creating serious problems (there was no point in ignoring the fact that alcoholism was exactly what it was), and he also knew it wasn’t getting better… quite the opposite in fact. Thorne was still at a complete loss however to explain to himself, or his conscience, why he wasn’t able to arrest the continuing slide into booze and despair that had gripped him almost from the moment of their arrival at Scapa Flow. Prior to their departure back in 21st Century Britain, he’d been able to control the problem — barely — but this had become impossible now he was alone and to all intents and purposes devoid of higher authority in any direct sense.

He knew all of this, but his usually-strong willpower had nevertheless failed him miserably. Instead of galvanising him into action, his spirit had instead ‘seized up’ and chosen pathetic resignation, and as is often the case in such situations, the guilt and sense of failure that came with his inability to stop what he was doing in turn made the cravings worse and created a vicious circle of secret self-loathing.

Thorne heard the approach of the Austin sedan as it drove along the track behind him and came to a halt beside the empty truck. He hurriedly hid the hip flask within the large pockets of his RAF greatcoat as Eileen stepped from the car and began to make her way down the shallow slope toward the pillbox. His uneasiness over her unexpected presence was as clearly visible as the uncomfortable expression on Eileen’s face as Thorne unsuccessfully attempted to hide his misgivings in a thin and insincere smile.

“Enjoying the view?” She ventured hopefully, her own emotions and nerves whirling as she tried to decide on the best way to reveal what was on her mind.

“Something like that,” he replied dully, making no effort to stand as he returned his gaze to the dark waters and gusts of cold wind whipped past them both, whistling about the base of the tower.

“It was the ‘anniversary’ of VJ day the other day,” Thorne spoke softly, almost reverently, as he attempted to control the course of any conversation. “It hasn’t even happened yet…” She crouched down beside him and waited for him to continue. “August 15th… the day of unconditional Japanese surrender… with Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few days before that. All that’s supposed to be five years from now, and odds are it won’t ever happen.”

“Aye,” Donelson agreed, noting the lost tone in his voice. “It’s not an easy thing to come to term with, I’ll grant ye that!”

“We buried men whose families I can never write to: families that in some cases haven’t even been born yet. Every day it’s getting harder to believe we’ve ever lived anything else but ‘here’ and ‘now’.”

“The rest of us have been lucky, I guess,” Eileen mused thoughtfully, nerves fraying further as she sought some way to broach the subject of her visit. “Having plenty to do has made it easier to ignore what’s happening in the ‘big picture’ and concentrate on the day to day stuff… how about you?”

Thorne gave a non-committal shrug. “I could be more active in a physical sense I guess, but being CO means I can’t really avoid having to look at the ‘big picture’.”

She took a deep breath and plunged on in. “Nothing bothering you then, other than the problems at hand?” The question blindsided Thorne in spite of his nerves, and he glanced sharply in her direction, internal defences that until that point had been idling in neutral at the back of his mind suddenly alert and at the forefront of his consciousness.

“Should there be any other problems?” He snapped back curtly, turning his gaze away. “What are you implying?”

“There’ve been discrepancies in the alcohol stocks at the Hindsight Officers’ Mess… particularly the rum: someone’s been drinking an awful lot of it.”

“Really…?” Thorne was almost snarling now. “I wouldn’t know anything about that…”

“Maybe,” Eileen shot back. “But if that’s the case, why can’t you look me in the eyes?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, commander!” Thorne stared her square in the face then as he rose to his feet in an aggressive stance, the words not quite a shout, but close enough.

“Then don’t pull rank on me, mister!” Eileen countered evenly as she stood fully also, lowering the volume of the discussion once more, although there was no lack of anger in her words. “We’ve known each other far too fuckin’ long for you to get away with that!”

“I just said I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“And I don’t fuckin’ believe you!” Donelson snapped back, letting more of her anger loose. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Max, but if there’s a problem, you need to talk to someone about it. The morning of that first air raid, you barely got that bloody Lightning off the ground without wrecking it! Yesterday you wouldn’t even fly the fuckin’ thing, and pushed Trumbull into it instead! He did a fine job, but he can’t fly that jet like you could have. We need you, Max, but we need you sober and with your shit together!”

“Well thank you for the impromptu therapy session…!” He snarled back, turning at the last remark and stalking off in a rage. “Do you take AMEX, or shall I leave a cheque at reception?” Pure sarcasm dripped from his words, born of desperation.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Max, cut it out!” Donelson was now shouting almost as loudly as he. “It’s me you’re talking to, not some UN-appointed shrink you can bullshit! I know you! This shit we’ve all been dealing with since we arrived is bad enough without throwing the added pressure of command on you, and all the pain you brought back with you! There’s nothing wrong with grief, but you’ve got to work through it, not bottle it up! Three years is too long to tear yourself apart over something that wasn’t your bloody fault!”

“What would you know about it?” Thorne demanded in fury, tears welling in his eyes as he whirled on her once more and forced her to take a step backward. She’d found the raw, open wound within his mind and he reacted in a completely instinctive manner: with thoughtless retaliation. “What the fuck would you know about it? Twelve God-Damned years married to the fucking navy! What human being did you ever care enough about to be afraid of losing them?” He regretted the words the moment he’d said them… the moment he saw the reaction in Donelson’s face. The tears she’d been holding back began to pour down her cheeks as she stood stock still, momentarily stunned.

“You need to ask me that…?” Eileen hissed at him, acid rising harshly in her voice. “You, of all people…?” The sharpness of the tone plunged a knife through his very core. “I lost the only man I ever cared about years ago, and the only reason I’m even standing here is because I’m not prepared tae fuckin’ go through that again!” She whirled as she spoke those words and strode off the way she’d come, back toward the tower and her car.

“Eileen, wait… please…” He was now completely and utterly deflated and honestly meant to apologise, but she ignored him as she continued up the slope. “Eileen!” He repeated, louder and more forcefully, but again she ignored him. “Fuck!” He added under his breath, and he took off in hot pursuit, the only anger left in him now focussed on his own stupidity.

Involved in reorganising the radar detection systems for Hindsight all day, Alec Trumbull and Evan Lloyd were only just finishing up their work on activating the last of those units: all four of the BRTs had been relocated to render useless any information Klein had passed on to the Wehrmacht regarding their positions. It’d been hard work carting their equipment out of the back of their truck and up to the roof of the Hackness Martello Tower, and it had taken the better part of two hours to set up the unit and its diesel generator, and get it connected to their reinstalled wireless network.

Trumbull enjoyed working with Corporal Lloyd, and he found the man to be an almost inexhaustible source of historical information. The young Australian loved to speak on what he knew of his world’s history, and Trumbull was hungry for as much information as he could accumulate on the world that Hindsight had left behind… history that came from personal perspectives as well the information held on Hindsight’s storage discs and computer hard drives. He very much wanted to understand the motives and ideas of the people he now worked alongside, something that wasn’t easy considering the seventy intervening years of between his world and the one they’d come from.

Wrapped up in their own work and conversations, the pair were completely unaware of Max Thorne’s presence by the pillbox below them, nor had they heard the approach of Eileen’s car over the sound of the generator as they’d worked on the tower’s roof. It was after they’d completed their work and finally exited the fortress at ground level, engaged in an intriguing discussion regarding the assassination of an American president named Kennedy, that Trumbull first noticed Donelson running back up the hill from the direction of the pill box, Max Thorne behind her and closing as he called out her name.

“Well, they’re usually the other way around…” Trumbull observed: the sight of Thorne running after having made some joke at Eileen’s expense and incurring her wrath had been a relatively common sight about the base, but the situation was reversed here, and things just didn’t look ‘right’. There was still a reasonable amount of daylight left that evening, and even from a distance it was apparent she was crying.

“Looks like a problem, sir,” Lloyd observed quietly, also noting the tears and a little apprehensive as the pair halted by the flatbed Ford.

“Yes,” Trumbull agreed slowly as the officer within him took over. “You just wait here, corporal… I’ll find out what on earth’s going on…”

Donelson’s boots were more easily adapted to running on grass than Thorne’s slick-soled dress shoes, and she could easily have outrun him in a fair race, but her heart wasn’t in it and determination was on his side. He finally caught her a few metres from her car, grabbing her by the upper arm and able to turn her around without too much effort.

“Eileen, I’m sorry,” he began, breathing heavily. “I shouldn’t have…” He was prevented from saying anything more as she threw her right fist across in a roundhouse punch, striking him squarely on the jaw. He was more shocked by the fact that she’d hit him than by the actual impact, although it was nevertheless powerful enough to knock him backward and sit him squarely on his backside.

“Fuckin’ leave me alone!” Eileen snarled angrily, turning away from him again and climbing into the Austin sedan without looking back. This time he decided against going after her, preferring to sit for a while and contemplate the bruise he knew would rise on the left side of his chin. He dabbed gingerly at his offended jaw with one hand and found a smear of blood where the decorative ring Eileen wore on her middle finger had left a small cut beside his mouth.

“Fancy talking about it, Old Man?” Alec Trumbull asked, standing a metre away with hands on his hips as the car powered away along the track in a spray of earth and gravel. “I’d have asked Eileen, but she didn’t seem likely to stop for a chat.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Thorne said sourly, shaking his head.

“Was this something to do with what happened yesterday? I’d hate to think that was a disagreement over professional matters.”

“It wasn’t,” Thorne reassured as he slowly dragged himself from the dewy grass, the seat of his trousers soaked through, as was the rear of the great coat. “That was a purely personal matter, and if there was one thing I did deserve, it was a smack in the mouth!”

“You were acting less than a gentleman?” Trumbull tried to lighten the situation a little, noting the unusual severity of the Australian’s expression. “I find that difficult to believe, of course…”

“I was acting like a complete arsehole!” Thorne growled, fixing the man with a stare that was far angrier over his own actions than anything else. “And you can believe that!” He shook his head. “I really don’t want to go into the details, and you probably don’t want to hear them, anyway.”

“Possibly,” Trumbull agreed slowly, nodding. “I hope it was nothing serious between the two of you,” he ventured, immediately thinking the statement stupid; any altercation such as that could hardly be considered minor between friends.

“Well, I sort of struck her on a raw nerve.” Thorne shook his head sadly this time as he walked over toward the tower, Trumbull in tow. “We’ve known each other now for over ten years, and I thought she’d gotten over it a long time ago…”

“Over what…?”

“Being in love with me,” Thorne answered softly in a matter-of-fact tone that surprised the squadron leader. “I met her as she was about to graduate, while I was doing some lecture work for the Royal Navy Academy at Dartmouth.” Thorne was suddenly and rather unusually gripped by a great need to talk about serious personal matters. “We became good friends and we went out a couple of times… one thing led to another and we were suddenly more than just friends… but in the end we found she cared a lot more about me than I did in return. To me, we were really just good friends, and I preferred things that way. She said she was all right with it too… at the time…” The last sentence sounded as obviously lame and sheepish to him as it did to Trumbull.

“Do men of the Twenty-First Century know so little of women that they’d believe such a statement?”

“Sounds naive, I know,” Thorne forced a slight grin, still dabbing at the corner of his mouth, “but it’s a bit hard to see things objectively when you’re talking about yourself. My ego’s not so big I think women are beating doors down to get at me…”

“I suppose she still should’ve gotten over it by now, though,” Trumbull observed thoughtfully. “It seems to me a bit ill-advised to have come back with you if she still felt that way: problems dragged back from the future like that might well jeopardise your mission here.”

Thorne nodded slowly, solemn once more. “I think she was actually trying to tell me the same thing!” He winced as he considered his next actions. “Think I’ll keep out of her way for a bit… let her cool down a little before trying to apologise…” He nodded slowly again to himself. “That might be a better idea.”

“Mmm,” Trumbull mused, smiling ever so slightly. “I shouldn’t think I’d like to face a right hook like that twice in one day either!”

“Anyone tell you you’ve learned how to become a smartarse too bloody quickly?” Thorne observed with a wry expression.

“My commanding officer has been an exemplary teacher,” Trumbull replied glibly and Thorne actually laughed at some rare and welcome humour.

“Smart bastard…!” He said, shaking his head and almost not wincing in pain because of his jaw. “I’ll have to watch what I say from now on when you’re about.”

“Probably a ‘good call’,” Trumbull nodded sagely, getting the last word.

Thorne cried out as he woke, bathed in his own sweat as usual in the middle of the night. He was also shivering, but that was no reflection on the temperature within the strange room that was his new quarters. The intensity of the nightmares had set every nerve in his body on edge, and he was almost hyperventilating, each breath rasping in his lungs as his bare chest heaved in exaggerated movement. His hands clutched at the covers of his bed as he drew them up, trying to reassure himself of the reality of the room. The voice he heard to his left at that moment almost startled him as much as the dream from which he’d just escaped.

“Is it always like this…?”

He snapped his head sideways to see a dark silhouette seated in a chair by his bedside that spoke with the voice of Eileen Donelson. He’d been so captured by the nightmare that he’d not even noticed her unexpected presence.

“Sometimes worse,” Thorne admitted slowly, his voice thick and hoarse “…though not often.” He no longer possessed any strength to fuel anger or fear… all he felt was exhaustion.

“When I was a wee bairn, I used to wake up to my father screaming in the next room as he dreamed about what the IRA did to him… he never really got over it…” Eileen said softly after a pause. “My mother and I spent sixteen bloody years listening to that… and enduring the abuse and the violence that went with it… in the end, I joined the navy so I wouldn’t have to deal with it any more. Ma left him later the same year… I guess it was that much more difficult, with no one else in the house.”

“I’m sorry… for what I said… I thought…” His voice trailed off — he had no idea what he might say that would make any difference. “I don’t know what I thought…” he added finally with a sigh of resignation.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she replied softly, sniffling a little as he realised that she must also have been crying. “I’ve known where I stood with you for quite a while, and that’s fine: I just can’t stand to see you going through this…”

“I didn’t know what else to do!” That admission alone was painful. “If I’d told them what was going on inside my head, they’d have never left me in charge of Hindsight at all, let alone come back here with all of you. I had to go… there was nothing left for me there.”

There was a long silence as neither could add to that remark, and Thorne eventually found the pause unbearable. Reaching out with his right hand to his small, bedside table, he activated the iPod that lay there along with the tiny pair of speakers attached to it. The music of an Australian rock band called Cold Chisel began playing, the selected song painfully appropriate to Thorne as he realised which one it was… a song from their Circus Animals album of 1981 called Forever Now. Beginning midway through the song as it did, the lyrics seemed all too poignant under the circumstances.

“I remember them,” Eileen said warmly, thinking back. “You used to play them all the time when we first met.”

“I’d just left Australia to live in another country,” he grinned faintly at the memory. “I badly needed to remember where I’d come from… remember what I’d left behind.” He paused momentarily, then added: “I’ve been playing them a lot lately…”

“We all need to keep remembering… we have to!” Eileen voiced her own strong feelings of displacement and unease then; Thorne was only one of many at Hindsight who were having difficulty assimilating the culture of an unrecognisable past. Thorne suddenly burst into tears once more, burying his face in his hands.

“I can’t remember what she looked like!” He moaned in anguish, the sound tearing at Eileen’s heart. “I wake up sometimes missing the feel of her body against mine, or of her hair against my face… I remember how that felt, but all I can remember now when I think of her is how she looked in the casket… a ghost of what she really was…!”

Eileen rose from her chair in an instant and moved to sit beside him on the bed. Cradling Thorne in her arms, she pulled him to her until his face rested against her shoulder. He clung to her tightly, just needing to feel someone else’s presence… anyone at all at that moment.

“You can’t wind back the clock, love,” she whispered into his ear, crying again too as he sobbed against her chest. “I know how cruel that sounds when you think of what we’re doing here, but that doesn’t change anything. With a very few exceptions — Alec and Richard, and maybe one or two others — these people in our unit are the only friends we’ve got. They’re likely to be the only ‘family’ we’ll ever have now who’ll ever understand what we’re going through, or what we’ve left behind.” She ran her hand gently through his hair and kissed the top of his head. “I wish I could give you back your memories, but I can’t… no one can.”

“I just don’t understand it,” he breathed between sobs. “I loved her so much, yet even in the dreams, all I can see is that ‘death mask’… never her real face. I don’t know what to do…!”

“You wake up each morning and get on with what you have to do until the day comes when it doesn’t hurt any more,” She said softly with the dark, sorrowful air of someone with more experience than they’d care to admit. “The first thing you’ve got to do is let some of it go, or you’ll never get rid the pain, and you’ll end up like my father…”

“How…?”

“You let your friends help you if they can, and don’t shut them out just because they can’t.” She paused for a moment. “You were right this evening when you said I hadn’t lost anyone… I haven’t… not the way you have, anyway.” She smiled faintly. “I’ve had some casual relationships along the way, but it’s not easy when you’re following the military lifestyle, and the only one I ever really cared about out of all of them was you…” She almost chuckled at that. “It’s not easy finding someone you have something in common with when your hobbies are military hardware and technical engineering, you know…”

“Maybe I should’ve tried harder,” Thorne shuddered, thinking of the past and for once coming up with more pleasant memories. “We sure as hell had a lot of things we liked doing together… more than Anna and I, I think sometimes…”

“Oh rubbish…!” Eileen disagreed gently, lifting his head in her hands so they were looking straight at each other in the faint glow from the iPod’s tiny screen. “You two were as perfect for each other as any couple I’ve ever seen! She was a fine woman, and you both deserved to be together.”

“Then what do I do?” It was a strange thing that although it had been so difficult to talk about originally, it was almost easy to do so, now that the problem was out in the open and he was confiding in an old friend.

“Maybe you just need to live each moment as it comes for a while,” she offered, caressing his cheek lightly and sending an uncertain shiver along his spine. “Work the past out of your system.” She smiled softly then, and Thorne thought he knew what she was talking about.

“I — I don’t think I can feel anything like that… for anyone… I don’t know…”

“No one’s telling you to be in love with anyone else… not yet, anyway. I’m not saying that’s how I feel anymore either: that was something I got out of my system a long time ago. No one’s going to replace Anna in your heart, but that doesn’t mean two old friends can’t get together once in a while for old times’ sake. It might not be love, but sometimes friends need each other, too.”

She kissed him then, full on the lips, and conflicted as he was he didn’t pull away. He’d awake early the next morning to find Eileen asleep and pressed against him in the confines of that single bed. Tears would fall once more, just for a moment, this time more as a reaction to the long-missed sensation of companionship than of anything else, but as they lay there with their bodies entwined, it would also be the first in five successive mornings Max Thorne hadn’t woken because of either hangover or nightmare.

Davies, who by sheer coincidence wound up billeted next door to his CO again, couldn’t give any reason for waking up suddenly in the middle of the night. No memories of nightmares or any dreams at all lingered in his thoughts, and he was left with no more than a general feeling of unease. He sat up, and it was a few moments before he remembered where he was, sighing as he checked his watch and groaning softly at the time.

In the silence that followed, muffled sounds began to filter through to his consciousness and through the wall near the head of his bed. At first he thought there must’ve been soft conversation going on in the quarters next to his, and he frowned at what kind of discussion might be going on in the CO’s room at such a ridiculously early hour. He lay back on his bed once more, hands behind his head, but as the moments passed, Jack came to realise that the sounds on the other side of the wall, which had become decidedly rhythmic in nature, were due to a lot more than mere ‘talk’.

“Oh, that’s just swell… that’s just Jim-fuckin’-Dandy!” Davies growled softly, shaking his head half in annoyance and half in grudging admiration of Thorne’s apparent good fortune. As the unmistakeable sounds continued, building somewhat in volume and intensity, he made a mental note to at a more opportune time suggest to his CO that perhaps he could move his bed to the other side of the next room.

There was no real effort in guessing who else was present in the room — Eileen was the only other woman they’d even seen on the base, and he could hardly begrudge the pair a little time to put the events of the past few days out of their minds. He knew Thorne was carrying some serious emotional baggage, and he also knew the pair did have a history… albeit one that’d been in the distant past. He rolled on to one side and hoped they’d at least have the decency to be reasonably quiet about it.

It soon became apparent he had no suck luck…

West India Docks, Isle of Dogs

Tower Hamlets E14, London

Rupert was gone now… tucked away in his private quarters on HMS Repulse along with the precious gold he was safeguarding across the Atlantic. It would’ve been very unusual for the young man to have still been at Brandis’ apartment so near to midnight anyway, yet the place now somehow seemed empty and lifeless all the same. Rupert Gold was one of only a very select few he’d had anything close to constant contact with for the better part of ten years, and the pair had developed a close professional friendship during that time.

Brandis had done his best to create the appearance of optimism while his PA was present, but now he was alone, he had to admit he was definitely feeling something akin to a sense of abandonment. It was fortunate in a sense that he had plenty to keep him busy, and Brandis in any case wasn’t the type to dwell on misfortune. He generally found positive activity to be a far better direction in which to channel any misgivings or melancholy, and there was plenty more hard work still ahead of him once he left England.

He stood at the filled washbasin of his apartment’s bathroom late that night, staring into the mirror above it for a moment before filling his hands with a lathering of shaving soap and smearing it liberally over his cheeks and chin. It took some time, and several applications of soap before he’d covered the entirety of his bearded cheeks, chin and throat and decided he was ready to pick up the safety razor and begin the substantial task of shaving most of it off.

Against the wall to his left beside the mirror, two small photographs were pinned with thumb tacks. One was of a former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, taken not long after the turn of the century, while the other was of Brandis himself, and both showed an image of a middle-aged man that was clean-shaven save for a rather bushy, dark moustache that completely covered each man’s upper lip and extended well past on either side of the mouth. Brandis began slowly and took his time as he worked: it was vitally important the face in the mirror before him matched the style of the faces in the photographs as closely as possible.

His face seemed completely different by the time he’d finished the job, and a pair of exhausted eyes stared back at him in the mirror above mostly clean-shaven features. He’d managed a reasonable approximation Rinsing the excess shaving soap from his face and neck, he allowed a vague grin to emerge for a moment as he dried himself off once more. Dropping his towel where he’d taken it from on the bench beside the sink, he picked up a small bottle of Old Spice aftershave and slapped some onto his cheeks, enjoying the fresh feeling on his skin.

“Time to say goodbye eh, James?” He muttered softly to himself, pausing for a moment as if actually expecting an answer.

Brandis left the bathroom a moment later and walked back out into the main living area, moving across to take a seat at his desk wearing just trousers and a white singlet. A small, uneven pile of papers lay there before him, and he took one last chance to peruse them, cycling through each piece in his hands before slipping it to the rear of the cluster and moving on to the next. Every piece of official documentation relating to his identity as James Brandis was there: passport, drivers licence, birth certificate, school diplomas, trade certificates and others… the sum of a single human being in one collection of papers.

Brandis stood and carried the documents across the room to the fireplace. It was a cold night, and a small fire crackled pleasantly there, its glow adding to the room’s otherwise relatively dim lighting. He looked down at the papers in his hands one more time before carefully reaching out and letting them fall into the fire. They began to burn instantly, the colour of the smoke changing momentarily as they curled within the flame and quickly became ashes. He stood for a moment longer, as if saying farewell to the identity they carried with them before returning to his desk.

Seated once more, he reached beneath the desk much as he had the night he’d revealed the gold to Rupert, and this time he again released another secret compartment. This time it was a tall, narrow section of the desk’s left side that hinged from the rear and popped outward to reveal a single, shallow section within. A single thin, leather-bound satchel lay at the bottom, and he leaned down to collect it, placing it on the desktop. The open panel slipped easily back into place with the pressure of two fingers and a soft, reassuring click as it locked once more. Brandis unhooked the toggle and string that held the satchel closed and peeled back the flap, a little apprehensive in the anticipation of what he was about to find. He hadn’t set eyes on the thing in the better part of forty years, and he was nervous that perhaps his memory had deceived him and his work at the bathroom sink had been all in vain.

It hadn’t of course, and as he delicately lifted out the documents held within he was rewarded with a pristine new British passport right at the top of the pile. He opened it for a moment and was relieved to see that the small black-and-white picture held within was almost identical to the manner in which he’d just shaved his features. Feeling much better, he placed the passport aside and took himself back through each piece of new identification in turn, refreshing his memory. The final document was an official death certificate that had already been partially completed in the name of James Randolph Brandis. The date of birth was listed as November 22 in the year 1860, but the date of death remained blank… the only piece of information yet to be entered.

Always pegged you as a murderer… The words formed unexpectedly in his head, but held no surprise for all that: he’d been expecting them, after all.

“I’d have thought you’d at least have had the decency to come and say goodbye to ‘poor old James’,” he returned with a faint, dry smile.

Never got on all that well with James, truth be told, Phil… The reply came after a short pause, as if there’d actually been a moment’s thought put into the statement. So many things we didn’t agree on…

“Dickhead,” he observed softly with a chuckle and a soft shake of his head, that single, coarse epithet as effective as anything else he might’ve said.

Taking a fountain pen from one of the desk drawers, he tested it once on a piece of scrap paper before carefully entering that last detail in laboriously slow and precise writing: ‘Eighteenth of August, Nineteen Hundred and Forty A.D.’ Once he’d finished, he placed the document aside to dry properly and perused some of the other pieces of new identification he’d pulled out of the satchel. The passport still lay beside him on the desktop, and embossed across the front of it for all to see was the name Phillip Stephen Brandis.

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Monday

August 19, 1940

They’d been allocated a small office for use as a briefing room in a single-storey building near the Ratings’ Mess. With simple wooden tables and chairs, and a hanging movie screen against one wall, it was no more than a few metres square but was more than sufficient for the unit’s purposes in the short term. After a hot shower and a hearty breakfast — his first in a while — Thorne was in a strange mood that next morning as Trumbull found him alone in the room, an hour before a scheduled special briefing. Thorne was seated at a lone chair at the far end of the room with his guitar in his hands, an open photo album and a cup of steaming coffee placed together on the table beside him.

“Here already… and I thought I was early…!” Trumbull began as Thorne looked up, nodding in greeting. “You called the meeting this morning?”

“Yes,” Thorne nodded once more, barely glancing up as he plucked gently at each string in turn and made a serious attempt at tuning the instrument. “Got something to discuss with you guys regarding the Saturday raid.” He frowned as he tried another note and again adjusted one of the tuning keys.

“Did you patch up your disagreement with Eileen?” Trumbull changed the subject without a pause. “I’d hate there to be any bad feeling between two people who’ve been friends as long as you have.”

“Yeah,” Thorne began, almost coughing on the answer to that question as it caught him a little off guard. “Yeah… we… worked out our differences earlier this morning…” Thorne answered uncomfortably, rubbing at his eyes and trying not to crack a smile that was both ironic and, truth be told, a little self-satisfied. “I apologised, and we… came to an agreement of sorts.”

“Good.” Trumbull nodded firmly, blissfully unaware and completely happy with the reply he’d received.

As he finished one last adjustment on the guitar, Thorne finally felt happy with the result and gently strummed a few chords, the notes almost magical to Trumbull’s ears. Throne was also quite pleased at the sound, and was inspired to concentrate a little harder as he glanced over at the photo album and decided what to play next. Taking a deep breath, he gathered his thoughts and wriggled his fingers for a moment before beginning a melody he’d not played in a number of years.

The simple notes that issued from the guitar in that otherwise silent room mesmerised Trumbull much as he’d been the last time he’d heard Thorne play, so many weeks before. This time however, rather than just an instrumental piece, the Australian also decided to sing, and Trumbull found the lyrics equally intriguing and captivating. The words of Dire Straits’ moving love song, Romeo and Juliet, echoed softly within the room and filtered out into the hall through the open doorway, Thorne’s slightly raw but pleasant singing capturing a similar mood to Mark Knopfler’s original and unmistakeable style.

As the song played, Trumbull took his eyes away from the instrument in Thorne’s hands just long enough to pull out a nearby chair and take a seat, and neither man noticed as another three naval ratings and a sub-lieutenant working in nearby offices appeared in the open doorway and looked on, having been drawn there by the unusual music. Thorne knew nothing of what was happening beyond the guitar as he played, his eyes shut tight as he lost himself in the words and music of a song that had once held great significance in his life.

As the lyrics ended and the last few bars played out, the impromptu audience outside the door gave a few appreciative claps and smiles before eventually returning to their workstations once more. Thorne gave his appreciation of their applause with a smile and a faint nod, but there wasn’t the same level of embarrassment he’d felt the first time Trumbull had walked in on him practising the Pink Floyd instrumental. Instead, he carried the air of someone humbly satisfied with his own performance and happy just to take pleasure in the fact that what he’d done had provided some minor enjoyment for others.

“That was beautiful!” Trumbull declared softly, finding it difficult to remove the wide smile from his own face as he spoke. “Just wonderful…! What was that song called?”

“Romeo and Juliet,” Thorne replied as he maintained his own faint grin. “Originally performed by a band named Dire Straits… it’s a song I used to like playing for my wife. Looking back over those photos there made me want to play it again.”

“Photographs, eh?” Trumbull took note of the album on the table for the first time. “Mind if I take a look?” Thorne almost refused the request, but he remembered what Eileen had said the night before… remembered the good advice she’d given him.

“What the hell,” Thorne shrugged. “Go right ahead.”

He lifted the album and passed it to Trumbull as the man rose and moved across to take the chair beside his, the pilot receiving the item quite carefully. It was covered in a strange, synthetic material with a leathery feel, and as he opened it he was pleasantly surprised.

“Colour photographs… I haven’t seen these before…!”

“They’re personal photos… ones I haven’t looked at since we arrived here. Lucky really that I had left them in storage inside the Galaxy — they’d have been lost in the raid, otherwise. Anyway, I thought it was about time I refreshed some of my memories…”

Trumbull turned through some of the pages, studying the photographs held there almost reverently and halting as he came across a much younger Thorne in a flight suit similar to the one they wore when flying the Lightning or Raptor. Thorne was standing beside a large fighter aircraft sporting a similar style of faded-grey insignia that all the aircraft at Hindsight displayed, although this one was of a leaping kangaroo enclosed within an RAF-style roundel.

“That’s an F/A-18 Hornet… it was the fighter I flew during the Nineteen-Eighties.”

“It’s big like the Raptor… was it fast?”

“Yeah… pretty fast,” Thorne nodded, smiling as he remembered the joy he’d felt upon first qualifying to fly the jet. “Getting to the end of their life now though, after twenty-five-odd years of good service… the RAAF’s waiting to replace them with F-35s just like the one we have here… just waiting for their turn in the queue as production starts.” IT never occurred to Thorne, as he reminisced, that he was speaking in the present tense about events far away in a future that might never happen.

The next photograph was of a strangely built house on a block of open, brown-grassed land with the towering skyscrapers of a huge city rising imposingly in the deep background. A middle-aged man and woman stood in the foreground beside a large, white automobile of a type and style Trumbull had never before seen.

“My parents,” Thorne explained softly, the memories now not so fond. “They’re both dead… died years ago. That’s the house I grew up in as a kid.”

“The city: it’s huge…!”

“No, not really,” Thorne grinned with irony, thinking Trumbull’s concept of the word ‘huge’ wasn’t necessarily the same as his own. “That’s only Melbourne, mate: one of Australia’s state capitals. That photo was taken in 1975, just a few months before mum and I moved out to the country. The city covers a lot of area physically, but the actual density of population is pretty low in most Australian cities. Melbourne’s probably five times larger than London in terms of area, but even now — in 2010, I mean — there’s only about four million people living there.” Thorne grinned as he saw the surprise in the man’s face. “That’s not many for a big city: London has twice that many crammed into a space a fifth the size… not much different to what it has now.”

“Only four million people,” Trumbull muttered softly. He’d never really thought about how many souls were crammed into London’s streets and boroughs, but he knew he’d always felt the city to be absolutely huge whenever he had cause to visit there. Yet the city Thorne had grown up in as a child, with just half the population, covered an area of land five times greater. He knew Australia was a country many times larger than England… or even the whole of Britain for that matter… but that statement alone really did bring home the differences of scale between his world and the one Max Thorne knew. He flipped to the next photo and gave a happy smile.

“London!” He exclaimed in recognition… at least Trafalgar Square hadn’t changed all that much, although some of the buildings in the background seemed as strange and imposing as those in the previous photograph. A pretty young woman wearing a bright, summer dress and a playful expression on her face stood in the foreground by Nelson’s Column, her dark hair clasped behind her head and hanging down across one shoulder.

“I would say that that picture was taken five years ago, but instead I’ll just say it was taken in the summer of 2005.” Trumbull noted a changed inflection in Thorne’s voice… something different and hesitant in the tone.

“Your wife…?” He asked softly, and as he looked up he was more than a little surprised to see the man’s eyes were moist.

“Yes,” Thorne said simply, taking up his coffee cup and staring down into it.

“She’s very beautiful,” Trumbull complemented haltingly, a feeling of uncertainty creeping over him as he spoke. He knew there were many things about this man’s past that hadn’t been spoken of, and there were likely to be important reasons for that. He also suddenly realised that viewing these photographs might well have dragged his commanding officer into an emotional ‘minefield’. “It must have been difficult for you to leave her behind…”

“Not really,” Thorne replied with some difficulty, his voice almost breaking with sudden emotion. “She died two years after that photo was taken.”

“My God… I’m so sorry Old Man… forgive me!” Trumbull stomach lurched as if he’d just fallen into a deep pit… something his conscience would’ve preferred at that point.

“How were you to know?” Thorne replied, trying to smile and mostly succeeding. “As I said, it was a long time ago… nearly three years now…” He took a gulp of the coffee. “We’d been expecting it for longer than that, of course…”

“There’s no need to explain,” Trumbull began, fearing he’d insensitively opened a terrible old wound.

“No… it’s okay… really. Maybe it’s better if I do talk about it. You see, life in the 21st Century isn’t quite as simple as it is now for a number of reasons: there are some enemies you can’t fight so easily as Hitler or the Luftwaffe. My wife contracted a disease not long after we were married in 2004. We had no idea at the time… some test failed, or wasn’t carried out properly, and we just didn’t know — not that it would’ve made any difference anyway. The disease was called AIDS — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome — and it could lay dormant in your body for many years before you knew something was wrong. It was early 2007 when the first symptoms were detected and diagnosed, and from then on she went downhill quickly. This disease… well it destroys the body’s ability to fight infections. AIDS wouldn’t kill a victim most of the time, but it stops them being able to fight all the things that do. A common cold got her in the end, and she fell into a coma just ten months after first diagnosis and died two weeks later.”

“There… there were no treatments?” Trumbull stammered, deeply moved by this outpouring of Thorne’s soul. He couldn’t believe that infection or disease might still plague a future so great and advanced as to produce such things as the Raptor and the Lightning.

“There was no cure… is no cure,” Thorne said with finality. “There was just nothing to be done…” There was a long pause, and the pilot watched the man’s actions as silence reignedThorne staring at a dead spot on the far wall and fighting a hard battle within his own mind.

“I see that you loved her very much…”

“Yes,” Thorne said finally, managing a weak smile. “Yes, I did.”

“I hope you can forgive me for bringing that up…”

“No problem,” the Australian shook his head. “I think it might actually be better for me to talk about this kind of shit every now and again…”…and he was surprised to discover he actually meant every word.

“Well any time you want to talk about anything, you can always count on me to listen, my friend.” Trumbull smiled warmly, patting Thorne on the shoulder in a comradely manner.

“I may hold you to that some time,” Thorne warned, grinning faintly and deciding that perhaps he did feel a little better after all.

Davies, Kransky and Donelson, the only other Hindsight officers present on the base at that time, arrived fifteen minutes later. It was as they all took their seats that Thorne revealed the reason behind calling the impromptu meeting: the presence of Oberstleutnant Carl Ritter, the prisoner they’d fished out of the water following the raid of two days before. All three were equally surprised at the synchronous nature of Ritter’s capture, but only Thorne had formed an idea — wild and unlikely as it was — as to how they might make full use of that opportunity.

“You wouldn’t believe that something as unlikely as this could happen.” Much like the rest of those present who were in the know, Donelson found the German pilot’s arrival a little difficult to accept as coincidence. “They send nothing for six weeks, then two air raids within days of each other and Ritter — of all people — is shot down in that second raid and lands right in our hands.”

“I’d call that some serious dumb luck!” Davies observed with a grin. The Texan was seated beside Donelson, their chairs slightly to the left of where Thorne still sat. “Reuters’ll be going loco on the other side of The Channel right about now… two Flankers splashed on our first day, followed by their AWACS and tanker not long after, and now we finish up the ol’ ‘one-two’ with Ritter droppin’ in on us! I’ll lay money down some asshole at Fliegerkorps is getting his nuts roasted big time for sending his unit our way!”

“There’s an alternative to consider,” Donelson observed slowly, pausing. “Reuters might’ve sent him in on purpose as a plant.”

“I wouldn’t imagine there’d be too much chance of that,” Thorne interjected, dismissing the idea out of hand as he glanced up from the small, leather-bound diary that’d been confiscated from the prisoner in question. It’d been inside his flight suit as Ritter had gone into the water, and as such Thorne was now forced to turn the soaked pages with extreme care.

“You’re certain of that, Max?” Donelson wasn’t insulted by his immediate rejection of the idea… she’d not considered it all that likely either, and had merely sought a little consensus.

“I had considered it for a moment,” he admitted after a long pause, “but look at the facts as they…” he halted, rephrased the next sentence in his mind, then continued “…as they would have occurred back in Realtime: Ritter was commanding ZG26 just as he is now, and his unit’s performance in The Med and in Russia during ‘41 and ‘42 was good enough to earn him a promotion or two and a spot on the General Staff. He was a major-general by 1944, and a junior advisor with Hitler’s entourage. He was also one of the first against the wall with Von Stauffenberg after the failed bomb plot. He was one of the pricks that managed to get the guy and his bomb into the same room as Adolf in the first place! There were rumours that paperwork discovered after the purges placed him high in the leadership of the ‘new’ German government if they’d succeeded. Either of you really think he’d be working with the Nazis to such an extent he’d allow himself to get shot down, just so we could capture him?”

“I wouldn’t like to try for ‘a little bit shot up’ in a hostile environment either just so I could bail out… I’ll tell you that straight!” Davies admitted with a lop-sided grin. “As I found out on Saturday myself, it’s far too easy to get your ass shot off completely!” He shrugged, then added thoughtfully: “Pity those bastards didn’t nail Hitler with that bomb plot. We could’ve ended the war a year earlier with someone sane in charge.” His grin broadened momentarily and became a little malicious. “Probably would’ve pissed the Ruskies off too!” Despite almost a twenty years of ‘peace’ between United States and the CIS following the end of the Cold War, some old prejudices still died hard within the US military.

“Yeah… a negotiated peace wasn’t on Stalin’s agenda at all.” Thorne agreed with a thin smile. “I don’t know that ‘pissin’ off the Ruskies’ would’ve been a great idea at that point, though! Those guys lost twenty million against the Krauts — two million at Leningrad alone — and they weren’t about to forget that. Had the western alliance struck a peace pact with Germany, you might well have seen US and Soviet troops fighting for the Elbe rather that shaking hands across it… would’ve been real good for the world during the fifties and sixties if the Iron Curtain had started at the English Channel!”

“Come on…!” Davies scoffed lightly. “The Russians weren’t that good!”

“Yeah, well they weren’t that bad either… sheer weight of numbers alone could well have been enough. The Krauts threw everything they had at them and couldn’t even slow them down!” He shook his head in a dismissive gesture. “In any case, the whole thing was completely academic then, and its doubly so now! Lieutenant-Colonel Carl Ritter has dropped into our laps. Fine… ‘Good deal’, as they say in your country, Jack. We just need to work out what to do with the arsehole.”

“Pardon my ignorance, people,” Kransky chimed in from his seat at a table on his own, toward the rear of the room, “but could someone please tell me who this Kraut son of a bitch is?” Although more coarsely voiced than words Trumbull would’ve chosen, the question echoed similar thoughts in his own mind.

“Carl Werner Ritter: born 1905 and died (in Realtime) in August of 1944,” Thorne began, grinning apologetically for not previously filling the two new Hindsight members in. “On the face of it, a damn good pilot and commander, and career Luftwaffe all the way. Other than that, not much can be said about him…” he allowed the sentence to trail off until Kransky was on the verge of another question “…except… he has one single important and very significant thing about him that interests us: our sources back in Realtime believed he’s the biological father of one Kurt Reuters, ex-Bundeswehr and current Reichsmarschall of the Wehrmacht.” Thorne positively beamed at being the centre of the two men’s attention, and at the spectacle of it all as expressions of stunned disbelief flashed back at him in an instant. “That pretty much answer your questions…? Yes…? Excellent…! Ideas, anyone…? Bueller…? Bueller…?” Neither Trumbull nor Kransky were capable of asking anything more at that moment, something Thorne considered quite an achievement in itself, knowing the pair as he did.

“Why not just hand him over to the proper authorities and let him take his chances like any other downed flier?” Davies was a capable man, but Thorne was sometimes exasperated by his ability to narrow his focus on some issues.

“I think Max has other ideas for this feller’s potential,” Eileen Donelson observed softly, regarding the grin that spread across Thorne’s face with interest.

“I reckon we can turn him,” Thorne spoke slowly, his gaze as steady as his tone was serious.

“Are you nuts?” Davies was shaking his head now, mildly incredulous. “Have you forgotten who we’re talking about?”

“Not at all… I just don’t see why that should make any difference…”

“Of course it makes a fuckin’ difference! He’s Reuters’ father, Goddamnit! If you want to really turn him, you’ll probably have to give him the same spiel you handed Trumbull, here! You’ll have to tell him what we’re really about!”

“Probably, but…”

“What’re you going to tell him about Reuters?”

“What the fuck do you think I’m gonna tell him about Reuters, y’ great pillock…?” Thorne shot back with mild derision. “Throw him some ‘Luke, I am your father!’ bullshit? Do I look like Darth Fuckin’ Vader to you?” Save for Trumbull and Kransky, who could never get the joke, everyone grinned at the remark, Davies included. They were all close and knew how Thorne operated, and that morning he was in a particularly good mood for a change. Jack Davies had a good idea of the reason for the good humour, having been woken up unexpectedly by the noises next door during the middle of the night, and he wasn’t going to take offence… although he still had to admit he was more than a little envious.

“Jesus, Jack — I want to turn the bastard to our use, not turn him bloody mental!” Thorne continued. “I’m gonna tell him sweet bugger all about Reuters — absolutely bloody nothing. There’s no reason for him to know the truth, and he probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. All he has to know is the truth of what his country is going to do to Europe, should they be victorious. In Realtime, he backed the army once they realised Hitler was destroying them, and he gave his life for that belief… I’m certain he’s still that man of honour in this temporal environment. His diary sure as hell supports that in the few pages I’ve read so far… listen…”

He lifted the diary he held in his hands and began quoting from it, selecting random lines from the page he happened to be on.

“…At the fliegerschülen we were taught that there were certain laws and ideals that were inviolate…”

“…Of equal importance however is honour. If the orders given are just then the two concepts should not be mutually exclusive…”

“…It’s not my place to question the orders of my superiors. Still, could there be something awry here, for are there not ‘codes’ of war that must be followed…?”

“…I don’t understand what the Führer means by his ideas of lebensraum. What is the value of this ‘living space’ for these ‘Aryan’ peoples? What is its value if these rumours are true…?”

“They sound like the words of someone crying out to be turned,” he finished off, lowering the book once more to his lap. “We’ve got some exceptionally distasteful videos designed to enlighten people to what the Nazis got up to, as you well know… any one of them should serve quite nicely, and we’ve got plenty of audio-visual gear stored on DVD and Blu-Ray to back it up. Throw that in with the technology he’s already seen, and I’m willing to bet we can convince him well enough.” He smiled a little at the idea he’d put forward. “Just think what an ‘ace-in-the-hole’ we’d have if we could bring Ritter ‘on-side’…!”

“‘Ace-in-the-hole’… are you kidding?” Davies chuckled softly, beginning to like the idea. “Pull this off and we’ll have a whole Goddamn royal flush!”

Ritter spent two days in a small, concrete cell with one window high in the east wall that was barely large enough to allow light to filter through. The cell was part of a block at the rear of HMS Proserpine’s security buildings, and was set apart from the main layout of the base, some distance from the docks and the water. He’d been treated a good deal better than he’d expected and had been provided a meal, a shower and a clean set of clothes. The olive drab fatigue pants and shirt were a little uncomfortable, being a size too large, but they were clean at least.

He hadn’t eaten much… his appetite had all but disappeared, and he wondered how long it would take to come back. They’d at least left him a selection of recent newspapers to read so he’d not go entirely stir crazy through boredom. He spoke English moderately well, but his reading of the language was sorely out of practice, and it had taken him a good three hours to painfully fight his way through an issue of the Daily Sketch alone.

That being said, he’d found the perspective from ‘the other side’ morbidly interesting. The portrayals of the dastardly ‘Hun’, particularly the U-boat crews and the pilots, would almost have been a hilarious parody had the subject not been so close to home. One tired after only so many cartoons of ‘baby-killing’ Jerries, but some of the articles had indeed been interesting all the same.

Possessed of some literary ability, and having been a masterful member of the debating society at university, Ritter was able to read clearly between the lines of the ‘stiff-upper-lip’ English journalism. Despite the optimistic nature of the prose — probably under ‘suggestion’ from Whitehall — the signs were there to be read: Britain was in trouble, and although the kill tallies of German planes were apparently grossly exaggerated — God knew that was common enough on both sides — even those figures couldn’t deny there seemed to be no stopping either the Luftwaffe or the Wehrmacht in general.

It was afternoon on that Monday before anyone actually came to speak to him, and he was reclining in one corner of the cell on a small cot with a straw mattress as he heard the sheet-steel door being unlocked from the far side. Ritter straightened, preparing to more formally face whoever was about to enter, and as the door opened inward he was surprised to find a man wearing a high-ranking RAF officer’s uniform carrying a tray of food.

“Good afternoon,” the man offered in slow, faultless German that carried a strange, unplaceable accent. “I hope you’ve been reasonably comfortable?”

“Comfortable enough, all things considered,” Ritter replied with some hesitation as the officer stepped into the room. “Might I inquire, perhaps, after the safety of my gunner — he bailed out with me.” The officer looked to be in his early forties, with dark hair and of medium build and height. The uniform was clean and pressed, and seemed as if it were quite new. The butt of an automatic pistol of some description poked from a black holster of strange, synthetic material at the man’s hip, and he made no effort to close the door behind him. Ritter had no illusions about the idea of escaping: there’d be at least three or four guards beyond that door who’d be prepared for the slightest incident. All he really cared about at that point was the fate of Wolff.

The man hesitated, unable to meet his gaze momentarily. “From what we can ascertain, he suffered injuries when your plane was hit… he was dead when we pulled him out of the water. I’m very sorry… I assure you he’s been provided full military consideration, and we can organise for you to visit the grave in our cemetery here, if you wish.”

Ritter nodded in thanks at the respect. “Thank you… that would be appreciated,” he replied slowly, concealing the pain he felt at having his fears confirmed. Wolff had been a good man of whom Ritter had been very fond, and had been a guest at the man’s wedding just the year before.

“We thought you might be hungry, so I organised some sandwiches. I’m afraid there was only plain milk or water on hand, so I’ve brought both…”

“That will be fine, thank you,” Ritter nodded, smiling thinly. “I’m not very hungry anyway, as you might understand. You can leave them on the table though…” The man did so, sitting the tray carefully on the small, wooden side table by the foot of the bed.

“Your identification papers indicate that you’re Oberstleutnant Carl Ritter?”

“You’re correct… I assume this will be an interrogation, then?”

“Not an interrogation as such… just a bit of a chat, really… may I sit down?”

As Ritter shrugged an answer, dragging himself into a fully erect sitting position on the bed, the man took a wooden chair from near the door and placed it in the centre of the small room. “I have these things to give back to you,” he continued, reaching into his tunic. From it, he withdrew Ritter’s identification papers, his diary, and the photograph of his wife the pilot had grabbed from the instrument panel in the seconds before he bailed out. “I thought you might want them back. We’ve no further use for them. They’re a bit damp still, but they’ve held up remarkably well considering what they’ve been through.”

“Thank you again,” Ritter nodded as he took the items, smiling fully for the first time in many hours. “They mean a great deal to me.”

“My name’s Generalleutnant Max Thorne by the way,” he offered, having searched for a Luftwaffe equivalent to his rank of air vice marshal and settling on the closest rough approximation. As Ritter accepted the Australian’s extended hand, he added: “Feel free to just call me ‘Max’, if you wish — I don’t expect that immediately, of course, but you may well be here for some time and we’ll be getting to know each other much better… that I can promise you.”

“Possibly, Herr Generalleutnant,” Ritter muttered dubiously. He cocked his head to one side and changed to English, a move that didn’t seem to surprise Thorne. “May I ask of your accent? I cannot place it, but you are not British: of that, I am certain.”

“Very well picked, colonel,” Thorne smiled, returning to English also. “I’m a rather broadly displaced Australian who’s at the moment still trying to work out what the hell he’s doing in an air vice marshal’s uniform.”

“Australia? A long way from home, then…”

More than you could imagine! Thorne thought with irony, but he merely gave wry grin.

“I seem to remember reading the Australians were worthy opponents in the Great War.” Ritter continued after some thought. “You fellows gave us some trouble at Passchendale, Bullecourt and other places. The French, particularly, cannot sing praises of the ‘Aussies’ enough.”

“Yeah, well I think they had less to do with keeping us in line than the Poms,” Thorne observed with a smile, recalling what he’d read of the disciplinary difficulties Australian troops had continually caused behind the lines during World War One… during both wars, in fact.

“‘Poms’…? I — I do not know that word… my English is all right… but not perfect.”

“Sorry… the word’s an Australian colloquial term — it means ‘Englishmen’ in the same way you might call them ‘Tommis’. It’s derived from an acronym of the phrase ‘Prisoner of Mother England’… from our convict days. Don’t worry about your English either, mate,” he added as Ritter smiled in understanding. “You speak it bloody well.” There were a few words in the sentence Ritter didn’t catch due to the speed with which Thorne spoke, but he picked up enough to understand Thorne’s meaning and gave an ironic smile.

“I think that perhaps I shall have plenty of time to practice, yes…?”

Thorne’s reply was almost apologetic. “Yes, mate… I think you probably will…”

Luftwaffe Airbase at Stavanger

Sola, Southern Norway

The officer’s mess at Stavanger was mostly empty as Willi Meier sat at the CO’s table, a large glass of Beaujolais before him that was accompanied by an almost-empty bottle. He’d been there alone for an hour and a half, and although it was barely afternoon, Hauptmann Wilhelm Marius Meier was quite drunk. The mess sergeant, more understanding than apprehensive, had decided to leave the officer to his own, private thoughts: everyone at the base was aware that almost the entirety of I/ZG26 had been officially posted as ‘Missing In Action’, and there were few experienced pilots or ground staff who didn’t understand what that probably meant for fellow fliers lost so far from home, across hostile waters.

Meier had actually seen the deadly accuracy of those incredible guided rockets, and of the cannon that’d been fired at his gruppe. He was one of just six fellow fliers and crew who’d returned in their three damaged machines, the same number of returning aircraft as there’d been of B-10A bombers that’d survived to tell the tale of their encounter over Scapa Flow. He held little hope that a few of the lost crewmen might yet be found before the harsh environment brought on hypothermia or enemy units picked them up, and he was resigned to the ‘fact’ that his friend and commanding officer was dead.

Uncertain of his movements, he hesitantly took up the wine glass in his right hand and raised it to his lips, draining the remainder. Returning it awkwardly on the tabletop, he endeavoured to pour more from the bottle, droplets of the dark liquid staining the white cloth. Several attempts proved fruitless as his drunken co-ordination proved too poor for him to get the neck of the bottle within reach of the glass’s rim without far too great a danger of complete catastrophe.

“Please, Herr Hauptmann… allow me…” The voice startled Meier as much as the large, weathered hand that suddenly appeared and gently took the bottle from his grasp, tipping it expertly and filling the pilot’s glass with Beaujolais.

“Reichsmarschall Reuters,” Meier stated flatly with a mastery of the obvious, squinting as his forced his blurry eyes to focus. “An unexpected pleasure, Mein Herr!” There was little animosity in the statement, but neither did Meier make any attempt to come to attention or show any respect. Drunk as he was, he was well aware of how impossible it would’ve been for him to carry out that kind of action. He might’ve saluted, but he found that he had no desire to do so… for some reason, the idea left a sour taste in his mouth. Reuters was happier to keep it that way in any case: he was in no mood for the regimen and protocol of the military at that moment either. He lifted a filled glass he already held in his other hand.

“May I join you? I’d very much like to talk.”

“As you wish, sir,” Meier shrugged after considering the request, “although I must warn you I’m not exactly ‘good company’ this afternoon.” The words were slurred, but Meier picked them carefully, and his sentences took longer to complete than sober ones should have as a result.

“Nor am I, Herr Meier,” Reuters gave a thin, mirthless smile, “yet I’d speak with you nevertheless.”

“Allow me to apologise for my appearance, Herr Reichsmarschall… my condition isn’t exactly becoming an officer of the Reich at the moment.” There was no real sincerity in the words.

“You’re excused. I’m well aware of the friendship shared between Oberstleutnant Ritter and yourself… I understand better than you think how much his loss affects you. I’m not here as a Reichsmarschall, Herr Meier… I’m here simply as fellow officer who wishes to pass on his deepest sympathies and share a little of the burden of grief.”

“‘Pass on his deepest sympathies’,” Meier repeated slowly, almost snorting with derision. “Carl used to use that exact phrase when he wrote to the families of his own men. I’m sure they were quite heartened by the words in such a time of loss. I never realised how pathetic that really sounded until now.”

“You don’t understand,” Reuters began sadly, shaking his head as he gestured for an orderly to bring another glass.

“You’re damned right I don’t understand!” Meier snapped sharply, the tone more accusatory and unpleasant than he’d intended or even expected. “Just what are you doing here? What the hell were we doing on that mission in the first place?” He demanded angrily. “There’ll be a court of inquiry, of course… I’m sure Fliegerkorps will be able to apportion blame quickly enough…. on past experience, they’ll no doubt lay it at the feet of the CO. Very convenient of him to go and get himself killed into the bargain… saves all that messy defending yourself business that gets in the way of court proceedings.”

“There’ll be no court of inquiry,” Reuters stated flatly in return, surprising Meier and leaving him momentarily speechless as Reuters drained his glass and accepted a new one from the waiter at the same time. “I already know this disaster was no fault of Carl Werner Ritter. I know exactly who’ll be held responsible for sending you all into that fiasco, and the Führer shall soon know of it also. He doesn’t take kindly to wasting such good men, and both ZG26 and SKG1 were full of good men.”

The last remark was an outright lie — Reuters knew from cold experience how little the Führer cared for the ‘cannon fodder’ that were Reuters’ fighting soldiers — but there’d be retribution meted out in the Chancellor’s name, whether Hitler knew about it or not. Reuters’ intelligence sources knew about Zeigler’s meetings with Barkmann, and his meetings with Hermann Göring — both of whom had good reason to wish ill of Kurt Reuters — and it was no great leap of logic to work out who was behind the unexpected reassignment of ZG26 to the mission over Scapa Flow.

“The defences were like nothing we have ever seen!” Meier finally broke, holding his face in his hands. “Rockets that followed us and blew us out of the sky…!” Somehow he actually sensed a level of empathy in the man beside him. “You can’t imagine how terrible it was!” But Reuters had seen the reports of survivors from both decimated units, and he also knew exactly what they’d come up against.

“I think perhaps I can,” Reuters nodded slowly, sipping at his second glass as he realised his own hands were shaking.

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Max Thorne took his prisoner for a walk that evening, along the waterline near the Martello Towers where he’d argued with Eileen the day before. Ritter hadn’t been forced to wear restraints or bonds of any kind, but the Australian still wore his sidearm, and four guards wearing red berets and carrying strange-looking rifles walked twenty yards behind them the whole time.

“I must admit I took the liberty of reading your diary,” Thorne confessed as they walked.

“I expected as much,” Ritter shrugged, unperturbed as both men continued to speak in English. “I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t. What did it tell you of Carl Werner Ritter?”

“It told me that you seem an honourable man at the very least… if, of course, you actually believe what you’ve written.”

“It would serve no purpose, I think, to keep a private diary that was composed of lies,” Ritter countered without irritation, shrugging once more. The idea was matter-of-fact to him and he cared little whether this man believed him.

“That had also occurred to me… I think you’re a man who should have no need to lie in any reasonable society.”

“No reason at all,” Ritter agreed uneasily, apprehensive of the direction that the conversation might take.

“I also think you’d be at least reprimanded, should your superiors read some of the things you’ve written. I hear freedom of thought isn’t so widely encouraged in Germany as it once was.”

“I think that reports of…” he searched for the words in English, found himself at a loss, and instead reverted to German. “…reports of ideological control in my country are somewhat exaggerated.” He returned to English. “Things are not so bad as they sometimes seem.”

“That’s not what you imply in your diary… either you’re lying there, or you’re kidding yourself now… and we’ve already agreed on the accuracy of the diary.” There was a knowing tone in Thorne’s voice, devoid of any sarcasm, that engaged Ritter’s mind rather than making him feel patronised.

“You may believe what you will — I think we both can see the truth of it…”

“I think I probably see the truth of it a bit clearer, but there’s no chance of me convincing you of that at the moment. It’s a fact nevertheless.”

“Perhaps you’ll explain it to me, then,” Ritter suggested, feeling positively challenged and warming to the idea of a thought-provoking discussion.

“In time,” Thorne said thoughtfully. “You’d no doubt think me mad if I told you everything I know right now…”

“I sometimes think I must be mad,” Ritter said dryly, shaking his head and almost grinning. “When I first saw that grey aircraft before me, I believed I’d suddenly fallen into some grand hallucination.” Thorne laughed at those words… something he’d not been able to do two days before when faced with the loss of the Raptor and the damage the raid had inflicted.

“That ‘hallucination’ turned into a fireball and some pretty big pieces of wreckage after you shot it down though… There’s an American pilot back at the base who’s certainly crossed you off his Christmas list!”

“I — I do not understand what is this ‘Christmas list’,” Ritter grinned, pride rising faintly within him at what he recognised to be a vague compliment, “but I understand what you’re saying. That was a lucky shot, I think… yes? Yes…” he added, not waiting for Thorne to answer “Yes, I was very lucky, I suspect.” His mind changed tack at that moment. “This means the Americans will enter the war against us? I did see American markings on that aircraft as it passed.”

“‘That aircraft’ was called a Raptor, but it’s probably not appropriate to discuss the plans of the Americans at the moment.”

“‘Raptor’…? That is a bird of prey, ja…?” Ritter mused thoughtfully, accepting the rebuttal with grace. “An excellent description for such an aircraft.”

“It appears the aircraft of your unit were also excellent, if a little outmatched on this occasion.”

“They are, yes, Ritter agreed, thinking he finally saw the direction of Thorne’s conversation. He was a little amused to think the officer had gone to all that trouble merely to find out something as petty as details of a new type of Luftwaffe aircraft. What the hell? He thought. Why not humour him? England was doomed anyway. Although no one knew the exact date, everyone knew that an invasion was coming soon. “They’re a very capable aircraft from Messerschmitt called a Löwe… a ‘Lion’.”

They’re called a ‘Skyraider’… they’re a bloody fantastic aircraft for their time… and if Ed Heinmann and the boys at Douglas Aircraft ever had any idea of where you guys got the plans from and thought they could prove it, there’d be a law suit the size of the fuckin’ Hindenburg on Willi Messerschmitt’s doorstep the next morning! Thorne thought with dry sarcasm, unlikely as that idea was.

Despite the revised type of cockpit canopy, he’d recognised the aircraft immediately from Mustang gun camera film and the wreckage they’d recovered, and had no illusions as to where Messerschmitt had obtained the plans to the Douglas A-1H Skyraider. The New Eagles had indirectly purchased a full set of declassified engineer’s blueprints in 2007from the corporation that owned the rights to Douglas’ old plans. In Realtime, the incredibly versatile aircraft had actually been conceived of by designer Ed Heinmann at the very end of the Second World War, and had gone on to serve admirably for more than thirty years with the US Navy and Marine Corps, along with many other air forces around the world.

“I’m sorry,” Ritter continued, almost feeling honestly apologetic, “but I of course cannot give you any more information about the aircraft than I already have…”

“You think I’m trying to get some ‘dirt’ on your bloody aircraft?” Thorne actually laughed out loud at the idea. “Shall I tell you about your bloody aircraft, mate?” Without waiting for an answer from the surprised German pilot, Thorne searched his memory for what he’d re-read the day before regarding the Douglas A-1H Skyraider.

“The ‘Messerschmitt Lion attack aircraft, as you call it,” he began, giving emphasis to the title. Powered by one radial engine of around two thousand kilowatts… about twenty-seven hundred horsepower — pferdestärke — or thereabouts. Powerplant probably manufactured by BMW or Junkers, as I’m informed they’re the more prevalent engine manufacturers, but more likely BMW considering it’s a radial. Aircraft’s maximum speed would be about five hundred and fifteen kilometres per hour, with a cruising speed of just over three hundred. Wingspan of around fifteen and a half metres, and a length of just under twelve… it can carry up to three and a half thousand kilograms of weaponry on fifteen underwing and fuselage hardpoints. All this along with what appear to be four twenty-millimetre cannon, all firing outside the disc of the propeller, and one twin thirteen millimetre machine gun in the rear cockpit. Without auxiliary tanks, it should have a range of around fifteen hundred kilometres.” He gave the astounded Ritter a casual grin. “That about sum it up?”

“How can you know all this?” Ritter demanded as he stood stock still. “The armaments and dimensions you could possibly work out from the wreckage, but the range… the speeds! How can you know all these things?”

“That’ll become clear at a later date… there are a few things I’m considering showing you in the next few days that might give you a few new insights into life as you know it in Grossdeutschland!”

Back in his cell that evening, Ritter found himself left with a great deal to consider regarding Thorne’s comments of that day, and of his own imprisonment at Scapa Flow. Although his capture was pure chance — of that there could be no doubt — he was filled with the uncanny feeling that this Australian officer somehow knew him… or at least knew of him. It was a sensation that promoted some highly unwanted uncertainty, and the overall level of complexity in his life had taken a turn for the worse when, in his mind, it’d become far too complex already. How did this Australian have so much information regarding the aircraft he flew — information that should’ve been top secret? How was it this man seemed to know things about him? That was the worst of it… Thorne, a man whom he’d never before met… an officer of the Royal Air Force — the enemy — had intimated he knew a great deal more about Ritter than he was revealing. There was a riddle here that would require solving… if for no other reason than to allow some simplicity to creep back into the pilot’s life.

At the same time Ritter was sitting in private reflection in his cell, Thorne was at Alternate on Eday, seated at the PC on the Galaxy’s upper deck and working on the idea for a presentation he could put before Carl Ritter. He’d originally intended to use an audio-visual piece prepared specifically for display to Allied military personnel at the Hindsight Unit, similar to the one he’d shown Trumbull. A well produced sixty-minute documentary, it’d taken two months to put together using stock and archival footage alone, and a leading, international director had compiled it with the full assistance of the BBC, the Imperial War Museum, the Smithsonian Institute in the United States, and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The production of the documentary was extremely important, as it was intended purely for use in convincing uninformed military personnel of the present — the 1940s — of the existence of the Hindsight Unit and of the correct path for history.

Television as a medium was still extremely rare in the Nineteen-Forties — the first prototype unit had been developed just twelve years before, and the idea was still in its infancy. Audio-visual media had been chosen for this very reason to best convey what Hindsight was trying to accomplish. Television’s power as a tool of learning — and of propaganda — was well known in a time where it was a readily accepted norm in almost every home, and it’d been reasonably deduced that well-compiled images and a concise narrative could have a devastating impact on an audience with no idea of the capabilities of a 21st Century production studio. Just as the unscrupulous might utilise such production techniques to lie and deceive a nation’s population — or an individual — the truth could also be as effectively and graphically put forward.

Thorne decided against that particular piece at the last moment however, as it was decidedly biased in its undertones and dialogue, having been produced for a ‘target audience’ of Allied personnel. Germany was the main aggressor in the European Theatre to be sure — there was no possibility that could be denied — but there were different ways in which one might convey the message intended. To all intents and purposes, what Thorne was intending to do was to convince a man of high principle to betray his own country. That was something that came far more easily in Thorne’s era than Ritter’s, particularly within so loyal and regimented an environment as the German Officer Corps. Something much more graphic and powerful was required than the standard ‘tell it like it is’ video, and to that end the Australian had delved into Hindsight’s DVD library for something else they’d brought along with them.

Part of that collection was the entire ‘World At War’ series produced at the end of the Realtime 1970s. Narrated by Sir Lawrence Olivier, it’d been acclaimed internationally for its in-depth chronicling of the history of the Second World War, and of the twenty-five fifty-minute episodes, the one chosen by Thorne was one he’d always felt to be both the most painful and most powerful. As detached a student of history as he generally was, he’d only been able to bring himself to watch that particular episode once despite the high regard he accorded the entire series.

Thorne grimaced as he realised he still thought of the shows’ narrator as the ‘late’ Lawrence Olivier. In that reality, Lawrence Olivier was still very much alive, yet to be knighted, and had only just completed probably his greatest acclaimed work the year before… Wuthering Heights… assuming of course that within this altered timeline, the film had even been made. With some mild trepidation, Thorne nevertheless felt that particular episode would have the right effect on Ritter. If the passages in the man’s diary could be believed, the pilot was a man of principle — a man who’d in no way support the atrocities committed by the Nazis throughout the Realtime Second World War. There could be no way he might support the much greater atrocities yet to be committed by a Nazi-led Grossdeutschland that was victorious in Europe.

Thorne’s mouth was dry as he ran the back of his hand across it and shut down the DVD playing software on the PC. He badly wanted a drink, but managed to find the strength to refrain for the second evening in as many days. It took a great deal of effort, that was certain, but the mere fact that at least one other person now knew about his problem provided just that little extra willpower he required: that and the other consideration that if one person knew, it was almost certain others as yet unknown to him also either knew or suspected.

15. A Few Good Men

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Tuesday

August 20, 1940

Thorne, Donelson, Kransky and Trumbull all stood at one of the piers of the anchorage early that morning as a warrant officer and a pair of privates loaded a large wooden crate was loaded onto a small motor launch. Eoin Kelly stood with them, waiting for the men to finish so he could be taken out to an RAF Sunderland floating out on the water a few hundred metres away.

“The flying boat will take you as far as Belfast,” Thorne advised as the boat crew secured the load in preparation to cast off. “From there, a truck will be waiting to take you wherever you need to go. Warrant Officer Standish will also accompany you as far as you require, and he’ll carry enough authorisation to get both of you through any checkpoint or roadblock.”

“You’ve me thanks, Mister Thorne,” Kelly replied with sincerity, shaking the man’s hand. Despite having developed a great deal of respect for the Australian, he still couldn’t bring himself to call him by his first name. “I can’t promise you answers I can’t give, but I do promise to put your case to the Council. What happens from there is up to them.”

“I understand,” Thorne replied, nodding, “and I appreciate what you are doing… and have done. You didn’t have to help us during the raid… not the way you did.”

“Well now… you know I just can’t help m’self… I have t’ be the centre of attention after all…” Neither the self-deprecating grin nor the matching tone was enough to convince them, but the group respected the man’s fall back upon humility. “Farewell to the rest o’ you fine gentlemen,” he continued as his eyes moved along the line of men. “Stay safe, and have a few drinks for me now ‘n’ then.” His gaze finally came to rest on Eileen Donelson’s face “Farewell t’ you too, missus… try not to think too harshly of me.”

“Thank you again for what you’ve done,” she said softly, the concession a difficult one to make.

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Kelly replied simply, deciding honesty was more important than false humility under the circumstances. “I appreciate your sayin’ so… that can’t have been easy.” He took a breath, then added: “Mister Thorne told me a little of what some of my people did to your father, and for what its worth, I’m sorry for that… it’s not the way I’d be fightin’ a war.” There was a substantial pause before she finally nodded in recognition of the sentiment, and he knew that was about as close as they’d probably ever come to common ground. Kelly would miss some of the crew there at the base, and he thought it a shame those people were technically his enemies.

“Take care, missus,” he said finally, tipping a finger to the brim of the flat cap he wore to match the ill-fitting brown suit he’d been given on arrival. In another moment he was aboard the launch and it was chugging slowly out to the Coastal Command aircraft with his escort. Thorne stared up at the sky above for a few moments before turning to walk away, thinking there might be rain on the way.

Hal Markowicz arrived back from London just after noon that day, his Avro Anson transport having taken him on a long and arduous detour to the west, at tree-top height most of the way to avoid Luftwaffe fighters that patrolled the skies of Southern England with impunity. Fighter command was all but shattered now as a coherent fighting force, and anti-aircraft gun crews had already learned the hard way that firing on enemy aircraft would almost invariably bring an attack down upon them in retaliation; the Luftwaffe was now basically given free reign during daylight hours as a result.

The Anson was light enough that it didn’t require a full-length runway (which had in any case been destroyed), and it instead touched down on an open stretch of flat grassland near the ruins of what was left of the concrete airstrip, close to the parked rows of newly-arrived Mustang fighters of 93- and 96Sqn. Thorne and Donelson were waiting to meet him as Markowicz stepped from the plane, dressed in a tailored grey suit he’d purchased while in London. Under one arm he carried a briefcase of soft leather that appeared to be quite full.

Hal had been working with the War Ministry to assist in streamlining production of new and improved weaponry, and the sight of his familiar form in the very unfamiliar cut of a 1940s three-piece suit and matching bowler hat somehow brought home to both Thorne and Eileen a sense of culture shock more than almost anything else they’d seen up to that point.

“Hard to get used to, is it not!” Markowicz admitted with a beaming smile, noting their strange looks as he drew near and correctly deducing the reason. “Tailor-made… and it feels wonderful to wear… but I shiver every time I look in a mirror. Most of my clothing was destroyed during one of the raids, and I was looking forward to getting back here and wearing a pair of jeans again…” He paused as he surveyed the distant, gutted ruins that had once been the Hindsight base. “It seems they are gone also. I heard what happened… to poor Nick and the others…”

“How’s the armaments industry going, Hal?” Thorne changed the still-painful subject instantly as they moved off together. “Whipped them into shape down there, yet?”

“Hah! You think I’m a miracle worker then?” The old man gave a hollow laugh, and Thorne thought perhaps his normally faint accent was perhaps a little stronger than it had once been. Markowicz turned toward Eileen and laid a gentle hand on her arm. “Lady, we could use you and your memory down there… I tell you that!” He shrugged and reconsidered the statement somewhat. “But perhaps they wouldn’t listen to a woman any more than they listen to a ‘mad old Jew’, yes? The raids have made them scared and disorganised, and the ones in charge of the factories and the arsenals are suspicious of any new ideas.” He threw his hands and arms about as an ‘aid’ to his speech, and Thorne and Eileen were suddenly certain the accent and mannerisms were more pronounced. “They argue about this and that, and it takes twice as long to get anything done as it should, even with the letter of authorisation I carry signed by Churchill himself!”

“And the production levels…?” Eileen queried. She’d indeed wanted to go south with him, however the idea had been vetoed for a number of reasons. Her greatest asset — her eidetic memory — was also ultimately why she’d been forced to stay in the north: her loss to Hindsight, should she be killed or captured, would be irreplaceable. Over and above the thousands of plans and blueprints and other things of interest they carried in storage, her photographic mind also carried with it a vast wealth of information that they could ill afford to lose.

“The new anti-tank sights for the AA guns are all out and going well, and the 10-pounder guns seem to be working nicely in tanks and on towed carriages. There aren’t many of them yet, but there are enough, perhaps, to make their presence felt if used in the right areas. The main bottleneck has been in smallarms, as much because of disruption by raids as anything else. They have one division now, I think, armed with AKMs and RPKs, although they’re complaining about losing their precious Bren guns…”

“Wait ‘til they start carting the new ones around: that’ll shut the whingeing bastards up!” Thorne grinned slightly. The new squad light machine gun, provisionally named the Vickers-Enfield Mk.I and based on the Realtime Soviet RPK, had a high level of commonality with the AKM rifle, and was about three kilograms lighter that the Bren gun it was replacing, even when loaded with a 75-round drum magazine.

“The real question will be whether they can supply enough ammunition… they’re going to need everything they can get!” Hal continued with a knowing smile. “Getting enough of the new ammo has been difficult.”

The new short round was basically a direct copy of the Soviet rimless round fired by Kalashnikov rifles and light machine guns in Realtime, the only change being the slight increase in calibre to 7.7mm (.303-inch) to facilitate manufacturing equipment already set up for that established British standard. The .303 inch Rimless Mark I cartridge, as it had become known, proved just as effective as the round from which it had been derived, and the improvement on available firepower for the British infantry squad promised to be great indeed.

“It’s all just a question of time in the end, Max,” Markowicz shrugged again, “and whether we’ll have enough of it.”

“We’re hoping we can buy some more time, Hal,” Thorne said with more seriousness than the scientist expected, and they stopped walking for a moment as the solemn expression on the Australian’s face captured all of the older man’s attention. “We need you to arm one of the ‘Three Stooges’.”

“I was afraid it would come to this,” Hal said sadly, shaking his head. “After I heard they’d hit us here at Hindsight, I was afraid.”

“It was already on due to a request from the PM, but the attack damn sure sealed the matter,” Thorne growled darkly. “I just hope it’s enough to really make them back the fuck off! That’s why I want those reports you’re bringing back with you: we need to make sure we hit something valuable enough not to need a follow up strike. With any luck, those intelligence reports will give us something to work with as an appropriate strategic military target.”

“And if a military target can’t be found…?” Hal enquired pointedly, instantly picking up on the emphasis in Thorne’s last sentence.

“I don’t want to take out Berlin unless I have to… or Munich…” The Australian answered finally after a long pause, giving the answer Markowicz had feared. In Thorne’s mind, the latter of the cities mentioned was probably a better target, as the Bavarian capital had been Hitler’s political ‘birthplace’.

“And if they strike back in kind… either here or against London…?”

“We intercepted the transport carrying Reuters’ nuclear research, tank guns and some other shit before it got out of Realtime,” Thorne pointed out, unhappy with the magnitude of the decision before him and rationalising somewhat as a result.

“And they’ve also had years here to start developing something indigenous.” Markowicz shot back. “Where does it leave is if they have a ‘Fatman’ or ‘Little Boy’ to send over with their next ‘B-29’?”

“I personally think they’d have sent one over under a fucking Flanker by now, if they did have one,” Thorne growled, “and the effort they’ve put in so far attacking us suggests we’d probably have warranted it.” He began to walk again, striding ahead as the others hurried to catch up. “Of course, we’ll all be fucked if I’m wrong…!” He muttered sourly, but it was under his breath, and none of the others heard.

Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ

Amiens, Northern France

Wednesday,

August 21, 1940

The disagreement playing out that morning was one of the more agitated ever to arise between the heads of New Eagles since their arrival in Pre-War Germany, notable not so much for volume or aggression, which were both kept well in check, but for its intensity and the polarised nature of the opposing viewpoints. The mood around the headquarters had been poor at best in the days following the loss of Ritter’s flight and most of SKG1 over Scapa Flow, with the apathetic and despondent lack of emotion generally displayed by the Reichsmarschall quickly spreading to those in his immediate vicinity, including Müller and even the usually irrepressible Schiller.

The major point of contention surrounded Reuters’ reluctance to send another reconnaissance flight over Scapa Flow, to determine once and for all whether the outcome of the disastrous raid had actually been successful. The loss of their agent on site had shut down any direct information, and there’d also been a complete cessation of reports regarding Hindsight or Scapa Flow in general from any of the other sources they had in Great Britain… something that could be taken to mean one of two things.

Reuters preferred — wanted — to believe it was an indication the raid had indeed been a success, and that there was therefore no continuing information on Hindsight or Max Thorne available to be circulated. Prior to the raid, the man’s name and the unit itself had figured quite regularly in certain areas of intelligence to which they had access, but this was no longer the case. Reuters was loathe however to seek out any real confirmation of that assumption, something the two men closest to him were uncomfortable with to say the least, and both had to admit their CO hadn’t quite been the same man following the revelation that Carl Ritter had been listed as missing over Scapa Flow.

“It’s equally likely there’s simply been an artificial blackout placed on information concerning the base Hindsight or, alternately, codenames have been changed to hide that information from prying eyes,” Müller was trying to point out as the three men sat alone in Reuters’ favourite briefing room, his tone clearly indicating the exasperation he felt. “Unless we have photographic evidence of what’s happened one way or the other, we simply can’t be certain!”

“And I have already made it clear I’ve no intention of risking either of the remaining Flankers on such a dubious mission,” an irritable Reuters stonewalled from his usual seat opposite the others at the large table. “The likelihood of anything useful coming out of it doesn’t measure up against the damage another loss would do to us.”

“A loss which can’t be possible if the base has already been destroyed and there’s no longer a threat, as you’re choosing to believe,” Müller shot back tartly, gaining a glare but no immediate reply from his superior.

“I understand how difficult this must be,” Schiller ventured, trying a softer tack, “but we have to know one way or the other. If we’re wrong, and Hindsight does still exist…”

“Whether we’re right or wrong is of no relevance!” Reuters growled angrily, cutting him off. “Hindsight exists no more as far as The Führer’s concerned, and he’s going to continue to believe that.”

“‘Confirming’ the base’s destruction to him was premature, Kurt… it wasn’t a good idea.”

“And if we send this recon flight, and it comes back with evidence we failed…?” Reuters’ voice was soft, but the tone was savage. “That’ll be me finished in his eyes… and the rest of you with me! Do you think that would be a ‘good idea’? That raid was a ‘success’ whatever the actual outcome.”

“We can hit them again if we know the truth… make sure of it…” Schiller tried to continue.

“We have nothing left to hit them with!” The Reichsmarschall snarled with vehemence, making Schiller flinch in surprise as he slammed his palm down on the tabletop. “Everything we have is needed for Seelöwe! Losing SKG1 alone has left gaps in our pre-invasion bombardment plans we can ill afford!” He exhaled sharply and nervously ran both hands through his short, greyed hair. “Our capital ships have taken almost everything our industry and manpower could spare over the last seven years, and what’s left has only barely been enough to provide us with the rest of the equipment we need for this invasion… that includes all the new tanks and armoured vehicles that’ve been so late in coming as a result! We have just three carrier-based surface groups, all required to support the invasion’s initial thrusts across the Channel. None of our air power can be released for exactly the same reason: I’m not going to weaken the Luftwaffe any further when we’re so close to S-Day… there’s no time to regain our strength. You two know all of this!”

“And if they have survived, and they decide when the invasion comes they have no alternative but to use one of the devices our agent believed they were guarding in the Galaxy’s hold?” Müller’s question brought up the one real problem with Reuters’ plans, and it was a question the Reichsmarschall had been avoiding.

“We’ve been through this before as well!” His tone was almost plaintive now… the pressures building up to what could be the most important moment in the history of the Twentieth Century were starting to become obvious now, greatly exacerbated by personal issues that were far from dealt with on a number of levels. “We don’t know that what they were keeping inside the aircraft were nuclear weapons… Klein never got close enough to confirm what they had in there. It they were nuclear weapons, then they were well shielded: the dosimeters he carried with him never detected any radiation whatsoever, and he was able to get close enough for there to have surely been something detectable, even if only in tiny doses.” He sighed deeply, his face and body language clearly showing the exhaustion and tension he was feeling. “We know there are three crates in that aircraft’s hold that we’ve not been able to identify… if they are in fact nuclear weapons, and Hindsight still survives then –at worst — they only have three nuclear weapons, and that changes nothing. They can damage our plans for Seelöwe only if they use them on tactical targets during the invasion itself, or on the assembly points before they sail. If this does occur it may… may… disrupt or halt our operations, but even that isn’t necessarily inevitable. Even if Seelöwe were postponed or abandoned, we can still blockade the British Isles with sea and air power and starve the country into submission: the U-boats and aircraft we have at our disposal are far more advanced that Germany possessed in Realtime. Whatever the situation at Scapa Flow, we’ll eventually prevail regardless of any potential nuclear threat. Right now it’s what appears to be the case that’s far more important than what actually may be!”

“You’re worrying more about our own Chancellor than you are about the enemy!” Schiller growled, unimpressed with the rationalisations behind Reuters’ words and not afraid to make his displeasure known.

“Because the threat from that direction is far greater, and far more real than anything the British can throw at us, bomb or no bomb… you know damn well that’s true, Albert!” The continual badgering had finally worn him down however, and he raised a hand to silence his friend as Schiller began to reply. “But… as you two are so adamant; we will send a recon flight by the end of the week… just to make you both happy.”

“We all want the same thing, Kurt!” Schiller moderated, appeased by the small victory. “There’s no one happier than I when we confirm Hindsight has been destroyed.”

“There’ll be one person happier,” Reuters said sharply, his voice cold as ice.

Prepared defensive lines at Smeeth

South-East of Ashford, Kent

That Wednesday evening was much the same as it had been most nights in the last two weeks for the tankers of A Squadron, 7th Royal Tank Regiment. Their encampment was dispersed a few kilometres south-east of Ashford for safety, and hidden at the edge of a small wood to the northern side of the Hythe Road (A20) as it continued on from Ashford down to Folkestone and the Dover Strait. The evening meal had been served from the back of a mobile field kitchen converted from one of the unit’s Bren carriers, and the meal, bland and tasteless as usual, had been forgotten within minutes of its consumption.

They spent their time smoking while playing Five Hundred or Canasta and occasionally sneaking a drink from an illegal stash of rum the CO knew about but ignored. The digging of defensive earthworks had been finished for some time, and as such there was little more for them to do save what they already were doing… waiting for what now seemed to be the inevitable. Infantry, anti-tank units and some cruiser tanks of the 1st London and the 47th Divisions were dug in along the coast from Dover to Dungeness, but the heavier armoured units were being held in reserve, ready to counter-attack if required or, as might well become necessary, to stand and hold the defensive lines further inland if the initial German assault broke out from the beaches.

The crew of Grosvenor watched that evening as a convoy of Bedford trucks rumbled past, heading for the coast with an assortment of anti-tank guns and support equipment in tow. Just half a kilometre north of the road at that point, Grosvenor was one of the closer of 7RTR’s tanks, and from where they huddled around their sheltered fire by the Matilda’s bow, the precession was clearly visible despite the failing light.

“They’re pushing their luck, ain’t they?” Gerry Gawler observed over an enamel mug of warm, weak tea with a malicious grin, making a great show of stretching his arm and glancing at his watch. “Still a few minutes of daylight left… Luftwaffe might get ‘em!” Very little moved during daytime hours due to uncontested Luftwaffe air superiority, and the nights were therefore full of activity from dusk until dawn as troop movements, reinforcements, resupply convoys and the like travelled this way and that around Southern England under the cover of darkness.

“Jerry bombers would ‘ave us too if they could find us, Corp,” Steven Hodges observed with a grin of his own, mouth half full of stale bread that he’d dunked into his own tea in a vain attempt to soften it up.

“Doubt they’d ‘ave Gerry, even if they could find him…!” Davids pointed out with a mischievous grin, the minor privilege of higher rank letting him get away with using the corporal’s hated nickname. “Those Luftwaffe boyos are right fussy, I’m told.”

“Very bloody funny,” Gawler growled in return, his tone indicating he thought rather the opposite. “Fussier than the Royal Tank Regiment, I’ll warrant!”

“They’re takin’ more a’ those new 10-pounders down to the coast, I see,” Davids changed the subject with a smile, ignoring the corporal’s return shot as he huddled above his crew on Grosvenor’s glacis plate, greatcoat wrapped about him.

The passing convoy was towing a mixture of the usual 2-pounder anti-tank guns, identical to the weapon mounted in a Matilda’s turret, and a new weapon that had only begun to appear in the last month or so. The 10-pounder anti-tank gun — official army title ‘QF 10-pounder Gun HLPS Mk.1’ — was an interesting weapon, and the tankers had learned that new Matildas and Valentines coming off the production lines were also being armed with it in place of the venerable 2-pdr. It fired a shell that was basically a 3-inch mortar bomb fitted with a hollow-charge warhead, and could also fire high-explosive rounds and all the other types normally used for that same mortar. The 81mm projectile was fitted into a shortened and necked-down version of the 3.7-inch AA cartridge case, and used what the armourers called a ‘High-Low Pressure System’ that meant the weapon produced far less recoil than a normal AT gun.

That recoil was low enough that the weapon could be mounted on quite a light and handy gun carriage, and its weight in action of just 750kg was lower than the 2-pdr it was replacing. Yet the 10-pounder still exhibited far better penetration against armour plate, and could be accurately used out to an effective range of 800 metres. A lack of recoil also meant no requirement for heavy construction in its components, and was also the reason it could be mounted on smaller turret rings such as that of the Matilda, Valentine or A-series Cruiser tanks, although there was the trade-off disadvantage of fewer rounds being carried due to their increased size. So far the new guns had worked well in practice, but were yet to be blooded in actual combat.

There were a half a dozen or so of the 10-pounders dug in along their section of the lines and around the A20 itself, intended to slow any enemy thrust toward Ashford. There was a vital rail junction that converged on the town from Sussex and Surrey in the west to join the Southern Line coming from Folkestone, continuing north-east toward Maidstone and on to London. It was an important supply and rally point, and if it wasn’t held, the defences throughout South-East England might well falter or even collapse.

“Rather put me faith in one o’ those ‘three-point-sevens’,” Angus Connolly growled from between Hodges and Gawler, sipping at a coffee he’d argued for simply because everyone else was having tea, and he wanted to be difficult. “Any bastard comes in range of them’s well fooked!”

All of them nodded in agreement at that observation. Four 3.7-inch medium AA guns were also dug in slightly behind the main line of 10-pdrs by the road. The weapons had recently been fitted with direct-fire sights and broad shields that hung over their barrels, making them look quite uncannily like the 88-mm Flak-36 that was the enemy’s direct counterpart. The shields gave extra protection against shell splinters and small arms fire, although they’d never stop a tank shell, and the new sights for the first time allowed them to be used as direct-fire anti-tank weapons. With a calibre of 94 millimetres, it had been supplied with two new and extremely potent anti-tank shells that promised to make the gun just as deadly as the feared German ‘88’, if not more so.

“It’ll mean fuck-all what you put yer faith in if that fuckin’ ‘supergun’ draws a bead on us,” Gawler muttered, a little unsettled as the thought occurred to him. Rumours of what had happened at Dover and at Guston Railway Tunnel the week before had spread throughout southern England and had helped morale not one whit. “We’ll all be fucked!”

“That’s all shite!” Davids snapped, far too quickly for his rebuttal to be entirely convincing. “A load o’ bloody tripe spread by fifth-columnists and fuckers like that Lord Haw Haw boyo! No such bloody thing as a Godalmighty ‘supergun’!”

“Tell that to the poor bastard I ran into in town two days ago,” Gawler retorted, his tone and expression deadly serious. “Bugger was with a field hospital unit headed back to London… Royal Marine he was… one of the crew of the railway gun that got slaughtered at Sandgate. Two shots were all it took and they was all dead… just like that!” Gawler snapped his fingers crisply for effect. “Only him and three other fellers got out with their lives, and all of them wounded… said it felt like the bloody Germans was throwin’ battleships at ‘em.”

“That’s fookin’ stupid,” Connolly grumbled after a pause, during which his mind had thought unsuccessfully through what the corporal had said. “How the fook would Jerry throw a whole fookin’ battleship…?”

“Fer Christ’s sake, Angus,” Gawler began as Davids snorted with muffled laughter and Hodges simply groaned and shook his head. “How in the name of all that’s holy did you make lance corporal?”

“The RSM said ah was too much of a cunt to stay a fookin’ private,” came the innocent, matter-of-fact reply, and all of them suddenly burst into fits of laughter, save for a bewildered LCPL Connolly himself. Laughing so hard he almost fell off the Matilda’s glacis plate, Davids was glad of the humour: any such moments were few and far between, and went a long way toward lightening a mood that over the last weeks had gradually but steadily turned distinctly sour.

Port of Boulogne-sur-Mer

Pas-de-Calais, Northern France

Thursday,

August 22, 1940

Berndt Schmidt, Milo Wisch and the rest of his men watched as the 2nd SS Shock Division reversed their tanks and armoured vehicles each in turn into the hold of the assault ship Dresden. Fifty brand new P-4A Panther tanks were being loaded into the large assault ship via the tall, clamshell doors in its bow. Five more identical LSTs were lined up within Boulogne-Sur-Mer’s Bassin Loubet, a section of docks separated from and to the west of the main harbour, while fourteen more were also in the process of loading in the rest of the port area or waiting at the harbour entrance for clearance to come in. These final preparations for invasion were going on in ports all the way along the French and Dutch Channel Coast, and although no one had given the troops a confirmed date as yet, all knew that it must be soon.

Their own part in the preparations had been completed weeks ago, and Berndt and the rest of the SS tankers of the 3rd Div had been temporarily reassigned to help load thousands of tonnes of stores onto those same LSTs that were soon to make their all-important trip across the Channel. As a junior officer, Obersturmführer Schmidt wasn’t required to take part in manual labour of that kind, but he preferred the company of his troops, and his presence working among his own men raised their respect for him greatly.

Bare to the waist in the bright sunshine and sweaty from the exertion, they took a smoke break that afternoon and were puffing thoughtfully on cigarettes as the hustle and bustle of the ship-filled port went on about them. Forklifts had deposited pallets stacked high with wooden crates of ammunition, stores, food and other supplies, and men had been forming a human chain to transport those crates up the relatively narrow gangplank leading into a small freighter’s side hatch, where another work crew stacked them into the hold.

The whole of the division’s vehicles and support equipment was being loaded onto those vessels in preparation for the impending invasion. Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, assault guns, mobile flak, self-propelled gun- and rocket-artillery… all were being stowed aboard the huge ships along with dozens of lesser support vehicles: enough vehicles to arm and support the five thousand men of the 2nd SS Shock Division.

Much like the division they were assisting that day, the entirety of their own division had handed in their older P-3 tanks, half tracks and other armoured vehicles in exchange for models straight off the production lines at Henschel, MAN and Daimler-Benz. Most of the new vehicles had been derived from the same basic tank chassis — a completely new design with the RWM ordnance inventory designation of Sd.Kfz.161 that was known to the troops as the P-4A Panther.

Weighing more than forty tonnes, the new Panther was much larger than the P-3C it replaced, but its advanced diesel engine nevertheless gave it a far higher top road speed of 65km/hr and also a far greater unrefuelled range There was also the facility to allow the attachment of a pair of standard 200-litre fuel drums to the rear hull of the vehicle that could extend its range even further by linking directly to the fuel system, yet remained able to be jettisoned at any time should the tank need to enter combat.

A wide, low-set and almost hemispherical turret sat upon a long and equally low hull that carried no bow machine gun and just the driver forward. Main armament was the 8.8cm KWK49, an improved variant of the well-known and lethal 88mm Flak-36 that had already proven itself against enemy armour as a towed anti-aircraft gun in France and the Low Countries. A single 7.92mm MG3C machine gun was mounted co-axially with the main armament, and a single 13mm heavy machine gun was also carried above the loaders hatch for AA defence.

Although the turret was a little cramped compared to the old P-3C, the tank itself had quickly proven its capabilities on the training ground and at the firing range. The main gun could hit targets out to 2,000 metres with reasonable accuracy, and all of the anti-tank shell types it could fire were lethal at that range, with eighty rounds in total carried within the turret and hull. The armour was also substantially improved and was as thick as 150mm on the turret front and hull glacis plate. That hull glacis plate was heavily sloped to help deflect any enemy fire, the same intention behind the rounded shape of the turret.

An infantry fighting vehicle, assault gun, rocket launcher, two types of medium artillery and a self-propelled flak vehicle had also been developed from that basic hull layout and powerplant, and were all now part of a vastly improved armoured force that formed the core of all of the newly-equipped SS shock divisions.

Wisch was as impressed as any of the others by the new equipment and was certain they’d make a huge impact on the enemy wherever they were encountered, albeit in moderate numbers, as production was yet to catch up with demand, and only SS units had been equipped so far. The medium-velocity 75mm gun of the P-2 and P-3 tanks they’d replaced had been able to defeat the armour of the British Matilda II, but only at ranges close enough to allow the enemy tanks’ two-pounders some chance of inflicting damage in return, and the tankers were now looking forward to getting the opportunity to hit the enemy at ranges well beyond the Brit’s capability to strike back.

The sounds of air raid sirens rose about the harbour at that moment, although no one within sight seemed to take all that much notice. The threat of attack by RAF was all but non-existent now, and of the three warnings raised since they’d arrived the week before, all so far had been false alarms over the mistaken identity of returning Luftwaffe bombers. In this case, the alert was in fact due to the approach of a British aircraft, and all were surprised by the sight of an RAF Mustang reconnaissance aircraft as it howled past high overhead at top speed, disappearing off to the east as quickly as it had appeared. The PR variant of the Mustang was still the only aircraft the British possessed that was too fast to be caught by Luftwaffe fighters, but losses had nevertheless been comparatively high to ground fire, and the remaining aircraft were now used only sparingly.

Most of the men of the 3rd SS Shock Division suspected it mattered little now anyway if the enemy knew what was going on in the Channel Ports… the invasion seemed inevitable now, and none expected the British to have much hope of stopping it either before or after the Wehrmacht landed on English soil.

“We’re coming, Tommy,” Schmidt muttered mostly to himself, echoing the thoughts of the men around him. He turned to stare off to the west once more, as if the buildings of the docks and the towering shapes of the LSTs moored there were no hindrance to him actually casting his eyes across the distant enemy coast.

“Soon now, sir,” Wisch observed beside him, drawing deeply on a cigarette and blowing smoke rings into the calm air.

“Very soon,” Schmidt nodded in agreement. “A week or two now, maybe three… can’t keep fighting men inactive for much more than that or they start becoming more trouble than we’re worth. They’d prefer us to expend our energy on the enemy rather than falling foul of the ‘Chain-Dogs’,” he continued, referring in a less than complimentary manner to the Wehrmacht’s own feldgendarmerie — the military police — who wore polished gorgettes on chains around their necks as identification. “Get the chance for you to put a few more stripes on that barrel, now they’ve given us one with a bit more length to work with!”

“He’s always been obsessed with ‘length’, Milo!” One of the other men observed with a lewd grin. “You want to watch yourself there…”

“Some of us at least have something worth firing, Gunther,” Schmidt shot back instantly without missing a beat. “At least, that’s what your mother tells me!”

“Sounds like my ma… I’d get yourself checked out at the infirmary if you’ve been playing about with her…!” Gunther pulled a face, but made no effort to disagree as the rest of the group laughed.

“They know we’re coming,” Wisch said softly, still thinking about the RAF fighter as he puffed on the cigarette once more.

“Oh they know all right,” Schmidt nodded, “but they don’t know exactly when, and there’s no need to give ‘em any more warning than we have to.”

“Won’t make any difference,” another of the crewmen grinned, youthful pride in his voice. “Our new Panthers won’t stop ‘til we get to London…!”

“Think like that, and you’ll be coming back from London in a box!” Schmidt shot back with a laugh, standing behind the young man and playfully cuffing him on the back of the head. “Any panzer can be killed… if you’re stupid or careless.”

“Here’s to not being stupid or careless then,” An NCO offered as a toast, passing around a large canteen of water for all to sample.

“Here’s to that indeed…!” Schmidt agreed, and they all raised make-believe glasses or cigarettes as proxies.

Hindsight emergency airstrip ‘Alternate’

Eday, Orkney Islands

Thorne had visited Ritter at least once a day during his imprisonment at Lyness. Most of the time had been spent walking and talking around various parts of Hoy and South Walls. With the ubiquitous pair of armed guards in tow, the Australian had put a great deal of effort into getting to know the man they held captive, and at the same time he’d knowingly and intentionally allowed Carl Ritter to see a good deal of the man ‘behind’ Max Thorne.

He’d decided on a change of scene however that Thursday afternoon, and the pair and their escorting MPs had this time boarded a motor torpedo boat that had taken them out into the Flow, past Cantick Head and South Walls, and on into the Pentland Firth. A two-hour cruise at moderate speed along the eastern coast of South Ronaldsay had followed, continuing on past Mainland and beyond into Stronsay Firth, north-east of Shapinsay. They docked at a long, stone pier on a small ‘hook’ of coastline at the south-east end of Eday Island, close to the village of Backaland. A battered old 1913-model Rover 12 sedan borrowed from one of the locals carried them west along a narrow, country lane, past Backaland and then through the village of Stenaquoy as it turned and headed north.

As they made the five kilometre trip along the island’s north-south axis, Ritter realised that part of the long, open fields of heather drawing ever nearer ahead was actually a long, wide strip of well-designed camouflage netting. It didn’t take much effort to realise the covered strip stretching out into the distance to the north could only be a landing strip of some kind, although it occurred to Ritter than the length would possibly rival the huge concrete runway being constructed at St. Omer at the time they’d left.

At the nearer, southern end of the strip, huge ‘mountains’ of similarly-patterned netting rose from the surface of the earth to form a series of strange, uneven peaks and plateaus that were at some points as high as twenty metres from the ground. The netting was thick and appeared to be comprised of at least two overlapped layers, and from a distance it was impossible to determine exactly what might actually be hidden underneath. Taking into account the nature of that camouflage and the excellent colouring and patterns, there was every chance in Ritter’s opinion that very little would be visible at all from anything but very low level, and the lack of flak weapons suggested the British were relying more on keeping what was beneath hidden rather than keeping sufficient defences present in the event of discovery.

It was a situation that became clearer to the Luftwaffe pilot as his logical mind began to gather more information regarding his surroundings. There were absolutely no anti-aircraft weapons he could see, and there’d almost certainly be some tell-tale signs if any were present, no matter how well those emplacements might be hidden… assuming of course they weren’t concentrated beneath the netting itself… yet people were taking great pains to conceal whatever was beneath that camouflaged covering.

The Rover pulled off onto the grass verge opposite a small abandoned farmhouse, at a point where the lane entered into a shallow, sweeping bend and back again as it continued north. The southern end of the landing strip was just 250 metres west of them at that point across a flat expanse of featureless heather, and as all four of them climbed from the car, Ritter couldn’t see another living soul as he looked about in every direction.

He’d not been handcuffed or had his hands tied — something that he’d taken careful note of — and even though the pistol at Thorne’s belt was still visible beneath the open combat jacket he wore, none of them seemed to show any real concern that the Luftwaffe pilot might actually be a threat. It was the first time Ritter had met the Australian out of his official uniform, and the man seemed markedly different in a more generic and less official military dress… far more comfortable and relaxed.

“Herr Ritter,” Thorne began he motioned for Ritter to walk with him. “I’ve got something to show you that I think you might find very interesting.” As the pair moved off across the field, Thorne held a hand behind his back that clearly indicated the two guards should remain by the car, an instruction they immediately obeyed.

“Most of the things we’ve discussed over the last few days have been interesting, Mister Thorne,” Ritter countered in a friendly tone, “and I expect this meeting to be no different…” But the pilot couldn’t help but noticing an underlying nervousness in the Australian’s tone that suggested the conversation that afternoon might well be something more out of the ordinary than he’d experienced so far.

“In a moment, we’re going to step beneath the camouflage netting you can no doubt see directly ahead,” Thorne continued, a hardened edge momentarily creeping into his voice that was also quite clear. “There are things hidden here that I and my colleagues here at Scapa Flow simply cannot afford to have damaged in any way whatsoever. If you give your word you’ll not consciously do anything to sabotage the equipment inside, I’ll trust you, however I still need to advise you as a matter of course that if you do make any attempt to cause trouble, I will shoot you dead… is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” Ritter replied with serious honesty, completely convinced of the sincerity and intent behind the man’s statement.

“Then I’ll not mention it again. Do I have your word you’ll make no effort to sabotage anything under these nets?”

Ritter thought long and hard about his answer. These people were enemies, and as such, any promise made was meaningless and not bound by his word of honour… some might even argue — reasonably — that as a German officer it would be his duty to do whatever he could to hurt an enemy of The Reich, whenever the opportunity presented itself. But Ritter was also a man of his word and always had been, and he could tell by the tone in the Australian’s voice that, if he couldn’t give the requested promise, Thorne would have him taken back to his cell and their ‘discussion’ would proceed no further… and Ritter very much wished to see what was beneath the masses of camouflage up ahead.

“You have my word that whatever I see within, I shall lift no hand to cause any damage or hindrance,” he said finally, and in the end it was the amount of thought and the amount of time taken before giving his answering that made it easy for Thorne to believe him.

“Excellent!” Thorne said simply without missing a step. “Let’s get a move on then… we’ve one hell of an afternoon ahead of us!” Secretly, Max knew that if he wanted to have any chance of making use of Ritter as he planned, he had to trust the man and take him at his word. He also needed the man to see what he’d prepared beyond the netting: the rapport they’d begun to build over the last few days still needed reinforcement, and words alone weren’t going to be enough to enable Thorne to drive a wedge between Carl Ritter and his country of his birth and allegiance.

They reached the netting within a few minutes, and during the whole approach, the angle of the afternoon sun and the darkness beneath the nets made it impossible to make out any detail from the outside. As Thorne lifted the edge of those nets and they bent to step inside, Ritter could never have imagined in his wildest dreams that the huge shapes beneath were just three aircraft, two of which put the ‘Raptor’ he’d shot down the Saturday before to shame in terms of sheer, breathtaking size.

“Mein Gott,” he breathed softly, reverting to stunned German as he stared at the gargantuan shapes of the KC-10A Extender and C-5M Galaxy; the F-35E Lightning II standing in their shadow seeming puny by comparison. They’d entered the covering beneath a ‘tent’ created as the netting sloped down to the ground from the Galaxy’s starboard wing to the ground, and there was just enough light inside to make out detail at close to medium range.

“More than you were expecting…?” Thorne queried with a grin, also speaking in German.

“How could I have expected this?” Ritter replied finally, roused from his stupor by the Australian’s words. “Nothing I’ve ever seen comes close to this. This aircraft,” he pointed at the Lightning as it stood in the dark shadows beside the Galaxy’s nose. “This is a fighter… I can tell by the look of it…” As Thorne nodded silently, the pilot picked out the missiles hanging beneath its wings. “This aircraft fired on my pilots… these rockets are guided somehow…!”

“Exactly that… yes,” Thorne agreed as Ritter began to move slowly past the F-35E and on toward the Galaxy and tanker behind it.

“Please tell me these are not bombers!” The concern in the statement was real: something of such an immense size could reasonably be assumed to carry a great many bombs.

“Transport aircraft… like your Tante Ju.”

“This is nothing like our Tante Ju!” Ritter corrected instantly, shaking his head as emphasis. He took in the raised nose cone on the C-5B and the open loading ramp at its rear, and made a quick connection. “More like our Gigants… on a grand scale!”

“So you’ve called them ‘Gigants’ like the Me-323s in Realtime?” Thorne observed under his breath with interest. Hindsight had received many reports of the new Arado transport aircraft replacing the Ju-52/3m tri-motors on the front lines, and had instantly recognised them to be copies of the Fairchild C-123 Provider that had been their inspiration. “…plagiarising bastards…” he added for his own benefit, but Ritter was far too absorbed to notice.

“The one at the rear… it carries cargo also?”

“Cargo and fuel: it can refuel aircraft in flight from the boom beneath its tail, or from pods under its wings. The fuel it carries could take it and a fighter escort around with world.”

“Again, I see American insignia! How can this be? This is more than we could ever have expected was possible across the Atlantic!”

“I wouldn’t worry too much just yet,” Thorne gave a grin and clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder, regaining his full attention. “Come on… there’s much more to see…”

The Luftwaffe pilot’s face was a mask of awe, his eyes snapping this way and that as he followed Thorne up the Galaxy’s forward loading ramp and on into to the cargo bay past another pair of armed guards. The forward section of the aircraft was stacked almost floor-to-ceiling with crates and metal boxes of varying sizes that gave little indication as to their contents, while strip lighting stretched all the way along the ceiling of the cargo bay, bathing everything in its stark illumination. Thorne led the man to a flight of stairs just inside the ramp that took them up to the Galaxy’s flight deck, behind which was the seating for Hindsight personnel, and beyond that Thorne’s small ‘office’ with the PC and media storage racks. The computer itself was already running in stand-by mode, with a Windows screensaver floating here and there across the LCD screen.

“Have a seat, Herr Oberstleutnant,” Thorne offered with an extended hand, finding it difficult to keep the sharpness of his accent from increasing as his own nervousness and tension began to build substantially. His German probably wouldn’t prove fluent enough for him to completely explain some of the concepts he wanted to discuss, and the task at hand was going to be difficult enough without him having to repeat things because Ritter couldn’t understand an overly nasal, Australian ‘twang’.

“I somehow have the feeling I shall need one,” Ritter inclined his head in acknowledgement as he stepped forward and seated himself. “This will be a long interview?”

“Not necessarily,” Thorne replied with a grimace, “but it’s probably not gonna to be an easy one… for either of us… particularly you, I’m afraid.” He leaned one hip against the desk as the pilot swivelled to face him with a sharp expression. Thorne took a deep breath before continuing. “Let’s get something straight for a start: my name’s Max Thorne, but I’m not an officer… not really. This rank I’m wearing is kind of an honorary thing that enables me to get my job done easier.”

“I’d suspected as much,” Ritter mused, nodding thoughtfully. “You do not move or act with the regimen or pomposity of an officer of such high rank. You were an officer once, I think… you have the bearing required… but I think that was a long time ago, yes…?”

“Got it in one,” Thorne admitted, a little surprised by the man’s acuity. “That’s a pretty sharp assessment there… what gave me away?”

“The role of ‘Commanding Officer’ doesn’t sit easily on your shoulders,” Ritter explained his observations after a little thought. “You maintain the façade well when surrounded by your men, but quickly revert to a more natural, relaxed persona when among equals, as we are now.”

“That obvious, huh…?” Thorne grinned, inwardly pleased the German considered him an ‘equal’: that in itself was an important statement. “I was an officer once, as you guessed: many years ago, I was a squadron leader with the Royal Australian Air Force.”

“I knew it… a pilot!” Ritter smiled also, pleased his suspicions had been vindicated. “You’ve shown nothing other than honour and integrity so far, and this seems fitting for an officer of the Australian Luftwaffe…!” His use of the word ‘Luftwaffe’ instead of ‘air force’ caused Thorne to wince a little, and drew a wry smile. “You flew fighters, yes?”

The Australian nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Hah! This is a man I can trust, here!” The pilot actually laughed: something was falling into place exactly in accordance with Ritter’s deductions, and that pleased him greatly. It never for a moment entered his head that Thorne might be lying in order to get him ‘on side’… he was far too shrewd a judge of character to think the man mightn’t be telling the truth. That last statement, light-hearted as it was, also made Thorne feel a good deal better. Above and beyond his intention to put the German pilot to use in their plans, he was also warming to the man as an individual, and was reassured by the man’s willingness to trust him in return.

“The problem isn’t so much what I used to do,” Thorne changed the subject, deciding it was time to get on with what he’d brought Ritter to Alternate for. “It’s more about when I used to do it…”

The play on words slipped past Ritter’s comprehension of English, and he shrugged and shook his head almost apologetically, causing Thorne to repeat the statement as best he could in German.

“I… I still don’t understand what you’re implying,” Ritter was forced to admit, almost feeling embarrassment, as if the meaning of the Australian’s words should be perfectly obvious to anyone else.

“Over the last two days, you’ve seen the kind of technology we have here, yes…?” He paused for a moment, allowing the man to nod silently in agreement. “All quite impressive no doubt… although you’ve already proven it to be quite vulnerable. Let me tell you something of the aircraft you shot down…” Thorne continued, adjusting his stance as he began to speak in earnest. “The Americans call it a Lockheed-Martin F-22A Raptor, although you’ll not find it listed anywhere on the books of the Lockheed or Martin corporations at the present time. Its role was that of ‘air superiority’ fighter — you might call it an ‘interceptor’ — and it could perform that role admirably. That Raptor was able to fly around three thousand kilometres on internal fuel alone, and was capable of travelling at almost twice the speed of sound — almost two thousand kilometres per hour at high altitude. It was also invisible to radar to all intents and purposes.

“The aircraft was armed with a twenty-millimetre, ‘Gatling’-type cannon capable of firing six thousand rounds per minute, and also carried a number of the air-to-air missiles: the ‘guided-rockets’ you’ve already seen in action. Those missiles are guided by radar, can fly twice as fast as the F-22, and can destroy an enemy aircraft many kilometres away.” Thorne took a short breath before adding: “What do you think about what I’ve just told you?”

“The specifications you’ve given me are amazing… almost incredible,” Ritter replied with a shrug, “but having seen the aircraft you’re referring to, I’m almost inclined to accept they might be true.”

“How might you have reacted, had someone told you six months ago that you’d be in combat against an aircraft like that before the end of the year?”

Ritter considered that question carefully before answering, quite rightly perceiving that the question was extremely important in some way.

“I should think I’d have thought that person either mad, or that they were trying to make a joke of me. Had I not seen undeniable evidence to the contrary, I’d think it unlikely any aircraft like that could be built… or the others I’ve seen here, for that matter.”

Bingo! Thorne thought in that moment. Like Trumbull several months before, Ritter had seized upon an understanding of temporal existence that Thorne could work with. He steeled himself and forged ahead.

“What would you think, if I told you the F-35E fighter out there and the F-22A you shot down last Saturday were both manufactured at the beginning of the Twenty-First Century… more than sixty years in your future?”

“You’re serious… that I can tell from the look on your face,” Ritter replied, choosing his words carefully as his eyes narrowed sharply. His first reaction had been to scoff at the idea, but the intent expression on Thorne’s face had given him cause to think twice. “I’ll allow you to go on… rather than to simply laugh at such a ridiculous idea.”

“This cargo plane and the tanker beside it were both built in the mid-1980s… over forty years from now. Almost everyone working at the part of the base here that was destroyed in that same air raid… myself included… are also from your future. We’ve returned from the year Two Thousand and Ten AD to make sure Germany loses the Second World War.”

“I don’t think that you can manage that, friend… not unless you have an entire geschwader of those ‘Raptors,” Ritter observed impassively. Although he mightn’t always agree with the activities carried out in the name of the Wehrmacht, he was nevertheless well aware of the his country’s incredible military might.

“As things stand at the moment, the Allies have no chance of defeating Germany any time soon, but that’s largely irrelevant at the moment. My unit — we call it ‘Hindsight’ — wasn’t the first to travel back to your time from 2010… there’s a group that’s been in Germany for some time already, helping to develop her industry and her military to the point that both are unbeatable.” He successfully hid his nervousness over asking his next question. “You’ve met Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters perhaps…?”

“We’ve met on two occasions,” Ritter admitted with a shrug. “He seemed a brilliant, if somewhat eccentric man.”

“Wouldn’t blame him for displaying some level of eccentricity,” Thorne grinned wryly. “We’ve all gone a bit loopy with culture shock after the jump. As for his brilliance… well I’m sure, as an experienced officer, you’d understand the ‘brilliance’ of hindsight as well as any.”

“You are saying the Reichsmarschall is using knowledge of past events to ensure a German victory?” Ritter quickly picked up the direction the conversation was taking. “You’re saying Reichsmarschall Reuters is also from the future?”

In spite of the incredible nature of the Australian’s story, something indeed struck a chord within Ritter’s memory as he recalled the distinctly strange feeling that’d come over him during his first meeting with Reuters. He suddenly remembered the ‘spark’ that’d shocked them both as they had shaken hands. Did it mean something? Yet he’d also shaken hands with Max Thorne and had experienced nothing… what might the significance of that be… if anything? Another far more chilling thought suddenly came to him.

“You say this man came from the future to help Germany win the war?” He snapped sharply. “You’ve all returned after the fact to prevent this from happening…” The ramifications of it all began to truly sink in as Thorne recognised the conclusions Ritter was about to reach and again nodded silently. “None of you would be here in the first place, had Germany been the original victor… are you saying that Germany lost this war… should lose this war?”

That was a question Thorne had been preparing for, and he took it in his stride. “Not just ‘should’ lose… they bloody-well did lose! That’s a historical ‘fact’ of my era that’s now been turned completely upside down.” He saw a dozen questions immediately rise in the pilot’s eyes, but raised a hand to silence the man before he could speak. “Before you ask me anything else, I want to show you something that will answer some of your questions and probably raise a lot more… I promise you there’ll be plenty of time for answers afterward.”

Ritter took a deep breath and grudgingly obliged the request to remain silent. What Thorne was telling him was incredible — almost beyond belief, perhaps — but the sincerity the man displayed was seriously weakening his incredulity when backed up by the existence of the aircraft there at Eday.

“Are you aware of a concentration camp in Eastern Germany known as Dachau?” Thorne asked softly, a notable level of discomfort creeping back into his voice.

“I… I’ve heard vague stories,” Ritter answered with a slight falter. There’d been some rumours floating about regarding the true nature of the camp, but none had been confirmed, and it didn’t pay to go about believing such unpleasant claims without proof.

“Yes,” Thorne murmured dubiously, regarding Ritter’s suddenly-guarded expression with interest. “We spoke on that first day about things going on within Germany. Remember, I said that I might have a better idea than you regarding the true state of your country, but refused not explain? I think that it’s time I showed you what I was talking about… let me show you something that may open your eyes a little…” Thorne turned to the PC and moved the mouse on the desk beside it, causing the screensaver to disappear. He started the DVD already in the drive with a single click, and images began to flicker.

Ritter sat back in his chair, intrigued and mesmerised as the LCD screen came to life. A pale-coloured scene appeared that seemed almost black and white, depicting a large pair of gates set into an equally imposing, tower-like building while a single set of railway tracks ran through beneath those closed gates from the front of screen. The air was foggy, and it seemed as if it were a winter’s morning. The view shifted to images of guard towers and barbed wire, all overgrown and derelict, and of more abandoned railway tracks as a man’s voice began a sombre voiceover.

The video’s title sequence began as stirring violins set the mood. The title ‘THE WORLD AT WAR’ appeared across the screen, and successive black and white images of forlorn and devastated faces were burned away by roaring flames. Already ill at ease, Ritter was suddenly struck by a cold and irrational fear, although he couldn’t explain why.

The title sequence had been intended to strike an emotional chord in those of a time when the war was long past, and where television was an accepted norm: the effect upon someone unaccustomed to audio-visual imagery of such standards of production was inevitably far greater. The episode’s title appeared in stark, white lettering that was superimposed over the continuing images: ‘GENOCIDE’; and Ritter was gripped with an instinctive feeling that he desperately didn’t want to see what was to come from this strange motion picture displayed on that equally-strange television screen… yet something within compelled him to keep watching.

The documentary began innocuously enough with some stock history of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler that Ritter suspected he may have already seen… and with an interview with Karl Wolff, who would become Himmler’s SS adjutant. The black and white footage possessed an eerie quality that matched the strange tone of Laurence Olivier’s rich narration. Included in it were excerpts of newsreels that Ritter actually remembered, yet things that had seemed ‘normal’ as they’d been presented at the cinemas suddenly acquired a feeling of incredibly abnormality: the ideas of a Nazi ‘superman’ and pure Aryan race somehow suddenly appeared almost laughable, and at the same time quite unsettling.

The camp at Dachau was mentioned, as was the motto over its gates: ‘arbeit macht frei’ (‘work makes you free’). It was a phrase that suddenly seemed insidious and very frightening. So were the developing, underlying themes of the Nazis ideals… their hatred of the Jews. Ritter couldn’t understand how he’d not seen the injustice of it all as the video brought the memories of those times flooding back, and he now recalled it all quite clearly. November 1938 - Kristallnacht — and Ritter remembered that too… remembered the Jewish males being marched away in the days that followed from the areas around his home in Köln.

The video commenced with a brief history of the opening stages of the war, but the images shown were of events quite different to Ritter’s recollections of the Polish Campaign, although that was hardly surprising. It would’ve been unlikely for front line combat pilots to encounter what was occurring below on the ground, and his stomach churned at the recounted tales of beatings and persecutions of Jews and other ‘undesirables’ behind the lines in Occupied Poland.

‘The Jews started the war…” Those familiar words were spoken, and Ritter remembered many he knew saying the same thing in the early days.

What army did the Jews have? What air force? Yet why had he never before questioned such a preposterous idea? He knew nothing of the Warsaw Ghetto where thousands of Jews were herded and imprisoned during 1940 and forced to live in terrible, squalid conditions. Narration by witnesses of the times gave more weight to the powerful scenes as someone lay starving in the street, perhaps already dead, and the sight of skin drawn taut over fragile bones that were far too visible made the pilot’s stomach turn.

As the recounting of ‘history’ passed the present day, Ritter was astounded by the possibility of war with the Soviet Union. He was at a loss to understand how this could happen, when all the newsreels continued to declare to all and sundry that Germany and Russia were allies. Once again, a common theme was present: an obsession with the Jews. Three million in Poland, the narrator said, and another five million in Russia following this unbelievable invasion. The SS officer who’d spoken earlier asked the rhetoric question of how they should deal with ‘all these Jews’. The simplicity of it all chilled the German pilot to the core as Olivier suddenly revealed the final answer: ‘kill them all…’

Einsatzgruppen… where had Ritter heard that title… had he heard it before? They were ‘Special groups’, created for the sole purpose of disposing of the Jews, and from that point on the story became more and more horrific. Accounts of Jews rounded up and pleading with their captors as they were shot and dumped in open graves… often falling on the bodies of those who had preceded them… friends… relatives… family. ‘A pit full of blood…’ one survivor recounted, and footage of the mass graves and the executions went on and on.

Ritter could almost believe the so ludicrously German pragmatism of it all as a witness told how Himmler decided shooting just wasn’t fast enough or economical enough: that another, more efficient method should be devised to carry out this ‘Final Solution’. Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s insidious and widely-feared subordinate was mentioned, and at a conference at Wansee in 1942, they decided to instead use a deadly gas called Zyklon-B.

The horrific stories continued of the transportation of prisoners in railway cattle cars to these camps, where they were forced into ‘shower’ blocks by the thousand under the pretence of ‘delousing’ and stand huddled together, terrified, until the gas would come on and the screaming began. Silent tears began to roll slowly down Ritter’s face as a witness told of the removal the bodies — of ‘pyramid’-like piles clustered at the centre of the rooms, where hysterical, terrified victims had screamed and clawed for escape that would never come. His body was racked by an uncontrollable shudder, tense fingers clutching nervously at the arms of the chair, and his mind could barely conceive of the magnitude of such atrocities… yet there was no recourse other than to believe it all. The footage was too real — he couldn’t imagine that it could possibly be false.

There was worse still to come. The reality of what was happening was finally revealed to the world as the Red Army pushed into Germany in 1945, poised to crush the Wehrmacht in the east. Only as the Russians ‘liberated’ camp after camp could the true obscenity of it all be comprehended… if that were even possible. Bulldozers pushed emaciated, shattered and mostly-naked bodies into mass graves dozens at a time… the remnants of the Nazis’ handiwork as the SS deserted the camps and retreated westward. Men, women and children alike… all were subject to the mass exterminations… and even those found alive by the liberating forces were often too weak to survive, eventually dying of starvation or exhaustion. In the end the images were too much.

“Enough,” Oberstleutnant Carl Ritter croaked weakly, his mouth dry as Thorne leaned in to move the mouse once more and stopped the disc. The pilot’s face was drawn and ashen. The scenes it had shown…! The images…! Death of a scale he’d never experienced, and a level of extermination that made Guernica and the entire Spanish War seem like nothing.

“How many…?” He asked finally, his eyes staring away and to the floor. “How many…?”

“Nearly six million,” Thorne said softly, also visibly shaken by what they’d seen, despite having seen it before. “Probably more than that when you include the disabled, homosexuals, political prisoners and other ‘undesirables’ as well… they had dozens of those camps running: Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen and many others…”

The idea sent Ritter’s senses reeling. Who in the military had even heard of such names as Dachau or Auschwitz… Sachsenhausen or Belsen? Yet this man claimed six million Jews and others would be murdered in these places within just the next five years.

Six million! The number was incomprehensible in real terms, but the ramifications were clear nevertheless: Germany — his country and his people — were responsible… would be responsible.

“You okay…?” Thorne asked with genuine concern as he sat in the chair beside Ritter’s. “You don’t look too crash hot.”

“I think I will not be sick,” Ritter grimaced, “but it is a close thing!”

“Yeah, I guess that show is a bit heavy when it’s your country they’re talking about.”

“That really happened, didn’t it…?” Ritter began. “Will happen…” he added, trying to get his head around the complexity of it all. Thorne knew there was no need for an answer: the rhetoric question was the final plea of a man who’d already seen the truth but didn’t want to accept it. “Could I have a drink, please?” The pilot added as an involuntary shudder rippled through his body.

“No worries,” Thorne nodded, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and producing a hip flask he’d for the first time brought along purely for the benefit of someone else. “Scotch okay?”

“Please…” There was a pause as Thorne handed the flask over before he added: “Thank you…”

“One slug of ‘Ye Olde’ White Horse coming right up…!” Thorne tried to lighten the mood a little, sensing that perhaps a little detachment would now serve them better. “Sorry there’s no ice… these shortages are pissing everyone off… there’s a war on, I think…”

“It will be fine as it is, thank you,” Ritter replied, smiling very weakly at the attempted humour, and after a fortifying swig of straight whiskey, he offered it back to Thorne, who quickly shook his head and refused to take it. “You’re not drinking?”

“No,” Thorne said slowly, faltering a little. “I don’t feel like a drink right now.” He felt like one quite a bit in fact, but he now possessed the resolve to refrain.

“How could this happen?” Ritter demanded, as much to himself as anyone else. “This vile travesty against our culture and heritage… how could The Führer allow this to happen?” Ritter was so consumed by shock and disgust that he momentarily forgot where he was as he asked that question.

“Far be it for me to be the bearer of bad tidings,” Thorne tried not to show too much of a wry grin as he attempted to answer, “but your Führer’s as mad as a cut snake!” As Ritter frowned at the unfamiliar saying, Thorne explained with a more recognisable colloquialism as he tapped a finger to his head in emphasis. “He’s a fuckin’ mental case! Although there’s no concrete evidence, there are theories about him suffering from a range of illnesses that include syphilis, Parkinson’s disease, Asperger Syndrome, skin lesions and irritable bloody bowels… and that’s not including other rumours of involvement in occultism, and quack doctors pumping him full of Christ knows what…” he shrugged in resignation “…whatever the real reasons, you’ve got a fella that history proves had quite a few problems.”

“That’s not to say he wasn’t a brilliant tactician on occasion,” he added quickly, recognising the defensive ‘knee-jerk’ reaction on Ritter’s face he’d expected after that last remark… one video wasn’t going to wipe away thirty-odd years of environmental conditioning at one stroke after all. “He was a brilliant and gifted leader at times… his direction of the runaway victories at the beginning of the war is one example of that. Much as it galls me to say it, the man had huge potential despite some seriously unethical and unorthodox methods, however Hitler’s planning of the Realtime war also carried with it some significant flaws. One of his greatest mistakes was a failure to truly recognise the importance and danger of the United States, both for its untapped manpower and incredible industrial potential… something the Japanese also underestimated.

“More importantly, he also failed to capitalise on strategic opportunities in a military sense. The cancellation of the planned invasion of Great Britain is an example… a good one. Another is the failure to neutralise Malta during the North African campaigns of 1941 and ‘42. In both cases, those unconquered territories later caused damage to the German war machine out of all proportion to their relative value at the time, although perhaps his greatest blunder of all was invading the Soviet Union.”

“The whole concept seems ridiculous to me,” Ritter admitted, starting to feel better as he developed a liking for the unusual ‘history’ lecture and a taste for the scotch, taking another fortifying swig. “We… Germany… attack the Russians next year? That is what that… moving picture said?” He used the term ‘moving picture’ simply because he didn’t know what else to call the documentary he’d just seen. “Why would we do this? We have a non-aggression pact with the USSR, signed just two years ago… I saw newsreels of Molotov and Von Ribbentrop signing it!”

“As I said,” Thorne reminded with a thin, knowing smile “Hitler was… is quite mad. To be fair, the USSR was always his real target… the almost limitless plains and resources to the east that would form the basis for that ‘Lebensraum’ you spoke of yourself in your diary. The invasion of Poland was the first step toward conquering Russia, and he was caught completely by surprise when the Western Powers declared war on Germany as a result. Hitler never expected Britain or France to care enough about the fate of the Poles to fight for them, and he was suddenly left with a war in Western Europe he hadn’t planned for. His own arrogance and megalomania however ensured he still attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 nevertheless, and in one stroke he was fighting a world war on three fronts: against the RAF and (later) the United States Army Air Corps over the Channel; the Commonwealth, the Free French and Americans in North Africa and the Mediterranean; and then against the might of the Soviet Union to the east. Anyone with even a limited experience in battle would understand how dangerous a three-front war is… the Wehrmacht’s substantial initial technical superiority notwithstanding.”

“A dangerous game indeed,” Ritter mused thoughtfully, sipping again at the whisky. “Given the choice, I shouldn’t like to face three different opponents at once in even the best of fighters. So America enters the war…?”

“At the end of 1941, yes… Japanese carriers carry out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December Seventh that devastates the US Navy’s battleship fleet at anchor and draws the Americans into the war… although that may not happen now.”

“What do you mean? History can be changed?”

“Not ‘can be’, mate,” Thorne corrected with a grimace. “History has been changed already. As I said, our unit’s returned from seventy years in your future, and we’ve only returned to your time to combat a group that’s already here and changing history to allow Germany to win the Second World War. There are already many things that have occurred in the first year of this war — particularly lately — that are in direct conflict with the ‘history’ of the war that I know… the history that should have occurred. Reuters knows that we’re here, and he also knows we’ll prepare the Americans for Pearl Harbor. In turn, they’ll no doubt counsel their ambassador to advise Japan on a different course of action. That’s the trouble with what’s happening in the world now… we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen any more.”

“Then Germany will win,” Ritter observed in a tone that was matter-of-fact rather than in any way triumphant or proud. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“I think they will in Europe, yes,” The Australian’s answer was equally direct. “That in itself isn’t so much of a problem…” The statement was completely correct in a longer-term strategic sense, but it also elicited exactly the reaction he was hoping for.

“‘Not a problem’…?” Ritter repeated angrily, finding the remark utterly unacceptable. “Six million people will die, and the exterminations only stopped because we lose the war? How many more millions will die if… we… win?” He was incensed at the concept of such an incomprehensible loss of life, and was progressively finding it more difficult to identify himself as being part of a nation that could perpetrate such hideous genocide. “I’ve never been a lover of Jews, but I cannot accept this! How can you make such a statement?” He held out an upturned palm in frustrated surrender. “How can anyone allow this…?” He added softly, his tone suddenly filled with shocked despair and disgust.

“‘How can there be ‘honour’ in Germany…?’ You asked that in your diary after the incident at the farmhouse, right?” Thorne continued as Ritter nodded silently. “I meant no indifference when I said the extermination wasn’t a ‘problem’… I don’t for a minute condone what the Nazis are up to in Poland with their ‘final-fucking-solution’. I’ve never loved the Jews either… never thought much about ‘em one way or the other to be honest… but I’ll never get tired of preventing the Nazis from getting their way. One of our team leaders is a Jew and a survivor of the death camps… he’s also one of the men who developed the time machine that got us here… and you can be bloody sure he’s going to do anything he can to stop the bastards as well.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalance to hide a moment of dark sadness. “And me… well, for reasons I’m not going to go into here, I just don’t fuckin’ like Nazis…” He almost faltered as he remembered some of the nightmares, but was spared as a new and completely ludicrous memory suddenly replaced more painful ones.

“‘Illinois Nazis… I hate Illinois Nazis…!’” Thorne muttered softly to himself, eliciting a quizzical response from Ritter. “Hmm…? Oh, nothing…” He dismissed his own strange remarks, smiling broadly as he remembered the Blues Brothers movie scene the quote was taken from. He almost laughed then as he went through the scene again in his mind, and those that followed. “Nothing important…” he added, grinning faintly at Ritter.

“I want to be angry,” Ritter said slowly after a long pause, during which he took another large gulp of whisky. “I want to fly into a rage and break something… I want to hurt things… myself… others… until someone tells me none of this is true…”

“No one’s going to,” Thorne shook his head, momentary humour descending once more into sad reality. “All of the things you’ve seen unfortunately do happen… will happen… and probably far worse. Flying into a rage, or hurting yourself won’t change any of it.”

“I need to be alone for a little while,” Ritter croaked, his throat dry as a faint wave of stress-induced nausea swept through him.

“No problem,” Thorne agreed, nodding with complete understanding. “I’ll have the guards take you back so you can rest… we can talk again in the morning…”

Friday

August 23, 1940

Thorne brought breakfast personally to Ritter’s cell the next morning, but the pilot had no appetite after what he’d seen the day before. The German rose from his bed the moment the door opened, and the intensity of his expression stopped Thorne in his tracks just inside the room.

“Yesterday, you said rage won’t change anything,” He said immediately, hands positioned expectantly on his hips. “Tell me what will…?” The question was as sharp and direct as the man’s gaze, and for some inexplicable reason, Thorne almost felt the need to look away.

“What do you mean?” Thorne suspected he knew already, but wanted the pilot to spell it out for him.

“Exactly what I said,” Ritter stated coldly, his eyes bright and piercing. “You didn’t show me those images yesterday without reason, and you’d not have taken me there at all if you thought me a fool. You obviously have some purpose behind all this… what is it you’d have me do?”

“It sometimes slips my memory that you’re on record as being pretty sharp,” Thorne grinned faintly, placing the tray of food on the table as he instantly turned serious. “I think you can help us as perhaps no other person could. I can’t explain why that is right now… you probably wouldn’t believe me, and if you did that might be worse… but the point is, I think you are as you seem — an honourable man, trapped in the service of a dishonourable government.” Thorne took great care to use the term ‘government’ rather than ‘country’, clearly separating the statement from any possibility of a slur against the man’s culture or heritage. “I don’t believe such an honourable man would allow the annihilation of an entire race across an entire continent, were it his choice to make.”

“I’m an officer… I’ve sworn an oath to fight for my country… but is this the country I would want my children to grow up in…?”

“And you now have two children to care for who’ll one day be old enough to serve their country also,” Thorne observed carefully, again drawing on information gleaned from Ritter’s diary. “What kind of country would you have them serve?” He didn’t need to say anything more: the Hitler Youth movement was already consuming the minds of Germany’s children and filling them with propaganda and ideology. There was no way the pilot could ignore the ramifications of that.

“I think I’m hardly in a position to do anything about all this as a prisoner of the British Empire.” The statement was deliberately leading in the same direction as Thorne wanted to go, and he was a little unsettled that the man had so unexpectedly and readily taken them both there so quickly.

“We can change that… if you agree to help us,” Thorne replied, and Ritter made no show of surprise. “The Wehrmacht will invade England… that’s a certainty… and I suspect it’ll be sooner rather than later. My guess is before the end of September, and when they do, I’m prepared to release you close to the front line and have you returned to your own side. We can make it seem as if you’ve somehow managed to evade capture and made your way south into England. Your return will be welcomed at the highest levels, and I think most probably welcomed enough to avoid any difficult questions.”

“You seem sure of that,” Ritter observed dubiously. “Even if I’m returned to the…” his voice faltered momentarily as he caught himself and rephrased “…to my own people, what makes you think I’d be able to make a difference? I’m nothing more than a front line officer… I have no say in policy or strategic decisions…”

“You will if you go back,” Thorne stopped Ritter in mid-sentence. “In Realtime — that’s what we call the original path of history that’s now being altered — you’d attain the rank of generalmajor later in the war, and be posted as an advisor on the Führer’s General Staff. I have reason to believe that in this OKW, you’ll probably go a lot further, particularly considering that Germany’s unlikely to be defeated and will last quite a bit longer than the Realtime Grossdeutschland.

“If you join us, this may go on for many years,” he continued after a breath. “We need you to place yourself as high as you can within the Wehrmacht, and that may sometimes force you to issue orders you don’t agree with or condone. You’ll need to get yourself as close to the OKW hierarchy — Reuters, Schiller and the others — as you possibly can. It may be that they’ll even take you into their confidence regarding the existence of the New Eagles, and what they’ve done for Germany: if they do, you’ll need to remain disbelieving and sceptical. I’m not going to lie to you: this battle may never be over.”

“How will that save these millions of lives when they will already be dead?”

“There’s no telling where they’ll take that Realtime figure of six million to… in an Germany undefeated and unassailed by invading armies, that figure could easily double or triple in ten or twenty years. Every ‘undesirable’ element of the European populace will fall victim to their ‘Final Solution’: gypsies, Slovaks, those who are politically ‘unreliable’; Poles and Serbs; people with disabilities, either physical or mental. They too will all go to the gas chambers. Twenty-five thousand a week, shipped in rail cars to their ‘resettlement’ programs for God knows how many years. We can’t help the original six million people exterminated in Realtime — that’s something we can’t change — but we can make sure that figure doesn’t become ten million or twenty million.”

Ritter hung his head in despair at that thought. The man before him was talking about a betrayal of his country and his people, and he was already taking to the idea readily. In the face of such damning evidence, there didn’t seem to be any alternative.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Although extremely simple in theory, the task will prove far less so in practical terms. Just like us, Reuters and his group of ‘New Eagles’ have returned from the future to change history. Because of what’s already changed over the last few years, we now know they arrived long before we did here at Scapa Flow, just a few months ago: the level of change and German technological development we’ve seen makes it quite clear they’ve been her for a number of years already. We know where they returned to the past, but what we still need to find out is the exact date and time they arrived.”

“Something that simple…?”

“Not so simple when you think about it. How many people would know the truth outside of their own ranks? How few of those who did know would actually know the correct date and exact time? How much suspicion would someone arouse should it be discovered that they were trying to uncover that information…? There wouldn’t be too many reasons one would want to find those details out…”

Ritter shook his head as he tried to understand the reasoning behind it all. “What good would this time and date be anyway… what could you do with the information?”

“Due to the peculiarities of physics behind time travel, we’re already too late to stop this group before they left our time… our only hope is to intercept them upon arrival in yours. We need that specific time and date so we can be lying in wait for them when they turn up, and destroy them all before they can make contact with the Nazis and change the true course of history. It’s the only hope we have of putting everything right and leaving the past the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Tell me,” Ritter began after a long, thoughtful pause. “What is my fate in this ‘Realtime’? What happens to me… and to my wife and these children…?” His eyes locked with Thorne’s in that moment, and the Australian knew he had to reveal as much of the truth as he dared… a lie would be spotted immediately and would destroy everything he’d worked toward.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that,” Thorne made a pale attempt at a smile. “As I already said, you reach the rank of generalmajor with the OKW. Following a successful Allied invasion of Normandy in July of 1944, your officer corps devises a desperate plot to assassinate Hitler, aimed at giving the Wehrmacht a chance to sue for peace before Germany is destroyed completely. A bomb is placed near Hitler by an officer named Von Stauffenberg during a staff meeting, but the explosion fails to kill him. Dozens of officers are subsequently rounded up and executed as part of the Führer’s retributions, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel among them… another of those executed would be you…” The last sentence trailed off as Ritter winced visibly.

“I have no Realtime knowledge of the existence of the two boys you’ve adopted, but I know your wife survives the war… along with a son who, in Realtime, was born sometime in early 1940. Why this hasn’t happened in this version of history I can’t say, but it would no doubt be something to do with the changes already wrought by the New Eagles.”

“A son…” Ritter muttered, staring at the concrete floor and fighting back tears as he took in the information. He drew a deep breath and released it in a long sigh before raising his head to meet Thorne’s eyes once more. “You’ve been honest with me,” he acknowledged slowly. “You could’ve lied about my fate in order to engage my help… you’ve instead taken an honourable path, even thought it might hinder your cause. You too, I think, are an honourable man.”

“It’s not always all it’s cracked up to be,” Thorne observed with a shrug and some dark sarcasm. “Sometimes you’re expected to ‘put your money where your mouth is’.”

“I think I understand this phrase,” Ritter decided after considering what Thorne had just said, “and I think that you are correct: honour unsupported by action is no honour at all.” There was a moment’s pause as the pilot took one last, deep breath and took a step forward, extending his hand. “I will help you in any way I’m able… for however long is required…”

“I’d like to say you won’t regret this decision,” Thorne smiled ruefully, accepting the hand in a firm shake, “but I reckon that’d be a lie.”

“I already regret it…”

Thorne’s wry smile broadened as he nodded in understanding. “Welcome aboard…”

16. Once More Unto the Breach

Beaucourt-en-Santerre

Near Amiens, Northern France

Saturday

August 24, 1940

François Reynard waited by the side of the empty country lane, feeling very unhappy about the fact that there was no cover whatsoever that he might hide behind, should a German patrol happen by. It was unlikely so close to midnight, but one couldn’t take anything for granted, particularly when one considered the forward headquarters for the entire Wehrmacht was just fifteen kilometres away across the fields to the north-west. Beaucourt-en-Santerre was a small commune of less than a hundred people and didn’t warrant its own garrison, however the road where Reynard stood was less than twenty minutes ‘ driving time from the barracks at Reuters’ HQ, and as such there was a valid and very real need for caution.

A half moon hung low in an eastern sky streaked with infrequent patches of silvery cloud, with more than enough light for Reynard to see some distance in either direction. His motorcycle was hidden in the grassy verge, the old Automoto lying on its side not far from where he crouched. The town lay behind him to the west, no more than a dark and featureless silhouette in the moonlight, while the road alone lay before him to the east, disappearing into the distance as a black strip of nothingness set between wide, open fields of silver grain. He’d only had to wait ten minutes or so before he finally heard the faint sound of an aircraft approaching from the east, and as he checked his watch, noting the time on its luminous face, he was forced to grudgingly give a silent nod of approval that the man he was expecting was punctual at least.

The plane was almost upon him before he’d heard it at all, so skilful was the pilot. The Westland Lysander was an RAF co-operation and liaison aircraft that had was quickly becoming a favourite of British covert forces due to its exceptional short-field take off and landing capabilities, and the Mark III model he now spotted against the backdrop of the moon was no exception as it dropped out of the sky at what seemed to be an alarming rate. Constructed from metal tubing and wooden frameworks with a predominantly fabric covering, the Lysander was a single-engined aircraft with two seats and a high-wing layout, and had been designed from the outset with field-of-view, low-speed handling and STOL ability as priorities.

Painted completely matte black, and fitted with a 680-litre fuel tank between the spars of its main landing gear, the aircraft had left Newmarket in Suffolk two hours earlier, and had since spent the entirety of its journey east at an altitude of no more than fifty metres in order to avoid German radar. It now seemed to be flying at an impossibly slow speed and approaching the ground far too quickly as it dropped toward the roadway in the moonlight, although from past experience, Reynard knew how slow the Lysander could actually fly and still remain aloft, and therefore wasn’t all that concerned. At the last moment, the experienced pilot deftly flattened out his descent and the main wheels touched down in a perfect landing, the aircraft taxiing quickly along the road toward him and coming to a halt just twenty metres away.

Reynard sprung from his position by the road immediately and ran across to where the Lysander had stopped. Even low-powered radial engines produced enough noise to be heard over great distances under the right circumstances, and the sound of an unexpected aircraft engine overhead in the middle of the night, so close to the Wehrmacht’s forward HQ, was likely to attract all sorts of unwanted attention. The Frenchman was working on the assumption that someone unpleasant would be along shortly to investigate, and it was important they were well clear of the area when that happened.

A dark figure was already climbing from the Lysander’s rear cockpit as he drew near, dropping to the ground from a ladder fixed to the port side of the fuselage. The pair worked quickly, each taking position at the plane’s tail and pushing it around to face the way it had come as the pilot gunned the engine and prepared for a quick take off. Another moment, and he was airborne once more, the aircraft leaping into the sky within a few hundred metres and immediately banking away to the south, disappearing almost instantly into the blackness of the night sky.

The pair moved quickly back to where Reynard had left his motorcycle, and as he picked it up and wheeled it out onto the road, he turned and addressed the new arrival properly for the first time.

“Glad to see you’re on time,” he began with a thin smile. “We need to get out of here quickly — there’ll be patrols all over the area within minutes, and we need to reach safety before they head this way.”

“Of course,” the man now answering to the name of Phillip Brandis answered in perfect French, a wry smile appearing for a moment. “I doubt it’d be a good idea for either of us to be found together.” Brandis was dressed in the uniform and peaked cap of a standartenführer (colonel) of the Waffen-SS, and quite disturbingly looked the part… right down to the issue P-38 pistol in the cross-draw holster at his belt.

“I’m thankful that our contacts warned me of what to expect,” Reynard replied dryly, looking the man up and down as he straddled the motorcycle and prepared to start it up. “Your appearance would’ve come as quite a shock otherwise.”

“A necessary disguise for the benefit of our German ‘friends’… the orders and identification I have with me are authentic, and would probably get us out of trouble were we challenged, but I’d prefer not to make my presence known just yet. There’s a lot still to be done, and I’d prefer to remain incognito for the time being.”

“Best you hop on then,” Reynard advised with a grin, tilting his head toward the rear of the bike as he kicked the 250cc engine over. It spluttered once then caught, idling roughly as Brandis climbed on behind him, taking off his cap and securing it in one hand. The Automoto set off along the lane heading east, in the same direction as the Lysander’s take off of moments before.

They were long gone by the time an eight-wheeled Puma reconnaissance vehicle cruised down that same road ten minutes later, following up reports of an unidentified aircraft landing in the area.

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

The howl of air raid sirens brought everyone to alert just after eleven that Saturday night, and sent all personnel at Lyness scrambling for shelters and slit trenches under the cold, star-filled night sky. The alarm had been raised after the radar unit atop the Martello Towers at Hackness had detected a single, fast-moving aircraft approaching from the east at high altitude.

Thorne, Trumbull and Davies were the only men qualified to fly the F-35E in combat, and took turns remaining on duty at Eday on a rotating roster. It was Davies who was roused from a camp bed by the night piquet and forced to stagger out of the Galaxy’s freezing cargo hold and climb into the Lightning’s cockpit. Within seconds he was in radio contact with Thorne, back at Lyness.

“We’ve got one bogie coming in fast and high… gotta be a Flanker,” Thorne observed, keeping a close eye on his radar screen of the radar control unit from the safety of an underground shelter at the main naval base.

“Give the word and I can be after him, Max,” Davies’ reply came back instantly, the sound of the F-35’s warming engine quite audible over the speaker of the portable radio unit Thorne held. The man had been sleeping in his flight suit, and could be airborne within a few minutes if necessary.

“No time, Jack… he’s coming in supersonic… should be on top of us in less than ninety seconds. Has to be going for a photo run… and he’ll be gone by the time you got off the ground… you’ll never catch him.”

“A Fido could… He’s gotta turn around and come back sometime…”

“True… and an AMRAAM would also tell him we’ve still got jets here. He’s headed straight over the middle of Hoy, not Eday, and there’s a damn good chance he won’t see anything except the ruins and the wreckage left by the raid.”

“And if it’s a strike…?”

“I’m willing to take that chance. He’ll have to come a lot lower if he wants to try anything funny, and the Tunguskas can take him out if he does, but right now he’s just daring us to come up after him. They think we’re already out of the picture… if we let him take his pretty pictures and piss off again none the wiser, that’ll confirm to them that Hindsight’s aircraft were destroyed, and we’re that much safer. We take a shot at him, and hit or miss, and they’ll come looking for where we did land last Saturday with a lot more than just fucking cameras. Best option right now is to do nothing and ride it out.”

“Your call, Max,” came the dubious reply. “Keep me informed…”

Major Schwarz and Oberleutnant Hauser kept a careful eye on their instruments as Hawk-3 skimmed the black surface of the North Sea at a altitude of just 50 metres, their airspeed steady and barely below the speed of sound. Four huge fuel tanks hung beneath the Flanker’s wings, and launch rails outboard of those tanks and on the wingtips carried four Russian R-73 ‘Archer’ heat-seeking AAMs to complement the larger R-27 ‘Alamo’ radar-guided weapons beneath their fuselage.

Hawk-4 had already hurtled across the sky ahead of them, far above the island of Hoy that now lay just thirty kilometres off their nose, and they were purposefully following on behind in case their enemy launched any aircraft in pursuit… specifically any jet aircraft. If they did, Hawk-3 would be able to hide from radar in low-level ‘ground’ clutter until the last moment, and remain in a perfect position to strike before the Flanker was ever detected. The aircraft’s fine IRST visual search systems would enable them to target any prospective enemy, stealthy or otherwise, without the need for radar.

As intelligence had suspected however, no enemy jets rose into the air to intercept their high-flying colleague, and it appeared the enemy’s contemporary fighter opposition had indeed been eliminated.

“We’re about thirty seconds away from returning a solid signal on their ground radars,” Hauser advised, his attention never leaving his EW systems. “That eastern transmitter is painting us continuously now, and we won’t get any warning if one of those Tunguskas is still down there.”

“Hawk-Three to Hawk-Four,” Schwarz contacted the other aircraft after a few seconds’ thought. “How does the area appear, over?”

“Hawk-Four reading you, Erwin,” The reply came back in an instant. “We’re now well clear of the target area… main systems and Doppler are both clear… looks like this is going to be the no-show we were expecting, over.”

“Loud and clear, Hawk-Four,” Schwarz released a relieved breath. “I’m going to abort and clear the area… we have no threats on our screens either… see you at the rendezvous in fifteen…” He took manual control of the SU-30MK, hauling back on the stick and turning it into a sharp, banking climb to starboard as it headed north and away from Hoy, skirting the eastern edge of the Orkney chain.

Hawk-3 appeared on radar at Lyness within seconds of its climb to higher level, rising out of ground clutter as it turned north and away from what had been a direct course for Hoy. One of the Tunguskas has been moved to a camouflaged position near the Cantick Head lighthouse on South Walls, well east of the main base at Lyness, and from that vantage point the retreating Flanker was well within range of its missiles. Nevertheless it remained dormant, the crew of the Su-30 never knowing they’d been so close to death as the flak vehicle’s gunner tracked the aircraft’s retreat through high-powered optics, the turret turning slowly to follow it as it disappeared to the north.

For Thorne, it was a solid vindication of his decision to keep Davies and the Lightning grounded: even with the advantage of stealth, the F-35E would’ve been a sitting duck for the undetected second Flanker’s heat-seeking missiles and cannon, had it taken off in pursuit of the first enemy. It was now obvious that using the first Sukhoi as bait had been the plan all along, with reconnaissance pictures an added bonus should no attack materialise. Without the element of surprise, Thorne wouldn’t have liked to risk the Lightning against two heavily-armed and well-prepared opponents, regardless of the F-35’s supposed technical superiority and invisibility to radar.

Far out to the north-east over the freezing expanses of the North Sea, the pair of Hawks rendezvoused once more and formed up for the trip back home. They had the pictures they’d been sent to obtain, and no losses had been sustained in the process: in the eyes of the Sukhois’ aircrew, the mission was therefore an unqualified success. It was quite an irony that their success also turned out to be of such benefit for Hindsight.

Sunday

September 1, 1940

At Thorne’s own request, intelligence reports and communications had been flooding in from sources all over Britain and the continent since the days following the raid over Hindsight. The amount of information was incredible, and filtering through it consumed most of both Thorne’s and Eileen’s waking hours as they desperately searched for something that might produce a target valuable enough to be worthy of attack. By the evening of that first day of September, a number of potential targets had presented themselves as the pair now sat together at a table in that same small briefing room, their options laid out before them in separate piles.

The reports were mostly raw information — often data collected from intercepted German radio chatter between forward HQs and the OKW — and the fact that the huge majority of it was in mostly unbreakable codes had done nothing to help either of them in picking out a suitable target. It was only as Max flicked through one of the last of the piles before him, ready to concede defeat for the evening, that he finally came across something that was instantly recognisable as significant.

“Got it…!” He stated with feeling, holding up the three-sheet report for Eileen to see. “Plain language transmission between Berlin and an officer at an SS Q-store regarding a request for extra linen…”

“Sounds just captivating…!” Eileen countered with more than a little tired sarcasm, not trying anywhere near hard enough to sound truly interested. “What thread-count were the sheets?”

“Oh… smartarse…?” Thorne grinned back, not offended in the slightest. “How about a request for extra linen for guests staying at Reuters’ forward HQ near Amiens? Only top quality items required, as all needed to be supplied to members of the general staff and high-ranking dignitaries…” He handed Eileen the papers as her interest became genuine for the first time. “Take a look at how many bloody sheets the bastard is asking for…”

“That’s enough to look after dozens of guests,” Eileen noted, the implications behind that information sinking in. “What kind of meeting requires that many members of the general staff to all be in the one place at the one time?”

“Sounds like last-minute invasion briefings to me,” Thorne grinned maliciously. “Why else would they pull such a concentration of top brass together, so close to the front? We need to get some confirmation on this from other sources… if this is legit, we could potentially decapitate the entire OKW in one stroke, and take out friggin’ Reuters and his little bumboys into the bargain!”

“We may be able to find some corroborating evidence in the coded stuff we’ve got, now we know what we’re looking for,” Eileen offered hopefully, handing back Thorne’s reports and beginning to rifle through the papers before her with renewed vigour. “If it is something that big, there must be other reports of it somewhere.” She paused for a moment to consult a large map lying on the table to her left. “Coast is only about fifty kilometres away from the target at its closest point too… only about four minutes flying time, which means they’ll have bugger-all warning of your approach.”

“Not enough to raise an alarm, even if that’d make a difference, which it won’t. September the Eighth…” he thought out loud. “Good time of the month for a night mission: moon’ll be almost bloody full by then… make it a lot easier to get in and out unscathed.”

“Remember what Hal said about ‘Larry’,” Eileen cautioned as a thought suddenly occurred to her. “You have to carry it externally, and that means you’ll be visible on radar! You’ll still have the Flankers to deal with after the attack, and you won’t be able to outrun them…!”

“The carriage and the bomb itself won’t be stealthy, but they’ll be small all the same, and bloody hard to spot on radar if I stay low,” Thorne countered, conceding the point but unwilling to surrender. If I get out of there fast enough, I’ve got a good chance of staying out of their way. We’ve got two AMRAAMs left and a brace of Sidewinders… I’ll have two of each in my internal bays just in case.” He thought more about the details of the mission as he leaned across the table and they checked the map together.

“I can head south west of the British Isles and tank up from the Extender over Ireland — that should keep me well out of their radar range. The Lightning’s combat radius is about 800 klicks on internal fuel,” He continued, picking out points on the map. “If I head south-west and stay under a hundred metres after I’ve cleared the blast area, I’ll come out somewhere around here… near La Rochelle or Bordeaux. I can meet up with the Extender again over the Bay of Biscay, and tank up again for a long detour home, again via the west coast of Ireland. Even with extra tanks, it’s unlikely the Flankers would dare to venture that far west and out of their own radar coverage.”

“You make it sound too simple,” Eileen said softly.

“I know it’s bloody dangerous, but I’d rather hit ‘em this close to the coast than try to fight my way to Berlin and back. With the extra fuel tanks I’d need for that, I’d stand out on radar like dog’s balls, and they’d have plenty of time to find me then.” Something else occurred to him. “We need to recall Kowalski and the rest of the Yanks too: we’ll need to be ready to hightail it in short order, if they decide to get nasty and retaliate rather than stop and think!”

“Does it have to be you?” Eileen asked, concern showing clearly in her eyes.

“Would you prefer I send Jack… or Alec…?” Thorne asked gently, sensing her fear, and also harbouring concerns for his own safety. “There’d be no point trying to send it across on a normal heavy bomber… their radar-equipped night-fighters have been blowing Bomber Command out of the sky before they can even get across the Channel, and those two are the only other men experienced enough to replace me in the Lightning on a ground attack mission.”

“I know,” she conceded finally, laying her hand on his. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you… to any of us… losing Nick was bad enough…”

“This is the best opportunity we’ll get,” Thorne stated with certainty, trying to be bright and positive, and leaning over to nudge against her shoulder with his own. “I’ll be okay, I promise… straight in and straight out again, then back again for tea, okay?”

“Okay,” she nodded, trying to be hopeful as she forced a thin smile and squeezed his hand softly. “How’re you feeling these days, anyway?”

“Haven’t had any drinks, if that’s what you mean,” he answered honestly, with no anger or offence in his tone.

“I didn’t just mean that, although that’s good to hear… that you haven’t needed it.”

“Oh I’ve needed it all right,” he admitted, then shrugged. “I’ve been coping, I guess… but it’s hard to think straight a lot of the time. I know I shouldn’t whinge… every one of us here is dealing with the same shit…”

“No we’re not, Max… not the way you are… and no matter how hard things get for us, we have a fall-back: you…” Eileen pointed out quickly. “You’re only military experience prior to this mission was as a squadron leader in a country that never experienced total war… not in our time, anyway. You’re an excellent commander… you just need time to adapt.”

“I don’t think Reuters will call a ‘time-out’ just ‘cause I can’t cut it,” Thorne grinned ruefully, making a ‘T’ out of his hands in illustration. He paused and took a breath, then added: “Eileen, if I can’t hack it…”

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence!” She snapped in return, cutting him off sharply as she saw where he was going. “I don’t want the bloody job for a start, and I don’t have a hope of filling your shoes…” she grinned “…I’m only a size seven! Max, you’re an overgrown bairn a lot o’ the time, and you always know exactly what to say to get completely under my skin…” She didn’t need to add that most of the time, she loved every minute of it “…but I also know that the rest of us, officers and men, would go — and have gone — to the end of the bloody Earth for you, and with you. You’re a commander and you’re one of us, and somehow you manage to walk that line on every level despite the ‘Bloody Colonial’ act… or maybe because of it. Now you’re back on track again, you’ll work it out — I’ll make sure of that.”

“I never imagined front line command could be this difficult… despite telling myself as much so many times…”

“It’s not just that… we lost every support link we had in coming back here. They can brief you all you like but it’s not the same, and you’ve had to cope with your first combat command, and losing the hierarchy above you, and had to cope with culture shock and the loss of our world just like the rest of us.” She smiled kindly and ruffled his hair. “Give yourself some credit! These issues aren’t because you’re not up to it — they’ve arisen because what you’ve had to cope with is hard! Considering what you also went through losing Anna, no one’s going to begrudge ye a few chinks in your ‘armour’.”

“I don’t want to let you all down, misplaced as your bloody loyalty is to begin with.”

“None of the others know, Max… except for Richard, I think. You internalise too well for anyone to see the cracks unless they’re either bloody good or know you bloody well!”

“Or both,” he pointed out with a kind smile, reaching out for a moment and running a hand gently downward along the back of her neck. “You’re a bloody legend, you know that?”

“In my own lunch time, sonny, and don’t you forget it!” She joked in return, turning her head a little to fully enjoy the touch of his hand and the short moment of intimacy it represented.

“So Kransky figured it out, did he?” Thorne shrugged. “Not much gets past that bugger, I’ll give him that much.” The expression on his face turned a little more serious. “I do believe that poor man is more than a little in love with you, young lady.”

“Aye, that’s possible,” she admitted, looking a little sad at the thought. “He’s a great guy, and to be honest there might well have been a chance there of something happening…”

“Circumstances being different, of course,” Thorne finished for her, knowing her well enough and seeing the direction of her sentence.

“Aye, ‘circumstances’ all right…”

“From what little he’s said, I believe he thinks there’s someone else in your mind, and in his way…” he hesitated a moment “…should I ask whether that’s true or not?” Thorne was very interested in the answer to that question considering the recent change in their relationship back to one of a much more physical nature. The understanding they’d reached was that neither was expected, or would expect any commitment from the other, and while he was mostly okay with that, Thorne was concerned that perhaps Eileen’s past feelings for him might interfere or cause problems. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her, although he was more than happy to have her company and provide her with his.

“Bit sure of ourselves there aren’t we, mister?” She grinned in return, seeing the concern in his eyes. Her expression and tone were of open kindness, with no malice in her humour. “Max, if there’s anything stopping me from being interested in someone permanent, then it’s the impermanence of the situation we’re in more than it would ever be any one person in my life.” She gave a light laugh. “Even if returning to the past has possibly made me the luckiest girl on the planet!”

“How so…?” Thorne inquired with interest, recognising there was an unspoken meaning in the sentence.

“You know that none of us age,” she began, and he nodded in agreement. “Well, I knew from what minor testing we were able to do before the jump that I’d be sterile for the period we were displaced,” she continued, her smile fading a little over an unpleasant idea she’d accustomed herself to long before they’d left the 21st Century. “However, it was only after we got here I found out exactly what that meant…”

“Is this gonna turn into ‘Secret Women’s Business’?” Thorne broke in, sounding just a little unsettled, and gripped by the characteristic apprehension of all males regarding the prospect of conversations surrounding the topic of female menstruation.

“Just in that it seems my cycle has actually stopped completely,” Eileen answered with a chuckle, noting his discomfort but not about to ‘let him off the hook’. They’d been too close as friends for too long for her to have any problem in discussing anything of a personal nature with him.

“And that’s definitely not because you’re pregnant?” Thorne shot back, instantly surprised at the revelation.

“Relax… I was late long before we got back together in this era, Max!” She almost laughed at that. “Fella, if I were pregnant, it’d be time to break out the ‘Good Book’ again, cause that would be one hell of an Immaculate Conception!”

“So your period’s stopped, has it?” He mused, hiding the relief he felt fairly well. “…Hmm…”

“The lucky part of course is that I get to spend the whole time with no PMS as a result… I can’t imagine how bad it would’ve been if I’d been unlucky enough to have come back during that part of my cycle and be stuck in it permanently.”

“How strange,” Thorne observed, thoughtfully rubbing his chin, but Eileen could see the glint in his eye. “There must be another explanation for the shitty mood you’re always in, then…” That remark got the intended reaction, and thoughts of the war and the world outside that room were forgotten for a few moments as feigned indignance gave way to laughter.

Thorne was still sitting alone in that same briefing room early the next morning, this time with a large notebook computer before him on the table. He wore a miked headset connected to the portable PC, as was a multi-function gaming joystick that carried numerous buttons and controls and clearly resembled a fighter’s control stick. He was running an advanced combat flight simulation program that had been pre-installed on the PC before they’d left the 21st Century — one that had been modified to use detailed 3D maps of 1940s Europe and that would allow the Hindsight team to practice flying all four of the aircraft they’d brought with them, although the ability to train on the F-22A was of course now somewhat academic. It was the same software they’d originally used weeks ago to prepare Trumbull for his first flights in the Lightning, gibing him some experience before moving him onto to the real thing.

As there was no likelihood of a ‘practice run’ for the mission he was planning, Thorne was using the simulator to do as many ‘walk-throughs’ as he could manage. He intended to use the program’s mission editing facilities to trial a number of different scenarios involving variations on directions of approach and egress after the drop… even different methods for delivery of the device itself.

He knew the target was 50km east-south-east of Abbeville and to the east of Amiens, and although he had no images of the structure’s actual appearance, intelligence reports from the fledgling French Resistance had given a good indication it was the only building of any size in the immediate area. What he’d been able to piece together was certainly enough to test the general viability of his mission plans, however finding the correct target on the night would be another problem entirely, and would no doubt be far more difficult in reality than on any simulation he might run on his computer.

He was also factoring in aerial opposition in the form of a pair of Su-30 Flankers, armed with cannon and a selection of IR and radar homing missiles. The missions he’d flown so far that evening had placed the enemy fighters under computer control, however there was also the option to network with other PCs and have the opposition flown by human hands, something he fully intended to organise later that morning. With Davies and Trumbull up against him, the unpredictability and superiority of human thinking and instinct would make the whole thing that much more difficult, and enable him to hone his reflexes to a far higher standard.

Thorne was ready to risk his life to deliver the weapon to target, but he fully intended to take every precaution in planning and execution possible to make sure he got back safe and sound afterward. He had a week to prepare and continue to gather information, and he had no doubt there’d be many late nights ahead during that time. His only real consolation was that to all intents and purposes they were finally safe from enemy attack now Reuters and the New Eagles believed Hindsight to be destroyed and no longer considered them a threat.

SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E)

Near Sangatte, Pas-de-Calais

Thursday

September 5, 1940

Whittaker, Dupont and the rest of the work team at the battery compound spent the majority of their days now sitting around, waiting for tasks to be assigned to them. There was little left to do in truth, and a workforce that had originally numbered in the thousands had now dwindled to no more than a hundred or so that the battery commander was holding in reserve in the event of there being a need for basic manual labouring deemed too menial for Wehrmacht engineers.

A pair of ‘smaller’ and far more conventional railway guns had joined their much larger brethren in the intervening time. These weapons had been shunted over their emplacements until their carriages could be lowered onto pivots known as Vögele turntables, leaving the weapons, installed outside and on either side of the larger guns, with a 360º field of fire. Known as the Krupp K5, the pair of 283mm guns had been brought in as support for Gustav and Dora, and also to allow the engagement of British ships in The Channel — something that wasn’t possible with the larger guns, as they were unable to depress to a low enough angle due to the protective fortifications beneath their barrels.

Early that Thursday morning, the work group had been engaged in digging out foundations for a small latrine block toward the very rear of the installation near the main gates. They were given no formal warning as usual, but this time past experience was sufficient for them to recognise the firing of the huge guns was imminent as the alert klaxons sounded all over the base. They all covered their ears tightly, and as the prisoners stood straight and craned their necks to stare out of the large foundation holes they were digging within, all who could see watched in awe as Gustav’s huge barrel rose to a high angle of elevation. The earth shook a moment or two later and the air filled with flame and smoke as the weapon sent a five-tonne shell on its way skyward across the Channel.

Five minutes later, Gustav fired again following some minor adjustments in traverse and elevation, and then again after another five minutes and further corrections. Firing ceased after the third shot, and there was a great deal of maintenance activity at the rear of the gun as Dora took up the baton and fired her first shell, followed by the same three-shot pattern of fire and adjustment. The alternating fire would continue in the same manner for most of the morning and use up more than two-dozen shells between the two weapons. The noise and shock of the continued explosions made breathing quite uncomfortable when combined with the smoke and dust that filled the air all around, and the experience placed a good deal of stress on the POWs, although there was some comfort in the fact that none of the guards present thought to order them to continue working.

High above the English coast, a single unarmed S-2F Lion FAC aircraft assigned to Battery 672(E) flew in a pre-planned, circular orbit as the experienced observer in the rear cockpit maintained continuous contact with the gunlayers at Sangatte. The man carried detailed maps of Kent and the Dover coast and would carefully mark down the exact position on those maps and report back as every impact of Gustav’s and Dora’s massive shells shattered and devastated English soil.

The shell strikes were clearly visible from high altitude, although the random, indiscriminate damage the huge projectiles were inflicting on the Kent countryside was less obvious from that distance… damage that in some places was great indeed. None of the shells were seeking specific targets, and many landed some distance inland as Battery 672(E) recorded the details of their pre-bombardment target registrations. Most of the shots landed in open country and, although exploding spectacularly, did little real damage other than in spreading fear throughout the surrounding area. A few however did fall close enough to farms or hamlets to cause loss of life and significant numbers casualties.

At Deal, Dover and Folkestone, single shells fell within heavily built-up areas, and quite close to the centre of town in the case of Dover, still reeling from the collateral damage inflicted by the destruction of Sceneshifter some weeks before. The devastation from those single, massive blasts caused loss of life and injuries rising into the hundreds, demolishing entire city blocks in one stroke, and also created a wave of terror that swept through the populace of the areas involved with a speed that defied belief.

Fires resulting from the explosions would spread through the surrounding neighbourhoods, causing further casualties and adding numbers to a growing steady stream of refugees that began to pour inland in search of safety. The subsequent strain on the military and on local authorities was immense, and many of Kent’s main roads and carriageways were choked as a result, hampering troop movements in the days and nights to follow.

From their prepared defensive positions outside Smeeth, Davids, his crew and the rest of 7RTR and the 1st London Division felt the ground shake as some of the closer shells struck, and a pall of grey smoke hung over the eastern horizon for the rest of the day, although none of the huge rounds actually fell within sight of their defences. The Hythe Road was choked with a torrent of frightened refugees heading westward as a result, some of whom had been witness to the carnage wrought upon Folkestone, and the renewed spread of ‘rumours’ regarding German superguns unsettled the defenders in the aftermath of the distant, earthshaking explosions they’d felt earlier in the day.

At Deal, reports of a Kriegsmarine destroyer flotilla in The Channel were mistakenly identified as a fleet of assault ships, resulting in the spread of far more damaging rumours of the sighting of an invasion force. The alert codeword of ‘Cromwell’ (meaning invasion was imminent) was prematurely broadcast to many local HQs throughout the south-east region, causing further unwanted panic, stress and alarm as units mobilised in response.

None of the chaos resulting from the registration bombardment had been the intention of the battery on the opposite side of The Channel, although it would no doubt have been considered a fine, unexpected bonus had the commanders of Battery 672(E) been made aware of the situation. As it was, little of any note occurred on the French coast during the rest of that day as the guns responsible for the mayhem were rested for the night in comfortable silence, and soldiers and civilians alike generally went about their normal business.

The exercise had been conducted purely for the purpose of marking pre-registered target positions for the maps of the area commanders of the upcoming invasion, and those carefully noted impact points, when matched with the elevation and traverse data recorded at the gun line, would provide the officers hitting the beaches with more than enough detail to provide accurate coordinates for any strongpoints they might come across within range of those huge guns.

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Friday

September 6, 1940

The Officers Mess at HMS Proserpine was large and well-appointed, as would’ve been expected of the facilities of commissioned officers in any large and established military installation. A liberal use of lacquered wood panelling and polished brass fittings complemented large, comfortable leather armchairs and ornate tables, while the bar itself was a long affair of expensive, dark-stained hardwood with ornately carved fittings. Several types of ales were available on tap, and a quite comprehensive selection of spirits and even wines were also kept on hand for the discerning officer.

The Hindsight commanders had quickly selected a large, round table of their own in one dark corner of the mess that evening that was surrounded by armchairs and free-standing ashtrays. The ‘cul-de-sac’ had quickly become their own little retreat in the days following the destruction of Hindsight, and the regular officers at the base were happy to allow them the privacy of their own little clique: many had seen or heard about the strange contraptions these newcomers flew and operated, and many officers regarded them with more than a little suspicion and apprehension.

There was also the issue of the people themselves. Prejudice being what it was, compounded by a healthy does of ‘British Officer’ snobbery, few of the established mess-goers were pleased with Americans, Jews or women being allowed into their world of private relaxation, and many also considered the fact that the commander of the strange unit was a colonial as damning enough in itself. Possibly because of those mentioned facts, the Hindsight group tended to drink a little more than might’ve seemed appropriate, and were also often a little too loud, although no one else would ever have been uncouth enough to mention it to them — a situation the team played on with pleasure.

The recent inclusion of the German was almost the last straw, and regardless of constant reassurances from the base commander and placatory remarks to the mess duty officer from the Australian air vice marshal in charge, it was nevertheless a lot to bear. The man dressed in nondescript khakis, and wore the British rank insignia of a lieutenant-colonel, but his accented English and the tendency of he and the Australian to occasionally lapse into German for minutes on end while in conversation was considered quite offensive by many present.

That Friday night was a more subdued affair however for the Hindsight officers, although most still drank heartily and argued as much as ever. Major Michael Kowalski had arrived back on base that day, with the rest of his marines expected back within the next forty-eight hours, and all were happy to welcome his return with a few drinks. All the officers had gathered there — including Ritter — although the mood wasn’t as high as it might’ve been: there were serious matters weighing on all their minds… issues that weren’t easily overcome.

“I still don’t see why it has to be you flying the damned mission!” Davies growled over his whiskey, as much out of professional pride as concern for his friend. He felt personally slighted that it wasn’t his task to take on such an important ground attack flight, and also honestly believed his experience in the aircraft to be greater. Thorne, who’d been coaxed along despite a great deal of protest, and forced to take a drink despite even greater protest, allowed a long pause before replying to that statement.

“I know all that shit about ‘we can’t afford to lose you’… and ‘you’re too valuable’… and all that!” He began with an irritable dismissal, ignoring the fact those arguments were exactly the same ones he’d used to prevent Eileen from travelling south with Markowicz to tour British armaments factories. “I also know that I don’t intend to force anyone else to take responsibility for what we’re about to do! I’m not happy about carrying out an attack that’s potentially going to kill several hundred thousand people… maybe as many as a million… but I’m sure as hell not going to expect someone else to shoulder that burden either.” He took a short drag at his glass of rum, eyes alight. “Maybe I should be asking someone else to do it… but I’m not going to, and that is ‘end of story’.”

“On that subject,” Kowalski ventured uneasily, newly-arrived and only recently briefed on what they were planning. “Is it completely necessary to set such a high yield? We’re looking at wiping out a significant segment of the French countryside, and the population along with it.” Kowalski was as surprised as any of them by the idea that he’d somehow become the ‘pacifist’ of the group, but it’d certainly turned out to be the case. “Have we looked for other alternatives to a nuke?” He turned to Davies. “Jack, of all people, you know how effective conventional strikes were in Desert Storm and other conflicts…”

“Sure they were,” Davies shrugged, showing less unease than he really felt regarding the ramifications of what they were about to do, “and if you know where we can get hold of some Aardvarks with Pave Tack and bunker busters, do fill us in. You know knocking out their command staff is only half the issue — it’s equally important to let Adolf know what we can do if the asshole presses on with an invasion.”

“It doesn’t worry anyone that we’re thinking of deterring attack from a regime that killed six million Jews by killing a million Frenchmen ourselves…?”

“Of course it worries everyone!” Eileen snapped back, a little more harshly than she really intended. “I don’t want Max risking himself on this mission any more than you do… probably more so… we’ve know each other for ten bloody years, and I don’t want to lose him at all… but if you can think of some other way to stop a nutter like Hitler without a display of unadulterated, brute force, then we’re open to the suggestion.” She spoke quite animatedly, her hands moving in orchestration and almost splashing about the scotch in her own glass.

“Normally, I would agree with you, major,” Hal Markowicz entered into the discussion over his small glass of red wine, having listened to the proceedings with much interest. “However, we’re not talking about a rational enemy.” As he spoke, he scratched unconsciously at the sleeve of his left forearm, beneath which lay a faded set of digits tattooed directly into his skin. “I know first hand how little sympathy or consideration the Nazis have for anything or anyone other than themselves and their beloved Führer. As the war came to a close, this madman wasn’t turned from his ‘vision’ by either the might of the United States or the unstoppable Soviets… even as the world collapsed around him. Nothing short of the threat of total destruction will suffice to give us even a chance of preventing this invasion.

“The death of millions is never something to take lightly,” he conceded with a thin smile. “Of all people, a Jew perhaps understands this best… but if this is the first step in preventing the deaths of ten times that many? Well… sometimes people in positions of power have to make unpleasant decisions… painful decisions. The men who ordered the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki accepted that responsibility, and we must do the same now. If successful, this attack will decapitate the Wehrmacht and New Eagles, and that alone will mean any invasion must almost certainly be at least postponed. There’s only perhaps a month left at the most before worsening weather will make an assault across The Channel very difficult to execute and maintain, and if they postpone now, we may get another six or eight months to prepare.. In that time we can do enough to perhaps halt an invasion altogether, and if that isn’t worth a sacrifice of this nature, then I don’t know what is.”

“This is to be a mission for just one aircraft?” Ritter ventured, speaking for the first time since the current discussion had started.

“Yes… just me,” Thorne agreed after a short silence, as some pointed glances were passed around. Even some of the Hindsight members weren’t completely at ease with the concept of discussing matters of that nature in front of a German, regardless of how much Thorne trusted him.

“Yet you talk of the deaths of a million people? This sounds more as if it were a raid of a thousand aircraft…” After another pause, he added: “No… not even a thousand bombers could create such devastation. I do not understand…”

“Should we really be discussing this in this kind of ‘environment’?” Kowalski cut in nervously, not happy with providing the man with an answer.

“Its okay, Mike,” Thorne reassured, raising a hand to halt the marine’s speech. He addressed his next words to Ritter. “Carl, we have a device with us that has a destructive power equal to more than one million tons of high explosive.”

Ritter’s returned expression was sceptical at best. “Although this has been a time of some patience for me in accepting the unbelievable, this is still hard to believe.”

“Well, it exists nevertheless, and we intend to use this weapon on a collected meeting of the OKW in France in a few days, with the intention of in one stroke disabling the Wehrmacht and establishing the fact that we have such a weapon. We’re hoping this revelation of what could next be done to a city such as Berlin or Munich will be enough to dissuade Hitler from carrying out the invasion of Great Britain, which must be very close now.”

Ritter nodded. “It is definitely close: although no dates had been provided before I was stranded here, rumours were strong and plentiful, and the planning for the invasion of England has been going ahead for some time now.” Another thought occurred to him. “If the OKW is destroyed — and Reichsmarschall Reuters along with it, I presume — how will this affect the task you have set for me?”

“It’d probably be more difficult,” Thorne answered honestly, “but the mission should still be possible. You’d also in any case be able to provide us with essential information on many other matters in the interim.”

“And will this work… this threat to exact devastation on Germany if an invasion is launched?” That was a much harder question, and in the silence that followed, Eileen eventually provided the best answer anyone could’ve given.

“We don’t know, Carl… in all truth, we just don’t know. In our time, nuclear weapons forced the two superpowers of our world — the United States and the Soviet Union — to maintain an uneasy peace for the better part of fifty years. The strategy was rather ironically called ‘MAD’ — Mutually Assured Destruction — and each side knew the other could wipe them out many times over, therefore leaving neither confident enough to launch an attack. With anyone other than Adolf Hitler, I’d almost guarantee success… but with the German Chancellor involved, we can only hope it works. Either way, this is really the only option we have at all — nothing else will have a chance of stopping anything now.”

Ritter shook his head sadly after a long moment of consideration. “Wars should not be fought this way,” he observed with a soft, resigned voice. “Waging war on the innocent and defenceless is unjust… is this what the future holds… what the Führer has given us all?”

“If there’d been a few more like you in the Wehrmacht Officer Corps a little earlier,” Markowicz began kindly beside Ritter, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder, “perhaps a few more of my people might’ve survived.”

“Yeah, well that’s what we’re hoping to accomplish in the end, unpleasant as the options are,” Thorne pointed out with little humour.

“Thin edge of the wedge, mate,” Bob Green shrugged sadly. “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

As his sentence ended, Eileen unexpectedly broke into a into a short burst of coughing: the mess was filled with cigar and cigarette smoke, with a cloud hanging as a visible layer above the many men present that night. That cloud was also hanging over and around the Hindsight table, although only Green and Ritter were actually smoking in their group.

“Bit rough, isn’t it…!” Green agreed with a wry grin, trying to lighten the mood a little. “I’m a bloody smoker and I’m not used to this kind of atmosphere!” He took a drag on the cigarette he held, then held it up as an example before them. “These filterless bastards are savage! I used to smoke ‘fours’ back in Realtime… these buggers taste like they’re bloody twenty-eights or something.”

“What do you expect, smokin’ friggin’ Camels?” Thorne shot back, smiling for the first time as a few of the others gave a chuckle or two. “Why don’t you try a bloody cigarette holder to ease the strength back a bit or something?”

“I looked into that,” Green admitted, leaning back in his chair and holding up his cigarette as if it were the holder instead, pinkie finger extended with melodramatic daintiness. “Apparently, cigarette holders are only for women and poofs!” In truth, that statement had a lot more to do with his personal take on the subject than any current trend of opinion.

“Hardly very politically correct there, Captain Green,” Eileen observed with a wry smile and a mock-lecturing tone.

“And thank Christ for that…!” Thorne burst out with a laugh. “How refreshing it is to be once more in an era where a man can call a mate a ‘poof’ with impunity…!”

“Call me a ‘poof’, and it won’t be with impunity… mate…!” Green shot back with a wry smile and pointing a warning finger.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that…!” Davies chipped in with perfect timing, and the rest of the original Hindsight group broke down into much needed laughter at the famous old Seinfeld reference, with only Trumbull, Kransky and Ritter left unable to get the joke.

Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ

Amiens, Northern France

Saturday

September 7, 1940

Samuel Lowenstein was in a poor mood that evening as he stood at the barred window of the small stable room that was his cell, staring out through the night at the lights of the nearby mansion. He’d been visited many times by Joachim Müller since their talk on temporal issues at the beginning of July, and it’d been difficult during the passing two months for him to continue the façade of civility as he desperately waited for some sign that might’ve confirmed his desperate hopes: that Hal or someone else from his future had finally managed to return to save him, and to right the course of history into the bargain.

He turned his head for a moment to stare nervously at the bookshelf near the door, knowing that no one other than himself could possibly understand the significance of the shred of newspaper he kept hidden there, yet he was frightened all the same. The feelings of elation and resolve he’d been filled with initially had slowly but surely been replaced by the overbearing weight of depression and despondency that had been the scientist’s constant companion throughout almost a decade of imprisonment. No one had come… there’d been no sign of the help he’d been so certain was coming… and Lowenstein had come to doubt himself seriously.

He continued to watch as civilian and military catering staff moved quickly about, undeterred in their haste by the fact that it was close to midnight. He didn’t know what it was, but it was obvious from all the activity that some kind of significant function was to be held at the headquarters judging by the amount of preparation. Trucks had been arriving steadily in convoys over the last three days to unload food and supplies, while the flat fields beyond the main buildings that served as an airstrip had seen an equal amount of activity as transports from all over Occupied Europe had converged on the Reichsmarschall’s western headquarters.

The sound of the door opening at the far end of the main stable area alerted him to the fact that someone was coming long before he heard the approach of soft footsteps outside his room. Making no effort to turn around, he sagged visibly and a pained grimace flashed across his face as displeasure at yet another visit from the pestering Müller swept through him.

“Forgive me if I’m somewhat abrupt, Joachim, but I’m really not in the mood for a chat tonight,” he began with an exasperated sigh.

“No doubt Herr Müller would be shattered by your rejection, Doctor Lowenstein, however I suspect you will want to speak to me tonight, once you’ve heard what I have to say…”

The unexpected, English-speaking voice caught Lowenstein by surprise, and he whirled to find himself staring at a man standing in the open doorway to his room wearing the regimental dress uniform of an SS standartenführer.

“What is it you want?” The scientist asked plaintively, his voice wavering as he was filled with a sudden sensation of fear. “You lot tortured everything you wanted to know out of me years ago… I’ve nothing so say to you now…”

“That’s fine, Samuel… may I call you ‘Samuel’…?” Brandis asked genially as he stepped inside, hands clasped behind his back as if maintaining an ‘at ease’ position. “This’ll only be a short chat this evening, and it’s I who’ve come to do the talking, although I’ll warrant you’ll have a few questions for me before we’re done. Shall we sit down… we need to get on with this quickly… it would do neither of any good for me to be caught here with you alone tonight.”

“What are you talking about?” Lowenstein demanded, still apprehensive but also now somewhat intrigued by the man’s strange words and demeanour. The man was dressed in an SS uniform, but he carried none of the usual swagger or arrogance of an officer of the Schutzstaffeln.

“Please… sit…” Brandis urged, taking his own seat at the foot of the man’s bed. “I’m only supposed to be on a cigarette break, and questions will be asked if I’m not back soon. I need to give you this,” he added, reaching inside his dress jacket and drawing out a tiny automatic pistol with a short, stubby silencer screwed to its muzzle. He tossed it onto the bed beside him as Lowenstein looked on in horrified disbelief.

“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” He blurted out, self-control faltering. “You think I’m stupid enough to pick that up? If you wanted to shoot me, why not just get it over with? Surely there’s no need to fabricate a motive of self defence?”

“I sincerely hope you’ll not think to use that on me, Samuel… you may well need every one of the six rounds in this thing’s magazine. I’d suggest you save them for tomorrow night instead… far better idea…”

“What’s going to happen tomorrow night?”

“The OKW is having a huge conference tomorrow as part of last-minute invasion preparations, and part of that will include a rather large black-tie dinner in the evening. I’ve had a terrible time working to ensure we’ve had enough linen to cater for all of these incoming guests… I’ve been so overwhelmed by the whole thing that I’ve sent a few of the requisitions out in plain, un-coded language by ‘mistake’…” He smiled faintly. “I can scarcely imagine what MI6 must think, listening to all that silliness on the other side of The Channel.” The smile disappeared once more as he got back to business. “Anyway, some time after sunset, that dinner will be rather rudely disrupted by an aerial attack from an F-35E stealth fighter.” Most of Lowenstein’s suspicions evaporated as he heard that last sentence, and hope flared in the back of his mind once more. There were only two groups who could possibly know that a ‘stealth fighter’ was, and he was dead certain no one from New Eagles would be coming to him to speak of one, or to warn him of an impending attack.

“How could you know this…?” The scientist asked in breathless anticipation, finally dragging across a chair and seating himself in front of Brandis. “Who are you…? Where are you from…?” He paused, then rephrased as a far more pertinent question. “When are you from…?”

“Nowhere and everywhere,” Brandis replied with a wry smile. “Neither who I am nor where I’ve come from is particularly relevant at the moment… all you need to know is that this whole place will be thrown into chaos within 24 hours, and that will be a perfect opportunity for you to escape. You need to take that pistol and keep it hidden somewhere… you’ll know when to use it when the time comes…”

“Where shall I go? The area will be swarming with Germans, and I’m in the middle of occupied France… how far do you think I’ll get, even with a gun?”

“One of the servants here is a man by the name of François Reynard… he’ll be waiting for you as soon as you make it out of this stable. He’ll have a change of clothes and identification papers prepared for you. How’s your French?”

“Little used in the last twenty years, but I remember enough of it to pass for a native if I’m questioned by some idiot Jerry private.” Lowenstein gave a wry smile of his own. “‘Mother of Invention’ and all that… it’ll come back to me quick enough…”

“It’d better: the soldiers and officer’s you’re likely to be challenged by if you do get bailed up will be far from idiots.” Brandis gave that one warning before moving back to the subject at hand. “Once you make it clear of the area, you’re to head due south… there’s a small wood about a thousand metres away, and François will have a motorcycle waiting. From there, you’ll head east and be taken into the care of the French Resistance.”

“And after that…?”

“After that, we do nothing other than to keep you safe out of harm’s way for the time being,” Brandis answered quickly, ignoring the fleeting look of dismay that flickered across the other man’s features in the faint lighting of a single candle burning atop the bookcase nearby. “Britain will be invaded within two weeks, and will fall by the end of the year… there’s not going to be any point in getting you back across The Channel right now, and it would be too dangerous at the moment for us to try and take you south to Spain, or east to Switzerland. Once things have quietened down a bit, we can look at getting you somewhere a bit more permanent.” He glanced quickly at his wristwatch. “I have to go… I’ve already stayed longer than is safe…”

“Please… just one more thing…” Lowenstein begged, his mind whirling with confusion now the escape he’d dreamed of for so many years now finally seemed so close at hand. “You must tell me… are they here…? Have the come for me…?”

“‘They’ don’t have the slightest clue that you exist in this era,” Brandis replied honestly, “But they have come, and they’re trying to find out exactly the information you’ve suspected all along. Make sure you have that scrap of newspaper with you when you make your escape.”

“Take it! Take it with you, and you can send it back to England tonight! They can fix all of this…!” But the confusion continued in Lowenstein’s mind as Brandis simply shook his head with a sad but knowing expression.

“It wouldn’t do any good… it needs to be you that carries this part of the burden for the time being.” Brandis rose to his feet and moved across to the doorway as the scientist looked on with desperate eyes. “I have to go… keep the pistol hidden, and wait for the attack… you’ll know when to take your chance.”

“But I can give you the time and date now, don’t you understand…?” Lowenstein pleaded, unable to comprehend why this strange man with knowledge of the future would not want the information that could put everything to right.

“I’m sorry, Samuel… I haven’t the time to explain to you right now why that’d be useless…” He gave a faint smile. “I already know everything, you see, but knowing isn’t the solution… I must go now… take care… don’t forget the newspaper clipping…”

And with that he was gone, striding quickly back the way he’d come and out through the guarded door at the far end of the building. Lowenstein sat for a moment, dumbstruck, before he finally roused himself from his stupor and picked up the pistol Brandis had left on the bed. Moving across to the bookcase, he drew out several of the books on the second shelf from the top and slipped the weapon in behind them. Standing back for a moment to take in a broader view, he then carefully adjusted the rest of the books in the row until they were all in a steady line, leaving no evidence that might suggest something was secreted behind them.

There were tears in Brandis’ eyes as he walked on across the open expanse toward the main buildings, his attempts at remaining detached from what was going on failing him in that moment.

“I could tell them everything, Samuel… but none of it would make the slightest difference,” he muttered darkly, the pain he felt quite evident on his face. “There are still far too many good people that need to die, you included, before any of this can finally be over.” How can I make you understand something it’s taken me a lifetime to realise for myself…?”

Are you saying that to convince him, or to convince yourself?

“Shut up, damn you!” Brandis snarled angrily, in no mood for mind games at that moment. “You know damn well how much remains to be done, and I’m no happier about my lot in this than you lot are! None of us ever have been!”

For a change, there was no answer — no glib or sarcastic reply — as he strode on, heading back to his expected post. He’d managed to compose himself once more by the time he’d reached the main buildings and returned to his post at the HQ’s quartermaster store.

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

Sunday

September 8, 1940

Carl Ritter discovered that as he spent more time at Lyness and got to know many of the officers in charge of Hindsight, he was provided far greater freedom to wander about within certain areas of the base without escort. Most of the security personnel had been made aware of his presence, and were conscious of the fact that he’d been given clearance despite their distrust of his accent. There were one or two run-ins however with surprised base personnel who were less than pleased with the idea of a German being allowed to walk unchecked around the installation, one of which almost coming to blows as a mortified Ritter back-pedalled and tried to mediate desperately before MPs eventually stepped in at the last moment to save the day.

Other than those isolated incidents, his days spent at Lyness had been relatively free of trouble. To those men who’d never heard him speak, he was just another nameless face in an ill-fitting khaki tank suit, the only significant point of note being the set of lieutenant-colonel’s crown and pips at his shoulders in pale, embroidered stitching. The display of rank certainly helped in keeping most of the ORs, NCOs and junior officers out of his way.

He found Max Thorne late that morning in the same place the Australian was often to be found in recent days: sitting at his laptop in the small briefing room, going over the planning of some important mission in his mind. Kransky was also present on this occasion, seated beside Thorne and engaged in serious discussion.

“You’re busy?” The pilot ventured as they looked up upon his appearance in the doorway. “I should perhaps come back later?”

Kransky was about to suggest exactly that, but Thorne shook his head. “Come in, Carl… take a seat if you wish. This may be of interest, and it may actually concern you. Go on…” he added, directing the last few words at Kransky as Ritter entered and seated himself on the opposite side of the table.

“As I was saying, the raids on supply depots, marshalling points and railheads around Kent and Sussex have almost tripled in the last forty-eight hours, and also right around the south-east coast as far as Portsmouth and The Solent… and these were a series of attacks that weren’t light to begin with! We’ve also had reports of enemy fighter sweeps further west than have been previously detected… the RAF boys aren’t being fooled into coming up after them at the moment, and are mostly managing to stay hidden, but it’s quite worrying nevertheless.

“There’s also been a significant increase of attacks on what shipping we have left in the Channel Ports, but the concentration’s generally switched to warships rather than commercial vessels, and there’s also been a hell of a lot more air activity at night over the coast from Ramsgate down to Dungeness. No attacks so far as anyone can work out, but we’ve had large, unidentified aircraft flying low in formation across the Channel, moving a few miles inland before simply turning back again like they’re on some training flight plan. Their night fighters stop ours from getting anywhere near them to take them out, or even get a good look at what they’re up to.”

“Sounds like they’re practising for air drops,” Thorne observed sourly.

“Sure does. Throw all that in with that random bombardment from those goddamn ‘Superguns’ two days ago — which Army Intelligence thinks was to set target pre-registrations — and it ain’t looking all that great.” He gave Ritter a pointed look as he finished speaking: although he mostly trusted the man, instincts and prejudices died hard.

“This means an invasion is coming soon… yes?” Ritter asked uncomfortably, taking the opportunity of a lull in the conversation to voice his question.

“Looks like it, Carl… maybe only a few days… probably not much more than that. We’re fairly certain this meeting tonight is their final pre-invasion briefing.” Thorne admitted, no happier about the idea. “That means we may have to be ready to get you south at a moment’s notice… how are you feeling?”

“Hungry, as always,” the German smiled faintly, “but otherwise I am prepared.” Ritter had been purposefully underfeeding himself during the last week weeks to lend credibility to the lie that he’d evaded capture and had instead lived on the run in his trip south.

“Good,” Thorne grinned back. He’d grown to quite like the man, and had a great deal of respect for him. It was becoming more and more difficult to ask him to walk so directly into danger on their behalf, important as the mission was.

“On that subject,” Kransky began, gaining the attention of both men, “I should probably get myself ready for action too… when the shit hits the fan, I’ll be more help to the Limeys ‘at the coalface’ than I’ll ever be sittin’ behind some goddamn desk.” That statement was true enough, but it also hid the fact that the American had come to realise he was becoming far too accustomed to working around the people of Hindsight. It didn’t pay to make such close friendships and connections in his line of work, and part of him was now clamouring for a return to the solitude and subsequent ‘freedom’ of being a sniper in the field.

“Much as I hate to lose you, I’d have to agree with you there. Whitehall’s organised resistance cells all over Britain that you can draw on for supplies and to remain hidden, and with a bit of luck you can do some real damage behind the lines.”

“With a bit of luck,” Kransky agreed in a deadpan voice before a new thought occurred to him, and he glanced at his wristwatch. “You’re flying out tonight, aren’t you? Hadn’t you better get some rest or something?”

Thorne stretched and checked the time himself. “Yeah, you’re probably right. A few hours sleep wouldn’t do me any harm at all.” He took a deep breath and shook some tiredness out of his head. “Have to have my wits about me tonight if I want to pull this off!”

“What you’re doing tonight is vitally important… this I’ve gathered already,” Ritter observed softly, and Thorne nodded in reply.

“Yeah… hopefully, if all goes well, this may actually force the ene-!” He halted himself just in time and rephrased, causing Ritter to smile at the obvious tact. “Force Reuters to delay, or maybe even call off the invasion altogether.”

Ritter thought about what Thorne said for quite a few seconds before finally making comment.

“I don’t expect you to tell me what your target is,” he began slowly, “nor do I in truth wish to know, as I do not like the thought of my own countrymen dying…” he lowered his eyes slightly, as if ashamed of what he was about to say, “but if this can stop the Nazis and what they’re doing in Europe… then I wish you God speed and good aim.” The moment that passed between the two men as they locked eyes was palpable, and Thorne nodded once in recognition of the German’s significant support.

Having purposefully stayed up working most of the previous night, it was relatively easy for Thorne to sleep for most of the afternoon as a result. Corporal Thomas knocked at the door to his quarters at 18:00 hours to wake him as requested, and Thorne showered and donned his flight suit quickly, preferring to keep his mind active. At 18:30 he stepped aboard an MTB and began the trip to the Alternate strip on Eday.

The camouflage netting had been completely removed from all the aircraft, and from the entire length of the runway, all packed tightly away in the cargo hold of the KC-10A Extender. Each of the aircraft’s flight crews were on standby, and could get their planes into the air and relative safety within minutes should the alarm be raised. The Extender would in any case be assisting Thorne during the mission that night, and its crew were busily engaged making last-minute pre-flight checks. Their ‘stopover’ airstrip on the sub-continent, ‘Waypoint’, had been alerted and was prepared to receive them in the next few days should they need to evacuate, as was their final destination at ‘Bolthole’.

The area surrounding the southern end of the runway had changed substantially over the last forty-eight hours. As those members of the Hindsight unit who’d been posted all over the country on various assignments (mostly men of the USMC) had arrived back during the last two days, they’d all been transferred by boat to Eday. The rest of Hindsight’s remaining personnel were also there, sheltering beneath the wings of the Galaxy, and numerous surplus oil drums had been put to use as fireplaces to keep them warm. A number of 10-man army tents had been erected around the area and for the next few days, Hindsight would call that tent city their home. Should the enemy reaction to the upcoming strike be immediate and hostile, they’d be in a perfect position to quickly embark and get into the air in relative safety.

While the Extender had been moved out onto the runway in preparation for take off, the Lightning now stood in the open space between the two transports. Its internal tanks were full of fuel, yet it would still require refuelling later over the Irish Sea before commencing its run in to the target. Even with the F-35E’s excellent combat radius, the lengthy detours they were taking as precautions against detection meant there’d be a need for refuelling both before and after the attack if Thorne was to make it back to Scapa Flow.

Each of the aircraft’s two internal weapons bays carried single AIM-120D AMRAAM and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. Although only two of the AMRAAMs had survived the August, Thorne was pleased that they still had a good store of the Sidewinders. Barely useful against piston-engined aircraft at best, the state-of-the-art heat-seekers were quite deadly against jets, and with his helmet-mounted targeting system, they could be launched at targets more than ninety degrees off the firing aircraft’s direction of flight. If he did run across the remaining Flankers at any stage, those missiles might give him an invaluable edge over their older-generation weapons and attack systems. It would be an ‘edge’ he’d need desperately, should the situation arise.

As the car carrying Thorne cruised along the runway past the Extender, he could also see the dark shape that now hung beneath the Lightning’s belly. The 25mm gun pod had been removed to allow use of the centreline stores position, and even from that distance he could see that it was a tight squeeze to fit the 3.6m-long bomb and its mounting carriage into the space behind the jet’s front undercarriage. The B83 freefall thermonuclear device had a diameter of slightly less than fifty centimetres, weighed slightly more than a tonne, and had entered service with the United States’ nuclear arsenal in the early 1980s, although the weapon mounted beneath the Lightning had actually been manufactured in the mid-1990s.

The weapon was capable of what was known as ‘Dial-A-Yield’, and could deliver a blast ranging from 120 kilotons to 1.2 megatons — the latter being an explosive force equivalent to 1.2 million tons of TNT. After much discussion and soul-searching on the part of all concerned, particularly Thorne himself, it was the larger yield that had been selected. As they had no specific data on the target area, there was always the possibility they might miss the actual building, or attack another in the area by mistake: as such, it was vitally important that regardless of where ground zero was, the blast would be powerful enough to destroy everything and everyone in the target area. With the weapon yield set to its maximum, the B83 would easily completely vaporise anything within a four kilometre radius and wreak total destruction over a far greater distance.

Ten minutes later, the Extender had lifted off and was circling high in the night sky above as Thorne settled himself into the front cockpit and strapped himself in. At his own request, Alec Trumbull was secure in the seat behind him, and Thorne had been happy to agree. Trumbull was eager to learn more about flying the aircraft and play a significant part in the proceedings, and watching his CO run through an important ground attack mission seemed like an excellent chance to do just that. Thorne was glad the man had asked, and was happy for the company and for the positive effect Trumbull’s presence would have on his courage and spirit. He hadn’t spoken with any of the others before climbing into the jet: they’d all said everything necessary earlier that day, and he wasn’t certain he could bear saying goodbye under such circumstances, particularly to Eileen.

Ground crew cleared the immediate area as the Pratt & Whitney turbofan wound up to an angry howl, the cockpit canopy closing the men inside their pressurised cocoon as Thorne built up for take off as quickly as the cold engine would allow. He ran a last minute check on his systems and made sure all were functioning correctly, which they were, and couldn’t help but dwell on the digital readout listing the B83 bomb beneath his belly as he cycled through his weapons on his instrument panel’s CRT display. Hal had checked and activated the device following its mounting beneath his fuselage, and all that was required now was for him to arm it as he turned into a final approach to target. Once he designated a specific target on his ground attack radar, the aircraft’s automated delivery systems would do most of the work.

Thorne pushed his throttle forward to full power, keeping his eyes on his readouts as the F-35E started to roll forward. He caught sight of Eileen then in his peripheral vision, standing a dozen metres away to his right and watching with a terrible expression of fear on her face. He turned his head just once, their eyes met, and he gave a reassuring, characteristic grin as he raised his hand in a gesture that was half wave, half joking salute. He hoped it helped make her feel better in some way… it hadn’t done much for him. In seconds, the F-35E Lightning II was powering along the strip in a short take-off run and leaped nimbly into the air, clawing its way into the sky as its undercarriage folded away beneath its fuselage. Another minute and they were heading south at 10,000 metres, Thorne in radio contact with the Extender and quickly catching her up.

The flight down the western coast of the British Isles took slightly more than an hour, the fighter and tanker cruising easily at high-altitude and in loose formation. Thorne would occasionally break away to complete a few full circuits of the area, checking with his active and passive radar systems for any threat, but none materialised, and German ground radar was unlikely to pick them up so far west of the continent.

They refuelled high over the Irish Sea, the dark waters completely invisible below, and spent nervous minutes connected to the long boom beneath the tail of the KC-10A as it pumped vital jet fuel back into the Lightning’s emptying internal tanks. Trumbull watched intently throughout the whole of the tense business, asking questions only when absolutely necessary and respecting Thorne’s need for concentration: it was a manoeuvre the man had only carried out a few times, and never before at night.

With tanks filled once more, they bid the Extender farewell as the F-35E turned east and the tanker flew on to the south-west and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. Thorne and Trumbull were now ‘on their own’, and he immediately took the Lightning down to very low level and engaged the aircraft’s autopilot. The jet’s computers took over and implemented the mission’s pre-programmed flight plan, turning them onto a south-easterly course and heading for the first preset waypoint fifty kilometres due west of Abbeville and the French coast. At no time did the aircraft stray above 200 metres as it hurtled through the darkness at a steady 500 knots: approximately 925km/hr.

The flight path took them low past the Welsh coast and then south of Liverpool, down the mouth of the River Dee before crossing into England. Terrain-following-radar kept the aircraft just a few dozen metres above the surface of the earth as they thundered on, the howl of the engine the only evidence of their passing as they hurtled on in complete darkness. At such low altitude, the landscape was clear enough below them in the light of a newly-risen moon that was almost full, and the sight of the ground rushing past so quickly was breathtaking indeed.

The jet crossed the East Sussex coast north of Brighton and slipped out across the southern reaches to the Channel, the unbroken surface of the water glistening in the moonlight as the Lightning flew on. Thorne had brought along his iPod as usual, and a selection of instantly forgotten tracks had played softly in the background of a journey during which there was surprisingly little conversation between the two men. Thorne kept his eyes squarely on his instruments, alert for any possible threat, and the mood was tense and serious. Although Trumbull didn’t completely understand the magnitude of what they were about to do, he clearly recognised how much it meant to the man in the cockpit ahead of him, and he was therefore content to sit back and silently take everything in.

Six minutes into their flight across The Channel, the F-35E’s autopilot decided it had reached Waypoint One and automatically turned the craft sharply onto a course due east without any change to their incredibly low altitude.

“Stay alert, Alec,” Thorne remarked softly over the intercom, “we’re only about ten minutes to target now, and things might get a bit rough after the drop.”

“Are we in danger of being damaged by the bomb ourselves?” Trumbull asked slowly, carefully considering the question before asking it.

“There’s some danger… but not a lot, all things considered,” Thorne admitted. “We’ll be climbing to about three thousand feet to acquire the target and then make the drop. The bomb itself is retarded by a parachute that will bring its rate of descent down to around seventy feet per second after release, which should give us about forty seconds to get clear. I’ll be able to push this thing past 700 knots after the drop, meaning we should be able to put almost ten miles between us and the target before it detonates.” Converting to imperial measurements for Trumbull’s benefit wasn’t difficult — Thorne was old enough to remember the system himself well enough as a child before Australia had really converted to metric — and he could pretty much make the calculations on the fly. “At that distance, we’ll probably still get battered around in the air a bit as the blast washes past us, and it’ll light up the sky behind us like a bitch, but I’m hoping we’ll be safe enough… assuming this ‘old girl’ holds together okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it…?”

“Well, this particular aircraft is actually a bit of a mock up,” Thorne explained quickly with a shrug. “Something Lockheed kinda ‘threw together’ at the request of Hindsight itself. There are really only three models of F-35 — the ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ variants, of which all are single-seat aircraft, and the ‘B-model’ is the only one capable of vertical take off and landing. The ‘E’ at the end of this aircraft’s designation is really just an indication that it’s an experimental prototype. There was already some talk at the time that the Israelis and a few other nations were interested in a two-seat variant, so Lockheed was more than happy for us to help fund a one-off test model for the conversion.” At no stage did it occur to Thorne that Trumbull had no knowledge whatsoever of the modern Realtime nation of Israel. “That was something that also suited our peculiar needs.” He shrugged again. “So far, she’s been operating fine, but there wasn’t really much time for proper testing under high stress loads, and I’m not sure how she’ll handle the kind of hammering we’re likely to get from a nuclear blast. Fortunately, being a ground burst at least, the EMP won’t bother us at that distance.”

“‘EMP’…?” Trumbull asked, uncomprehending

“Electro-magnetic pulse,” Thorne explained, forgetting his colleague’s lack of knowledge in that area. “It’s a by-product of a nuclear detonation that burns out electrical circuits and transistors around the blast area, but the effect has a far greater radius in the case of an air burst than it does when the weapon’s detonated at ground level, as this one will be. We’ll be far enough away for that not to be an issue.”

Thorne glanced down as a light began blinking on his instrument panel accompanied by a faint warning tone in his headset. “Oh-ho… looks like we have company. EW’s picking up broadband emissions, which would have to be German coastal search radar.” There was a pause as he checked the details. “Sites to port and starboard now, each about seventy kilometres off beam… probably those sites at Boulogne and Dieppe intelligence warned us about.”

“Will they see us?”

“Unlikely,” Thorne mused slowly. “At only a couple of hundred feet off the deck, we’ll be a bit low for them, and their emissions don’t seem to be completely overlapped. That’s why I chose this direction going in, hoping to slip right between them. The only thing their systems are likely to pick up at all is the bomb under our belly anyway, which is bloody small all things considered, and even if they do see us, it won’t be for long… we’re not doing much short of six hundred miles an hour.”

“Then, if they do see us,” Trumbull deduced quite correctly, “they’ll immediately know who it is…”

“Yes,” Thorne agreed with the astute but unpleasant conclusion as they hurtled on toward the French coast. “That they certainly will!”

The pair of NCOs rostered on that night at the Luftwaffe radar station at Boulogne-sur-Mer did manage to catch a fleeting glimpse of the Lightning at the very limit of their radar’s range as it flew past to the south. The corporal stared into the hooded cover of his pale, green display for a few moments, trying to lock the intermittent signal down before calling over his staff-sergeant. The signal was gone again a moment, but whatever it was had been travelling fast enough to warrant calling the incident in. There’d been other occasions when objects had been picked up moving very fast — much faster than any normal aircraft — but those times had usually been preceded by forewarning from Fliegerkorps, and normally accompanied by an expected flight plan.

“Low level, extreme range, and heading due east,” The senior NCO mused slowly, staring at his partner. “I think we should definitely report this one to headquarters…”

Thorne and Trumbull flew on, crossing the French coast between Ault and Le Tréport as they held a steady easterly course, and Thorne was fully prepared as the jet reached Waypoint Two, a few kilometres south-west of Abbeville. This time their course changed by only five or so degrees, and the autopilot also took the F-35E into a sudden climb. Thorne reached across and manually deactivated his iPod, leaving the cockpit silent, and he rested his hands on the controls, ready to take over if anything unexpected occurred as g-forces pressed them into their seats for a moment. Any positive movement on the joystick would’ve deactivated the autopilot, but Thorne kept his hand steady, instead flicking through his various systems a few times as he switched from navigation, to air-, to ground-search.

His AN/APG-81 radar suddenly picked up three separate airborne contacts at ranges from sixty to one hundred kilometres, all three well dispersed across their frontal arc. The flight profiles suggested they were regular, piston-engined aircraft — they were travelling at speeds far slower than any Flanker was likely to be capable of.

“Looks like one of those radar sites did see us… we have some company,” Thorne observed, getting Trumbull’s attention immediately. “I’m picking up centimetric radar from three inbound bogies… almost certainly night fighters.” He shrugged the news off, far less concerned than his passenger. “They won’t worry us any… too far away.” He gave a slight grimace. “Gonna switch over to ground attack now and see if I can lock onto the target: there’s some more of those broadband ground radars up ahead, and one’s real close to where the target should be… I’m thinking it’d make sense they’d have a search system set up in the area to support any protective flak sites.”

“I suppose they’d normally expect more warning that this,” Trumbull observed quietly.

“We’ll definitely catch they by surprise,” Thorne agreed, speaking more to himself as he adjusted his ground-search modes and increased the range reading to take in the approaching target area. As the aircraft levelled out again at 1,000 metres, the radar was able to pick out much more of the landscape ahead, and the largest contact by far was almost exactly in the same position as the nearest of the ground radar emissions he was picking up.

“Have a look at that on the target screen, Alec… there’s a big contact sitting in the middle of nowhere up ahead that’s emitting radar, and its surrounded by a whole cluster of smaller ones… what do you make of that?”

“Large structure or cluster of buildings surrounded by flak emplacements…?”

“Works for me,” Thorne said grimly. “Batten your hatches, Alec: I think we have our target.” He designated the largest signal on his radar, and with a last, deep sigh of released breath, he armed the B83 thermonuclear bomb clamped beneath the F-35E’s belly.

17. Slings and Broken Arrows

Wehrmacht Western Theatre Forward HQ

Amiens, Northern France

Sunday

September 8, 1940

The special briefing had been an exceptionally long one, something that no one had found surprising, and was only just winding up sometime after one that morning. There’d been a lot to go through as Reuters and Schiller provided final, detailed briefings to all of the heads of the Wehrmacht’s different services and the direct theatre commanders that’d be on the spot, commanding the massed air land and sea forces collected for Operation Sealion. The Führer himself had been forced to remain at Berchtesgaden due to maintenance problems with his personal transport, but he’d given assurances he’d arrive in the morning for a second round of talks. In his absence, a carefully-worded and quite inspiring telegram had been read that evening to the entire gathering in the main briefing room, received unanimously with cheers and applause as many gave Nazi salutes in appreciation at the end.

A late-night cocktail party had been laid on with full catering, again at the insistence of the Chancellor, and was now in full swing on the ground floor, in one of the mansion’s larger ballrooms. A 15-piece jazz band performed in one corner, while appropriately-dressed young women specially flown in by the BDM — the League of German Maidens — were on hand to dance with the officers and gentlemen of the Wehrmacht while excellent food and French champagne were served from all sides. There was good food, heavy drinking and much dancing, and many of those who’d been stationed at front lines for some time now in preparation for the invasion made the most of such a rare opportunity and enjoyed themselves greatly.

Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters hated every moment of the revelry and the celebrations. He was still far too tense and far too despondent over the loss of Carl Ritter for him to be in any mood for socialising, and in truth he’d spent the entire day stressed about the impending arrival of The Führer. That his appearance had now been rescheduled until the next morning had merely postponed his discomfort and had served merely to allow more time for increased anguish to build rather than any real relief. The reconnaissance flight had gone a long way toward assuaging everyone’s concerns regarding the continued existence of Hindsight as a coherent force at Scapa Flow, but there was still a lingering doubt at the back of Reuters’ mind that simply would not dissipate.

Another reason for his inability to enjoy himself that night was the obvious problem that a meeting such as the one they were holding that night also brought with it guests whom the Reichsmarschall had no interest whatsoever spending time in the company of. Both Ziegler and Strauss had arrived, representing their own interests and those of the rest of the New Eagles’ Directors, and the quite obvious camaraderie they’d displayed upon being greeted by Hermann Göring and Martin Bormann had both turned Reuters’ stomach and given him some cause for alarm: such an open display in front of him and the rest of his staff couldn’t be taken lightly, and he’d need to take care there was nothing behind it in the days and weeks to follow.

Right at that moment however, as the loud music played and people danced before him at the centre of the huge ballroom, all the commander-in-chief of the entire Wehrmacht could think about was getting some fresh air and seeking some solace in the company of real soldiers. Choosing a rare moment when there was absolutely no attention upon his presence or whereabouts, he slipped out of the room and made his way through a kitchen teaming with catering staff before finally exiting the rear of the building.

He stood for a moment once outside and took a deep, revitalising breath of well-needed fresh air. The skies above were clear that night and were alight with a mass of stars, while a waxing gibbous moon shone down from high above. Although it was quite cool out for someone wearing just regimental dress uniform, all in all it was otherwise an excellent night to be outside and spending time with the troops in that particular Reichsmarschall’s opinion.

He stood for a moment, turning his head to either side as he looked around to see what was happening in the general vicinity. Close in against the rear of the mansion to his left, a large tanker truck lay dormant, the driver clearly asleep behind the wheel. A frown momentarily flashed across Reuters’ face as he noted the scene. Parking in such proximity to the building was poor judgement on the part of the driver, not to mention being a potentially unsafe situation, and he paused a moment while he decided what to do about it.

He should walk straight up there and give the man a royal dressing down before sending him on his way, or at least report it a junior officer so he could do the same… yet in the end, Reuters simply couldn’t be bothered. The fellow was a simple private making the most of a few moments of spare time, and what career soldier could blame a man for that. At least someone was relaxed enough to get some rest on a night like that, and Reuters was a little jealous if anything. He decided to cut the man a little slack that night and perhaps bring the subject up with the officer on duty the next morning.

He instead spied a cluster of panzer crews a few dozen metres in the other direction, gathered around an oil-drum fire and all talking and smoking in front of a trio of P-3C tanks. A P-11A Wirbelwind self-propelled flak stood a little off to one side, its own crew hanging out of their hatches and joining in the conversation, although they remained in their vehicle as they were still technically on duty. Snugging his hat down upon his head, Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters strode off across the open expanse of grass behind the mansion on a direct line toward the men. He rarely smoked, but he badly felt like a cigarette right at that moment, and he was sure there’d be one to spare among the group if he asked.

Albert Schiller, trapped on the other side of the ballroom, standing beside Armaments Minister, Albert Speer as both were locked conversation with an incredibly boring NSDAP party official, had taken some time to extricate himself from the group, and by the time he’d rather callously broke free and abandoned Speer to his fate, Reuters had already been gone for some time. He’d normally not have been worried, but his friend and commander hadn’t been his usual self since Ritter had been lost, and Schiller didn’t like to see the man left alone with time to think too deeply. As he deposited his half-empty champagne glass with a passing waiter, he questioned several nearby staff officers regarding Reuters’ whereabouts to no avail, before taking it upon himself to leave the ballroom in search of the Reichsmarschall.

His first instinct was to head toward the large briefing room that was their usual haunt for meetings and private, relaxed conversation, and as he approached down a long hallway a few moments later, he at first thought he’d been correct in his initial assumption. From a distance he could clearly see light through the main dors, which stood slightly ajar, and could also pick out the faint murmurings of soft conversation. As he drew closer, however, he realised that it wasn’t Kurt Reuters’ voice he could hear. Instead, it was the unmistakeable tones of ‘Director’ Oswald Zeigler, and Schiller sincerely doubted Kurt would be willingly engaged in any kind of private discussion with the likes of him.

At first, Schiller stopped and intended to turn back, continuing his search for his commanding officer, but as he paused for a moment, it suddenly occurred to him that he couldn’t think of any valid reason for Ziegler to be holding a private meeting of any sort on the premises, and it might well be a good idea for him to take a quick peek and see what was going on. He moved quietly up to the entrance, the doors barely ajar but nevertheless open wide enough for him to get a good look inside and see exactly what was happening.

It was Zeigler all right, the slimy little creature arrogant enough to actually be seated in Reuters’ favoured chair on the opposite side of the Reichsmarschall’s desk, and the sight of it almost angered Schiller enough for him to burst right in there and demand to know what they were playing at. Yet common sense and curiosity took control in the end, and he instead waited patiently and listened, noting with interest the other members of the little cabal gathered there. Dieter Strauss was present, of course, and that was no surprise. Zeigler was rarely seen out in public without the rotund little rodent simpering pathetically at his side, and that evening was no exception as Straus sat to the man’s right, listening intently.

It was the sight of the other three in the room that caused Schiller to raise an eyebrow in surprise and brought a nervous lump to his throat. Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann and Rudolf Hess also sat together around that desk, and between them they constituted the three most powerful men in Nazi Germany save for Reuters, Himmler and Adolf Hitler himself. That the trio were all together there at the HQ in Amiens was no secret — the attendance of all would’ve been considered vital at such an event — however their presence in that room, deep in conversation with the likes of Oswald Zeigler was quite unexpected and a very dangerous situation indeed.

“…I’m sure I don’t need to remind the three of you of what’s at stake here,” Zeigler continued as Schiller watched unseen from the corridor beyond. “He’s almost impossible to control now… how much worse do you think it’s going to become once Britain’s fallen and Western Europe is completely secure?”

“I suspect what’s ‘at stake’ for you and your associates is at greater risk at the moment than is the case for the Party,” Martin Bormann, Reichsleiter of the NSDAP observed with just the hint of sarcasm. The man’s so far provided the Reich with a string of runaway successes, and placed us on the verge of victory against the greatest Imperial Power the world has ever known… how much of this dissent revolves around his reluctance to attack the Bolsheviks?” The forty-year-old Bormann, a cold, hard-faced man with a personality to match, was effectively the equal to Kurt Reuters in terms of the power and access to Hitler that he commanded, and as such, his cooperation in whatever Zeigler had planned was vital.

“I don’t deny for a moment that his obstruction of the Neue Adler Directors’ designs for the USSR have influenced our plans,” Zeigler replied testily, fully aware of Bormann’s own personal dislikes of Reuters, and that the man was playing games for no other reason than his enjoyment of manipulating people. “Would you deny the Reichsmarschall’s extremely close association with Reichsführer-SS Himmler has been a continued source of discomfort for your own activities, and that of the Party’s?” The observation struck home, and Bormann gave no answer, although the flash of fire in the man’s eyes showed Zeigler how close he’d come to hitting his mark.

“We’re all here because we have issues with Reuters,” Hess cut in, mild exasperation in his tone, “but ‘having issues’ isn’t the same thing as an act of treason! What you’re suggesting is tantamount to staging a coup-d’etat against the head of our own military!” The deputy Führer was probably the most controlled and — truth be told — also the most sane of the group, but he was also a pragmatist, and had no love for the Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht. Like the rest of them in that room, he’d felt his own power and access to Adolf Hitler diminished and marginalised by the emergence and incredible success of Kurt Reuters. “How do you think the Führer will react if we make a move to decapitate the Wehrmacht?”

“You can leave those details to Neue Adler,” Zeigler assured with cold confidence. “We’ve collected some significant and quite damning evidence about the Reichsmarschall’s personal life that will be more than enough to convince the Führer of the rightness of our intentions in this.…” he gave a smug grin “…some of the ‘evidence’ we have is even true…!”

“I always believed the rank of Reichsmarschall was rightfully mine,” Göring snarled darkly from his seat to Bormann’s left. “I’d thought it perhaps just normal jealousy on my part, but you now tell me I’m actually correct! That I would be Reichsmarschall, were it not for this man and his meddling…” The commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe could find many justifications to hold a grudge against Kurt Reuters, but the ‘theft’ of that one honour and promotion had been the greatest insult to his honour and pride. That being said, the man was neither stupid nor foolhardy, and as much as he’d like nothing more than to see Kurt Reuters dangling from a rope, he also recognised that making a move to topple a figure commanding such power was a dangerous game indeed. “Himmler will stand by Reuters… they’re too close now for him to back away from their alliance… and probably Goebbels too. That toxic little dwarf has been working desperately to get back into favour with The Führer for years — when he can find time away from shagging everything wearing a skirt that strays within reach — and we know he’s had a tendency to throw his lot in with Himmler of late.” He shrugged. “He could be a ‘dark horse’ to watch too… his wife and bloody kids are popular at Berchtesgaden, and it’s hard to gauge how much little things like that might sway The Führer toward a given way of thinking…”

“And who can we count on…?” Zeigler asked pointedly, coming to the most important question of the night. “One can’t turn over a rock in Grossdeutschland at the moment without finding someone who thinks our esteemed Reichsmarschall is wonderful… who can we rely on when we make our move?”

“Keitel and Lammers have indicated they’ll stand with us,” Bormann began in a blunt, emotionless tone. “We can of course expect the Party to fall into line with whatever direction I choose, but the feel I have is there’ll be precious few from the Wehrmacht willing to come across: certainly Canaris, Raeder and Dönitz will side with Reuters, and I suspect there’ll be some like Jodl and Von Brauchitsch who’ll sit on the fence and stand with whomever comes out on top at the end.”

“I know we have Von Ribbentrop in our camp,” Göring continued, adding “more’s the pity…” softly under his breath. “…And Herr Bormann’s quite correct about not seeing many allies in the military.” He gave a rueful smile that carried little real humour. “I doubt there’d even be much support from my own Luftwaffe, such has been the man’s meteoric rise. I think Milch is with me, but you can forget Üdet and the rest… most of them would kiss his arse given half a chance. You can forget about Speer too… he’s made it quite clear on several occasions that he considered Reuters a personal friend, and he’s another one we need to keep a close eye on: he’s a relative unknown, and he’s popular with The Führer as well.”

“Ultimately, gentlemen, our success really depends on how quickly and how comprehensively we carry the whole thing off,” Zeigler observed after a long, thoughtful pause. “I’ve no doubt we’ll come up against resistance, but in the end, there’ll be significant numbers who’ll change sides without a second thought if we can prove we hold the upper hand… feel free to correct me if I’m wrong…” He left the statement open for discussion, but there were no takers.

“After the British Surrender, you think…?” Bormann queried, not so confident in the timing of military matters.

“I doubt we’d have any opportunity before then,” Zeigler shrugged, “and I should think the Führer would definitely block any move anyway… Reuters has him so terrified of a free Britain he’d pay any price to see the country knocked out of the war for good.”

“And you don’t think the increase in prestige and accolades that brings will make things more difficult…?” Hess this time, with what seemed an extremely pertinent question, at which point Zeigler simply turned to glance at the man beside him.

“Take it from me, gentlemen,” Strauss answered without hesitation, “with the documented ‘evidence’ we’ll be able to bring to bear upon Kurt Reuters, the Lord himself would doubt the man’s honour!”

Schiller was still listening at the gap between the doors as he suddenly heard the ring of approaching footsteps from the far end of the corridor. His reaction was instinctive and immediate, and as a guard on patrol appeared around the corner, he was already standing upright once more and moving as if he’d been walking toward the man the whole time.

“Mein Herr,” the junior NCO declared immediately, halting and snapping to attention with a salute as he caught sight of the generalleutnant.

“At ease, unteroffizier,” Schiller instructed immediately, trying desperately to hide the dismay in his voice over the loudness of the man’s greeting. “I’ve been looking for Reichsmarschall Reuters… have you seen him by any chance?”

“I haven’t myself, sir, but I did hear another of the guards I passed a few moments ago mention he thought he’d seen the Reichsmarschall talking to some of the panzer crews outside. I’d try out there if I were you, sir.”

“Very good, unteroffizier,” Schiller replied, managing to feign a grin, “I shall do just that. Thanks for your help.” He came to attention and saluted, turning on his heels and moving quickly off the way he’d come as the man returned the action.

As he passed by the doorway to the briefing room once more, the main doors were this time wide open, and the opening was filled with the imposing bulk and stern face of Martin Bormann, open suspicion clearly evident I his expression. An equally surprised and apprehensive Zeigler could also be seen, his substantially greater height allowing him to easily stare out from over the man’s right shoulder.

“Reichsleiter Bormann… Direktor Zeigler…” Schiller nodded the barest recognition in greeting as he passed by without slowing his pace. “Meine Herren…” It was in his own opinion the best acting he’d ever managed in his life, and the generalleutnant didn’t dare stop or allow them to draw him into conversation, lest he give away the fact that he knew something of what they’d been discussing in that room. Instead he strode on at a fast but even pace, never looking back until he’d rounded the corner at the far end and could release a held breath of fear and adrenalin.

“Did he hear us?” Zeigler stared at Bormann, searching the man’s impassive features as fear rippled through him. “How long was he standing out there before that guard showed up?”

“If he’d heard anything, he’d have stormed in here with a gun in his hand,” the NSDAP secretary dismissed the question with a shrug as he returned to his own seat, and Zeigler made sure the doors were this time properly closed.

“And do what…?” Hess pointed out, also a little apprehensive at the thought Reuters’ aide and confidant might’ve heard what was being discussed. “Waltz in here and arrest the Reichsleiter, the Stellvertreter des Führers and the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe single-handed and accuse us of treason…? That’s exactly what he’d have to charge is with: how do you think he’d like his chances alone, when we have so many witnesses here to corroborate our own stories? The man would have to be an imbecile to burst in here, even if he did hear everything.”

“We need to know what he knows…!” Göring observed, also nervous. “Someone needs to approach him… perhaps make him an offer…”

“You’ll never turn him against his master,” Zeigler dismissed the idea immediately. “It’s you who’s the imbecile if you think you could corrupt Reuters’ little lap dog so easily.”

“Then we take him aside, find out what he knows… and kill him…” Bormann said with cold simplicity, as if discussing some innocuous activity such as ironing a suit. He looked about the faces of the rest of the men present and was mildly amused by the common expressions of horrified distaste that stared back at him, the sight drawing a soft, derisive chuckle from deep within his stocky frame. “Look at you all! So eager to speak of insurrection, yet so squeamish when it seems there might actually be a need to get your hands dirty!” He patted a hand to the Luger P’08 holstered at his belt. “Relax…! I’ll take care of this little worm when the time comes… just keep and eye on him, and make sure he doesn’t get a chance to speak with Reuters in private.”

Schiller found Reuters ten minutes later, as the Reichsmarschall stood chatting with a group of panzer crewmen in the lee of their parked tanks on the opposite side of the wide, circular gravel drive that swept past the front of the main house. The ranking officer present — a very nervous Hauptmann Leipart in command of the entire tank troop — had been as initially amazed as the rest of his crews to discover the Reichsmarschall to actually seem quite human and, under the circumstances, excellent company on such a cool night.

All of the men present ‘braced up’ to attention as Schiller drew near, but Reuters, the ranking officer of the group, was the man expected to perform the salute.

“At ease, gentlemen… please…” he commanded softly with a tired laugh and a dismissive wave of the hand. “There’s been more than enough formality for one evening already!”

“I heard a rumour I’d find you out here, Kurt,” Schiller noted, forcing a broad smile that mostly masked his fear and nervousness as their breath whirled about them in the cold air. “You never could stand these formal occasions, could you?” With hand gestures alone he requested and readily received an imported cigarette from one of the nearby crewmen, followed by a burning match extended in the man’s hands for him to light it with. He took a long, reassuring drag that almost steadied his shaking hands, and he blew the billowing clouds of cigarette smoke that followed high into the air above them.

“Well, I actually came out for a little fresh air,” his commander observed with a wry smile, nodding accusingly at the newly-lit Lucky Strike. “Remember the ‘old’ days, Albert, when one had to come outside to have a smoke, rather than to get away from it?” They both laughed this time, Schiller trying desperately to appear genuine as confusion over what he should do next sent his mind reeling. “These gentlemen have been kind enough to put up with me wasting some of their time.”

“It’s our pleasure, Herr Reichsmarschall,” Leipart slipped in quickly, the nervous tone of his voice a little too evident.

“The poor fellow…!” Reuters chuckled sympathetically, giving Schiller’s arm an unexpected nudge and almost causing the generalleutnant to leap out of his own skin in fright. “I do believe we’re making him nervous.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, accompanied by a warm and genuine smile. “Don’t worry, Herr Hauptmann… both Albert and I were frontschwein once too, although its too many years ago now for some of us to feel comfortable about reminiscing…”

Any further conversation was suddenly impossible as the raw, unearthly wail of an air raid siren split the night as it wound up to full power. Reuters and Schiller exchanged sudden and very surprised glances… it seemed inconceivable to the pair of ranking officers standing there that any enemy aircraft could’ve gotten so far beyond the coast before night-fighters had intercepted them. There was instant activity from the crew of the P-11A Wirbelwind close by as they battened their hatches and powered up the searchlight mounted above their turret. As the four long barrels of its 23mm flakvierling cannon turned toward the west, the beams of far larger searchlights began to flicker into life at various points about the area and other gun crews went to instant alert. The clusters of flood lights bathing every facet of the main building in stark illumination remained switched on however, in direct contravention of standard practice during an air raid alert: the night had been long, and minds were dulled and slow to react as a result.

A sudden, deafening ‘crack’ like the detonation of a large firework thundered overhead, and everyone standing exposed in the open felt the push of a pressure wave as the low-level sonic boom buffeted the surrounding area. Every building in the area was shaken by the sound, and several windows on the upper floors of the mansion shattered, showering bystanders with glass fragments.

Reuters and Schiller were momentarily at a loss as to what they should do, such was the shock that rooted them to the spot as the unmistakable and chilling sound of a powerful jet engine overhead reached them above the siren’s wail. Both men felt the stab of real fear for the first time as all covered their ears against the deafening howl, neither wanting to believe the unavoidable truth as they caught each other’s horrified stare. The jet clearly been travelling very fast, and both men knew from long experience that meant the aircraft was already long past by the time they’d actually heard it.

All eyes suddenly turned skyward as one of the tanker crew called out a sharp warning, pointing toward the sky above the mansion itself. A lone searchlight had picked out a gleaming object of unpainted steel, falling far too slowly to be an aircraft and travelling in a much more dangerous direction: straight down. No one present needed to be an expert to recognise it was a bomb, and there was no time to act as both Reuters and Schiller realised at roughly the same time that the weapon clearly wasn’t a 1940s-era device. Suspended from a large, ribbon-style parachute, it fell with agonizing slowness and disappeared from view on the far side of the mansion, coming down somewhere behind the structure but still lethally close. Reuters’ last thoughts were the terrible realisation that what he’d seen was a nuclear weapon as the bomb detonated, and everything suddenly turned to fire.

Thorne had jammed his throttles fully forward, seeking safety in speed and low altitude in the frantic seconds following the release of the B83 bomb, ‘heading for the deck’, as the Australia rather tersely put it through gritted teeth. Trumbull felt the whole aircraft surge, as if freed from physical bonds as the weapon fell away, and he was slammed into his seat by massive acceleration as the F-35E’s afterburner kicked in. Trumbull counted off the seconds in his mind, not truly certain of what kind of devastation they were about to unleash behind them, but steeling himself for the terrifying unknown as best he could. Thorne had warned him not to look… warned him that even at a range of ten miles, the initial flash could leave him permanently blinded. He forced himself to stare directly ahead, focussing on the back of Thorne’s flight helmet as he murmured a silent prayer for himself and his family.

It was sixty-seconds after the drop and half way through a long, banking turn to the south-west as Thorne was finally forced to admit that the weapon had inexplicably failed to detonate… and admission accompanied by several seconds of intense and rather frightful swearing that left his passenger rather shocked and feeling a little fragile. There’d been no flash visible behind them, which there certainly should’ve been, nor had they felt the buffeting of a nuclear blast Thorne also would’ve expected. It took Trumbull a few seconds to realise what the man was up to as the turn they entered into continued far beyond what should’ve been the correct direction.

“You’re going back…?” He asked querulously, noting the instruments before him indicated they were indeed heading back in the direction they’d come.

“You’re damn right I’m going back…!” Thorne snarled angrily, surging adrenaline set to explode in the aftermath of such an anti-climax. “Half of the fucking Somme should be a fucking fireball by now, and I want to know why it bloody-well isn’t! For that, I need an ‘eyeball’ of ground-fucking-zero!” The tone and level of foul language gave a fair indication that there was a lot of unspent anger and frustration welling up within the man, and it also told Trumbull that disagreement might not be the best idea at that moment.

They were back over the target area once more within another minute, and there was still no chance of searchlight crews even finding them, travelling as they were at over 1,400km/hr, let alone remaining on track long enough for anyone to get off a decent shot. As they roared past close overhead, there was also little time to gather any detail, but what they did see was telling enough. The area surrounding the mansion was still illuminated brightly, but now by fire rather than flood lighting. The rear half of the main building appeared to have collapsed, and a massive fire was spreading through that part of the structure, already threatening to engulf the entire house. Minor explosions were still going off as the jet howled past overhead once more and was gone again, leaving a second sonic boom, with Thorne now at least calm enough to return the Lighting to its correct course of egress to the south-west.

“What on earth could’ve happened?” Trumbull ventured gingerly after allowing a few more minutes of ‘cool down’ time. “Everything was checked!”

“Checked, double-checked and triple-fucking-checked…!” Thorne hissed vehemently, wishing he had a clear target for the seething fury welling within him at the unexplained failure. “And then they were bloody checked again! I’m fucked if I know what went wrong but I’m going to find out.” There was a pause before he continued. “I’ll tell you another thing for free… that fire was nowhere near big enough to take everyone out — if Reuters or Schiller make it out alive, you can bet your arse there’ll be some very pissed-off Flankers in the air shortly, looking to start some shit. A few hundred thousand Frogs just got a let-off tonight, but we may well be fucked…!”

Chaos reigned around the entire headquarters area as pillars of fire billowed skyward from the southern corner of the mansion. The structure was burning on all floors, and lesser explosions went off here and there as heat and spreading flame set off ammunition and fuel tanks in nearby armoured vehicles and gun emplacements. The initial blast had silenced the air raid siren, and only the screams of the injured or dying pierced the cacophony of the roaring inferno.

Schiller was barely in control of his senses as he hobbled through the crippling heat and smoke, desperately making his way across to the far side of the open compound. The HQ’s alternate CP, a heavily-reinforced concrete bunker, lay at the front of the mansion, two hundred metres to the north-west and positioned in an area that had escaped any damage. A stream of terrified human beings poured in a stream from the building’s front entrance — young women, HQ and catering staff, dignitaries and Wehrmacht officers alike — and many carried injuries and burns ranging from minor to severe indeed.

It took several minutes to cross the distance to the CP as he threaded his way between dazed, fleeing survivors, hindered as he was by a serious burn to the lower part of his left leg that was causing him to limp noticeably. It required a great deal of willpower to maintain control over the constant pain, and he knew adrenaline was playing a large part in assisting him. Schiller wasn’t looking forward to what was in store for him when that adrenal surge finally tapered off and the pain really hit.

Three of the panzer crewmen in their group had been killed in the explosion, Leipart among them. The bomb’s conventional priming charge had been sufficient to ignite the fuel stored in the tanker parked at the rear of the main building, and the subsequent secondary explosion had spread flaming gasoline over a huge area. Reuters had also been caught by the substantial blast, although to a far lesser extent, and Schiller had been able to extinguish the fire on his commander’s back and legs quickly by rolling him around on the ground. The Reichsmarschall remained unconscious through the whole ordeal, having been thrown heavily against the side of the tank in the explosion and knocked out cold. It’d taken some time to get a medic on the scene to begin administering first aid, and only then had Schiller left his friend to head for the Command Post.

A thousand desperate thoughts whirled about in his mind at once, and he felt as if his senses were overloading as he stood frozen for a moment at the entrance the bunker. There was already a small gathering of high- and middle-ranking Wehrmacht staff officers from all three services and the SS beginning to collect inside the CP, some of them carrying injuries, and all were aware by now that Reuters had been incapacitated during the attack. The responsibility of command therefore fell directly upon the shoulders of Albert Schiller, and the man was finding it difficult to deal with the intense pressure in his current state.

“Damage reports…!” The generalleutnant screamed wildly at the stunned officers inside the CP as he burst through the bunker’s thick, steel door. “I want some fucking damage reports and I want them now! I want to know dead, wounded and who’s still alive out there!” He almost leaped across the space between the door and the tables holding the bunker’s radio equipment in a flash. “Somebody find out where the fuck our bloody fire trucks are… we don’t have an entire company of those bastards stationed here for them to sit around playing with themselves! You…!” He bellowed, pointing an angry finger and fixing a terrified leutnant nearby with a piercing glare. “Get Fliegerkorps on the line and get every bloody night-fighter on the French coast into the air… and every bloody radar station in the country fired up too! There’s a fast enemy fighter out there somewhere, and if I don’t have a position on it and a projected course within five minutes, I will personally have someone shot!” As that man nervously picked up a phone and began speaking, he turned to another nearby officer, this time a captain. “Get me Lille air base…!”

Samuel Lowenstein clung to the bars of his cell window and tired desperately to crane his head this way and that, seeking any kind of assurance he wasn’t being left to die. The inferno that had once been a country estate was in clear view, and it was close enough that the ambient heat had already seared his cheeks and forehead. The bars themselves were warming to the point that it was difficult to keep bare skin in contact with them for fear of being burned. The inside of his small room was mostly dark, the only faint illumination coming from a small kerosene lantern sitting atop the bookcase.

That in itself wasn’t so much of a problem. The real concern in the man’s mind were two smaller, but nevertheless quite serious fires that had been started by the huge spray of exploding gasoline. A pair of small storages shed standing close to the far end of the stable were burning furiously, and it seemed that a nearby 88mm flak battery had been using at least one of the structures for storing ammunition, as a number of smaller explosions had gone a long way toward partially demolishing one of the sheds already. Lowenstein couldn’t see the outside of the stable from his point of view, but he knew the inside of the opposite end of the building was already smoking badly, and he’d be in grave trouble if he didn’t somehow get out of there soon.

A layer of grey smoke was actually collecting now beneath the ceiling, and he could smell the thatched roof above him starting to smoulder. He’d almost given up hope entirely at the moment he finally heard the door just outside his room being unlocked and thrown wide. Turning quickly, he found himself staring at an injured and smoke-blackened Joachim Müller, the man nursing a fractured left arm and so exhausted he needed to lean against the doorway to the cell for support. He wore a tuxedo that was singed, torn and missing its jacket, his face streaked with a combination of sweat and tears.

“Fire trucks are on their way,” Müller panted slowly, finding it difficult to catch his breath, “but I don’t think they’ll make it in time to save this place… we need to get you out of here before it all burns to the ground.” The clamour of the fire bells could already be heard ringing in the background, growing ever louder.

“You still remembered me, Joachim,” Lowenstein smiled in an honest display of appreciation and great relief. “You’re injured! Have you any help?”

“I’ve broken it, I think,” Müller replied, wincing in pain as he glanced down at his cradled arm. “Nothing that can’t be mended though,” he shrugged in reply. “I tried to get someone to come with me, but it’s chaos out there… there are too many wounded and dying to be attended to…”

It was all Lowenstein needed to hear. Müller never had a chance to say another word as he drew the pistol he’d been hiding beneath his shirt and raised it in his right hand, firing three silenced shots into the man’s chest. Even Lowenstein was hard pressed to hear the sound of the suppressor over the noise outside, and it was a few seconds before Müller even realised what had happened. The weapon was quite small — a ‘Baby’ Browning automatic, firing the low-powered .25ACP cartridge — yet at close range it was nevertheless powerful enough to be quite lethal. The New Eagles’ head technician stared down for a moment in stunned surprise at the crimson flower ‘blossoming’ across his chest, before raising his uncomprehending eyes to look once more at the man he’d thought of as a friend and collapsing in a heap in the middle of the doorway.

Lowenstein didn’t waste any time. He stopped for a moment to stare down at Müller as he stood in the doorway, pistol hanging loosely in his hand. The man was still alive — barely — but was struggling to breathe as he lay helpless on his back, flecks of blood collecting at the corner of his lips to match the colour of the huge stain still spreading across his upper body. He couldn’t speak, but his lips tried to form words, and his eyes displayed clear and conscious recognition of what had happened. There was also a clear sense of pain and betrayal.

“You want to know why…?” Lowenstein almost spat as he stared down, making no move to help the man who’d been almost his only constant visitor through almost a decade of imprisonment. “Because I’m a Jew, and you’re a fucking Nazi… that’s why!” This time he did spit at the ground by Müller’s twitching feet, as if to add emphasis to the venom in his words. “Because you played your part in this ‘grand plan’ to desecrate history, and took away my very existence in the bargain! Torture and interrogation, the likes of which you couldn’t even imagine in your worst nightmares, and ten fucking years of my life gone with the snap of someone’s fingers…” He clicked his own together in concert with his words. “You thought I was your friend, didn’t you, Joachim… but you threw your lot in with rabid dogs, and there’s only one way to deal with an animal that’s gone rabid…”

Without another word, Lowenstein coldly pointed the pistol at Müller’s head and fired again, the copper-jacketed slug punching a tiny hole in the man’s forehead and killing him instantly. Taking a moment, he checked inside his shirt and made sure all of the personal notes and papers he’d collected during his imprisonment were carefully folded and kept secure inside. He couldn’t afford for any of it to fall into the wrong hands now… not when he was so close to freedom. Stepping over the corpse, he stopped for a moment at the door to the outside world, peering through just enough to allow him a clear view of the area before deciding to fully step into the open.

“Samuel…!” He was barely a few metres outside the door before the soft voice had called his name in accented English, and he turned quickly to his right, pistol held low at his side but aimed all the same. “Samuel… I believe Monsieur Brandis told you I’d be waiting…”

“Of course: you must be François,” Lowenstein nodded with the faintest of smiles, lowering the weapon in his hand as Reynard stepped from the cover of some nearby shrubbery and jogged across to join him. “No need for us to hang about… I’d say its best if we get moving quickly…”

“I’d tend to agree with you,” Reynard noted with a wry grin as he glanced back through the open door to the stable and spotted Müller’s crumpled body. “Let me just get your friend out of sight first, though… it may buy us a little time if he’s not discovered.”

He moved back into the building quickly, dragging the body into Lowenstein’s cell before returning and closing the door behind him. As he returned to the scientist’s side, he drew a collection of identification documents from the pocket of his woollen coat and handed them over.

“These are your papers… your name is now Samuel La Forge, and you work as a dishwasher at the headquarters. You live alone at the nearby town of Beaucourt-en-Santerre, and your address is inside the first page there. Try to memorise as best you can… it’ll save us both if we’re stopped.” Reynard glanced around the area before clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Now… let’s get out of here… time for you to take your first evening ‘stroll’ as a free man.”

With Reynard in the lead, the pair took off at a steady pace across the field behind the stable, heading directly away from the burning mansion and the chaotic scenes surrounding it. Fire trucks were finally pulling up around the structure, and a few jets of water began to stream up into the flames, soon to be joined by many more as more vehicles arrived. The pair would carry out a wide circle around to the east to avoid any patrols in the area, before turning and heading back toward the small wood that was their initial objective, 1,000 metres to the south.

It was turning cold that night… very cold… but Lowenstein couldn’t have cared less. For the first time in almost ten years he was able to run beneath a clear, night sky, and he was enjoying every second of it. Not for a moment did his mind think of Müller, or the manner in which he’d coldly shot down the only man who’d ever shown him friendship or even the slightest consideration during a decade of imprisonment.

“Contact report…!” The very relieved leutnant called out exactly five minutes later, “Single aircraft moving very fast… picked up by radars at Caen and Chartres, heading south-west over Normandy at approximately 500 knots. Fighter Control estimates it’ll cross the Brittany coast within fifteen minutes at current speed and heading.”

He’s heading for the Bay of Biscay… Schiller mused to himself, forcing his mind clear of everything else for a moment and trying to think fast. Must be the F-35… he’s staying subsonic to conserve fuel, and the F-22 wouldn’t have to… with supercruise, it could be pushing Mach 1.8 the whole way home and we’ve never catch him! He began to work through the ramifications of that information, needing to close his eyes for a moment and take a deep breath as the pain in his leg flared and threatened to bring him to his knees. We know from the Scapa Flow survivors that one of the enemy jets was shot down, so this F-35 must be out there alone… and if he’s already headed that far south, there’s no way he’ll make it back to England unrefuelled. The answer came to him in a flash. That means they have a tanker waiting somewhere out over the Atlantic…

He limped across to one of the tables nearby, picked up a large, stand-mounted microphone connected to the main radio transmitter and keyed the transmit button: it was already tuned to the correct frequency, and instantly connected him with the remaining pair of Flankers, awaiting take-off orders at Lille.

“Hawks, this is Generalleutnant Schiller — I have mission orders for you…”

“Hawk flight reading you loud and clear and ready for take off, Herr General,” the reply came in an instant.

“Hawk-Four: you’re to launch immediately and proceed south-west to the Bay of Biscay at best possible speed… there’ll be a thirsty F-35 somewhere out there looking to make an in-flight refuelling, and with your speed advantage and external fuel, you should be able to overhaul it before it reaches the coast. Hawk-Three: you’ll launch and proceed south-south-west to carry out BARCAP over the Scilly Isles. I expect there’ll be a tanker aircraft out there somewhere, and you’re to engage anything that comes within detection range!”

“Orders received,” confirmation was equally quick. “Preparing for take off…”

“Damage reports you ordered, Mein Herr… and casualty lists,” an NCO advised as he entered the CP, stepping up and handing over several sheets of hastily-written notes. Schiller scanned quickly through page after page through eyes slitted with pain and tension, his expression darkening significantly with every line he read. The headache that’d been building since the explosion had finally blossomed into a fully-fledged migraine, and it was making it extremely difficult for him to concentrate.

“God in Heaven…!” He breathed, feeling as if he’d been gutted as he took in the list of deaths and severe injuries. “They didn’t need a nuke to hurt us!” He finished the last page and turned it over, as if expecting more to be written on the reverse as he realised someone was missing fro the lists. “Chief Technician Müller… he’s not listed here at all… has anyone seen him…?”

“I… I don’t know, Herr General… I did ask, but no one else has been able to locate him either. Last reports were from a kitchen hand who thought he’d been seen heading out the rear of the building, toward the stables.”

“Bloody Lowenstein…!” Schiller had experienced so little contact or involvement with their single, ‘special’ prisoner over the last decade that he’d almost forgotten about the man they held in detention in the stables behind the mansion. The generalleutnant almost breathed a short sigh of relief at the news. “I should’ve guessed he’d look after his little friend out back… were the stables damaged in any way?”

“There was some initial threat of fire, but the trucks have since brought that under control,” the NCO replied quickly. “The stables are still intact and undamaged, as far as I am aware.”

“The pair of them are probably sitting around the stove and drinking coffee, no doubt,” Schiller forced a faint grin that came across more as gritted teeth. “Perhaps I should wander over there and keep them company.” The truth was he was struggling to remain focussed and lucid inside that bunker, and he desperately needed some time outside and some relatively fresh air. He glanced around and took note of the gathering group of senior officers inside the CP, some also nursing minor injuries or burns. He picked out one man he recognised immediately and addressed him directly.

“General Guderian…!” He stepped across to face the man, coming stiffly to attention as he did so.

“Jawohl, Mein General,” General Heinz Guderian, CO of XIX Corps, also came to attention instantly. Although he technically outranked Schiller, the man was well aware that Reichsmarschall Reuters was incapacitated, and that under those circumstances it was Schiller who took command of his duties as a matter of course until advised otherwise by The Führer. No one else in Nazi Germany held sufficient power to order Schiller to step down during such a situation.

“You have command here at the CP while I’m gone — I need to attend to the matter of locating our chief technician. I should be no more than a few moments.”

“Of course, Mein Herr,” Guderian replied instantly with a crisp salute. Schiller returned the acknowledgement and headed for the door, only stopping at the entrance for a moment to address one of the pair of troopers standing guard there.

“You there… you have a sidearm at your belt, yes?”

“Jawohl, Mein Herr,” the man replied instantly, bracing up to attention as the officer queried him.

“Give it to me, please… I should feel a better walking about outside in this madness with a pistol at my belt.”

“Of course, Mein Herr…!” The man complied immediately, slinging his submachine gun over his shoulder momentarily as he drew his standard-issue P-38 pistol and handed it over butt-first.”

“Danke,” Schiller replied simply, checking the condition of the weapon’s loaded magazine and empty breech before tucking it into his belt, behind his back. A second later and he was gone, vaulting the steps up to the open air two at a time and disappearing into the hot, chaotic night.

Thorne kept the aircraft completely ‘dark’ as the F-35E swept across the French countryside, no active systems of any kind operating save for the absolute necessity of terrain-following-radar. He knew there were only two aircraft out there somewhere that were potentially capable of detecting his emissions, but he was in no hurry to run into either of them and he wasn’t interested in taking any chances while flying alone over enemy territory.

“How much chance do we really have of making it through without detection?” Trumbull asked, breaking the silence somewhere between St. Malo and Rennes.

“Honestly…?” Thorne shrugged and gave a grimace. “Reasonable chance, if we come across one of the bastards on their own.” He’d calmed down somewhat in the last twenty minutes since their escape from the target area. “If we run into both at once…” he gave another shrug “…then maybe fifty-fifty at best… our radar signature’s tiny — about all anyone would pick up is the bomb mounting carriage beneath the fuselage — but it’s still enough for a missile to lock onto at closer ranges, and those Sukhois also have excellent long-range visual and infra-red detection gear we can’t hide from.

“In the end it’d probably come down to who shoots first in a one-on-one with a Flanker… probably…” The emphasis at the end of that statement was in no way reassuring. “With any luck, neither of the jets will find us, and it’ll all be academic. We might’ve been ‘painted’ strongly enough by ground radar to return a signal while we were over the Collines de Normandie, but other than that we’ve been staying low enough to avoid solid detection most of the way. There are plenty of conventional night fighters up and about at the moment, but I’m not scared of them; we can dance rings around them without them ever knowing we’re there, and they’ll need to spread the jets over a lot of airspace to look for us. All we can do is wait and see, really…”

The Flankers had roared from the runway in formation within minutes of receiving their orders, the flare of each jet’s twin afterburners brilliant and clear in the night sky as they split into single flights the moment they were airborne and went their separate ways. Hawk-4 quickly found the Channel and turned south-west, skirting the French coast and climbing to high altitude. Huge 3,000-litre drop tanks hung from its four inboard wing pylons, and the aircrew would need every drop as the pilot slammed his throttles forward and hurled the Sukhoi across the night sky at almost twice the speed of sound.

The Su-30 crossed the Cherbourg Peninsula north of Caen within minutes and flew on, out over the Gulf of Saint-Malo, systems ever-vigilant and its missiles armed and ready. At full throttle, the earth below them was rushing by at more than 30 kilometres every minute, and heavy fuel consumption was already seriously eating into the aircraft’s reserves.

Hawk-3, similarly armed and fitted with extra fuel, headed off in a more westerly direction and at a much more leisurely pace. They had further to fly, and needed to conserve fuel as a result, but there was also less urgency involved in reaching their destination. They weren’t looking for a fighter, although the destruction of the slower, far larger target they were searching for would ensure the remaining F-35’s demise along with it.

Albert Schiller swore with soft bitterness as he stood in Lowenstein’s empty cell, pistol in hand, and stared sadly down at the lifeless body of his friend and colleague, Joachim Müller. There was nothing to be done… no way of telling how long it’d been since the scientist had made his escape, and the man could easily have disappeared into the mass of people flooding from the burning building in the insanity following the attack. He gripped the butt of the P-38 tightly, his knuckles turning white with anger as he released a long, hissing sigh of pain and frustration.

The migraine flared again suddenly, filling the back of his head with agony and leaving him slightly dazed as he reached out with his free hand to support himself against the nearest wall. For a moment, it was all he could do to remain standing upright, and it was through sheer willpower alone that he finally forced the pain to recede, his breathing laboured and shallow as a light sheen of perspiration broke out across his forehead.

Standing motionless in that small room, Müller’s body at his feet, Schiller could feel his mind beginning to seize up. The last remnants of his strength and endurance were quickly slipping away from him, and the thought of having to return to the CP and resume command truly terrified him. Poor Joachim was dead, and Kurt was out cold and in the care of a field ambulance unit. When he finally regained consciousness, Schiller would have the ‘wonderful’ news for him that Ziegler was plotting his demise with three of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany… and to all this could be added the loss of so many vitally important men, so close to the most important military operation they’d yet attempted.

It was at that moment he heard the door at the far end of the stable open, followed by muffled voices that were clearly whispering. His immediate, instinctive reaction was the thought that perhaps the perpetrator had returned to the scene of the crime for some unknown reason, and he quickly and silently backed into the corner between the doorway and the bookcase, pistol raised and ready as the kerosene lantern atop the bookcase continued to flicker dully beside him.

Zeigler, Strauss, Bormann, Hess and Göring had all been fortunate enough to escape the attack relatively unscathed, save for some minor burns and scrapes. The briefing room was situated toward the front of the mansion, and as such had not only been left intact and undamaged, but had also provided them with easy access to the front entrance and safety beyond.

Strauss had been separated from the rest during the mayhem that followed, but the group had otherwise managed to stay together, and now the danger seemed to be finally abating, they’d entered the stables thinking it a private place where secret conversations might well be continued undisturbed.

“Thank the Gods I took the liberty of having The Führer’s transport sabotaged,” Zeigler exclaimed with clear relief in his voice as they all filed in and Bormann secured the door. “I’d intended it purely to allow us an opportunity to speak freely… it seems now it was a blessing in disguise…!”

“I’m looking forward to filling him in on tonight’s excitement,” Hess observed with an evil smile. “Reuters categorically assured him all of these ‘Hindsight’ jets had been destroyed in the Scapa Flow raid… it appears now this ‘guarantee’ was somewhat premature. I shouldn’t think that will go down well.”

“Looks like the lucky bastard will live,” Göring growled with obvious disappointment. “The officer at the field ambulance station said he’d pull through all right, although there might well be some recovery time in hospital.”

“Any time out of ‘Adolf’s’ presence is dangerous for someone wanting to maintain power,” Bormann noted with a faint smile of his own. “I’m sure we can make that work to our advantage.”

Schiller heard all of it as they coldly discussed the ‘good fortune’ of his commander and friend being hospitalised, his rage building the whole time. He’d known Reuters and had served with him the whole of his military career in one form or another, and the loyalty and protectiveness he felt toward the man was great indeed as a result. The generalleutnant didn’t realise he was grinding his teeth against the tension as another blinding moment of migraine tried to force its way through his consciousness.

He found that his free hand was now shaking almost uncontrollably, and it was only his vice-like grip on the pistol that prevented the other hand from doing the same. Closing his eyes tight against the pain in his head, he tried to ignore it and focussed his attention on the words of the men in the room outside.

“…First of all,” Bormann continued, “we still need to find out what that bloody aide of his did or didn’t hear outside the door earlier, and do whatever needs to be done to keep him quiet… we’ll all have some difficult questions to answer if Reuters finds out what we’ve been up to.”

As he listened to that last remark, Schiller’s rage finally overflowed and his eyes snapped open, wild and alight. The first thing he saw was the P-38 handgun he held, pointing at the ceiling in his right hand, and the image burned into his mind, galvanising him into action.

“I shouldn’t concern yourselves with that, gentlemen,” he advised loudly as he stepped from the room at the far end of the stable and strode purposefully toward them, fire bright and intense in his eyes, “…you can all rest assured I know how to keep a secret…!”

Snapping back the slide on the P-38 and loading a round into the chamber, Schiller raised the weapon before any of them could react and shot Ziegler through the forehead. The back of the man’s head exploded in a spray of blood and fragments, the lifeless corpse already falling to the floor as he shot Göring between the eyes a second later. Hess, the right side of his face coated in Zeigler’s blood and brains, was turning his head away seeking some kind of imagined shelter behind Bormann as the third bullet struck him in the neck, blowing out one of his carotid arteries and most of his throat into the bargain. A crimson geyser of his own blood fountained into the air and spattered across a nearby wall as he toppled over, leaving only the Nazi Party Reichsleiter remaining.

Bormann — made of far sterner stuff than the rest of them — had at least managed to slip a hand around the pistol at his own belt as Schiller came to a halt two metres away, drawing aim directly at his face. Both men froze for a moment and each met the other’s gaze, Bormann’s eyes as cold and emotionless as Schiller’s were crazed and alight.

“I should expect there’s no likelihood you’d accept a bribe of any kind…?” Bormann asked in level, almost good-humoured tones. “I thought not,” he added with little regret as he noted the evil smile that spread across Schiller’s face. A slug punched a hole between his eyes as he made one last, futile attempt to draw his weapon, and he fell dead beside the others, the pistol clattering from his lifeless fingers and sliding across the floor to stop at Schiller’s feet.

Any semblance of emotion disappeared from the generalleutnant’s features as he worked quickly with the bodies, knowing it’d be just a few desperate minutes before those shots brought armed guards to the stable. He picked up Bormann’s fallen Luger, checking and ‘safing’ it before tucking it behind his back. The pain in his head had receded, adrenalin surging through his system once more and pushing him on with renewed strength and sudden resourcefulness.

Taking a soot-stained handkerchief from his pocket, he held the guard’s pistol gingerly by the hot, smoking muzzle and carefully wiped down the surfaces of the butt, slide and trigger, before crouching down and placing the weapon in Bormann’s right hand. Enclosing it in his own fingers, he forced the lifeless corpse to grasp the weapon in a rough semblance of a firing grip. As he released the hand and let the weapon drop, he took the opportunity to use the handkerchief once more and clean the last of his fingerprints from where he’d held the gun by its barrel.

A moment later he was done, and he jogged quickly back down to the room that’d been Lowenstein’s cell, snatching the kerosene lantern from the top of the bookcase. Moving back to the centre of the stables with equal speed, he drew back his arm and tossed the lantern toward the pile of bodies with great force. The nearby stalls might well have been empty of horses, but were nevertheless still littered with piles of hay, and they instantly caught alight as the lamp smashed heavily against the back wall and sprayed burning kerosene all about.

So close to the earlier fires that had all but burned the nearby storage sheds to the ground, the far end of the stable was still quite hot and incredibly dry, and it took just the slightest encouragement for most of one corner to burst into intense flame close to where Zeigler had fallen. Patches of fire were already flickering from the bodies where kerosene had sprayed from the shattered lamp, and it was just seconds before the main fire was threatening to engulf them also, which was exactly Schiller’s intention.

He was standing by the open doorway at the other end of the structure as the first guards arrived just seconds later, sent running at full speed across the open space between the stables and the still-burning main buildings as the alarm was raised at the sound of gunfire. Their submachine guns were held at the ready, but everyone knew Generalleutnant Schiller by sight, and neither of them gave a moment’s thought to the idea that he might be involved in anyway.

“Something terrible has happened,” Schiller began, his chest heaving as he rested one arm against the doorway for support. “I came looking for Chief Technician Müller, and heard an argument within. I heard Reichsleiter Bormann screaming something about ‘abominations’ and ‘insults to The Führer and The Party’…” he paused to take another few laboured breaths. “Then the shooting began…” he shook his head jerkily, as if he were partially in shock. “There was already fire at the other end, and by the time I got this door open it was too late…”

“Let us investigate, Mein Herr,” the senior guard volunteered, placing a reassuring hand upon the officer’s shoulder and using it to gently draw him away from the scene that had obviously caused him such understandable distress. Once Schiller was standing clear, the NCO raised his weapon to the ready and moved quickly inside, ducking his head to avoid the thickening clouds of smoke that was starting to pour out through the top of the opening.

“Werner…!” The second guard bellowed back across the grass to a third man standing twenty metres or so away and surveying the proceedings. “Get one of those bloody fire trucks over here now! We’ve got a flare up down here at the stables…!”

The first guard was out again a moment later, the shaken expression on his face an indication that he’d seen quite enough. He seemed noticeably uncomfortable as he approached Schiller once more, as if unsure what to say.

“Herr Generalleutnant,” he began slowly, pausing again as he considered his words carefully. “I must regretfully advise that I’ve found the body of Chief Technician Müller inside the first room on the right. He appears to have been shot several times.” He paused again and swallowed deeply. “I couldn’t get all the way down the far end because of the spreading fire, however from what I could see, it appears Reichsleiter Bormann was indeed inside, along with Generalfeldmarschall Göring, Deputy Führer Hess and another man I believe may be Direktor Zeigler. Herr Bormann’s sidearm was drawn… it appears there was an argument between them…” He took a deep breath. “There was a prisoner being held here also… a Jewish scientist, I think. I checked everywhere I was able, but could find no sign of him… he must have escaped… it’s impossible to tell whether before or after the incident inside.”

The raging fire now burning in those stables would soon destroy any evidence as to what might’ve really happened, leaving just the testimony of eyewitnesses as a record of the event. The man standing before him was one of the senior guards on the HQ staff — a man with a wealth of experience who knew his job well — and this highly credible witness had just swallowed the tale Schiller had dreamed up hook, line and sinker. The guard had mistakenly deduced the scene inside exactly as he’d staged it to appear, and there’d soon be no physical evidence left that might contradict that version of what had transpired. For the first time that night, Schiller felt as if something was finally going his way, and it was difficult for the generalleutnant to keep an evil smile from flickering across his face.

Director Oswald Zeigler had been a careful and thorough man his entire life. He’d not become a multi-millionaire in Realtime — or survived as long or as successfully as he had in 1930s Nazi Germany — by being the kind of man to make mistakes, or leave loose ends untied. Of course, there was always the occasional possibility of random chance or the unpredictability of others, a perfect case in point being the circumstances of that night ultimately leading to the rather inconvenient fact that he was now quite definitely deceased. All the planning in the world couldn’t have prepared Zeigler — or anyone else for that matter — for such an unlikely event as being shot to death by Generalleutnant Albert Schiller.

One thing Oswald Zeigler had taken into account, however, was the possibility of betrayal by others in the cabal he’d formed… the very same cabal that’d now been summarily destroyed by Schiller’s bullets. Göring, Bormann and Hess were very powerful men, and he’d needed all of their support and complicity for the goal he’d laid out before them: bringing down Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters. That being said, although it was true he needed their alliance, it would’ve been another thing entirely to have said he trusted them… he most certainly did not, and with good reason.

Beneath the supreme and unassailable position of Chancellor, politics in Nazi Germany were and always had been a quite unpleasant, dirty, and exceptionally underhanded business that quickly drew in the weak or virtuous and either destroyed them utterly, or corrupted and assimilated them completely. One was required to be both cunning and duplicitous by nature to survive in such an environment, and high-ranking dignitaries like Göring, Hess or Bormann hadn’t reached such heights without becoming hardened, cold and calculating in their both their actions and with whom they formed alliances or whom they betrayed.

Zeigler, himself accustomed to the cutthroat battlefield of 21st Century European boardrooms, had fully expected one or all of them would seek to betray him at some later time, and as such he’d made sure he put some simple but effective precautions into place. Admittedly, those same precautions hadn’t been enough to prevent his murder — that hadn’t been their intention after all — however their implementation would nevertheless have a significant, if somewhat delayed influence on world affairs long after the name Oswald Zeigler had since vanished into obscurity.

At the same moment the four conspirators had quietly entered the stable that evening, Dieter Strauss had already secreted himself in a hidden and prepared position by one of the barred windows on the far side of the building. To his back lay nothing but open fields and darkness, and the usual patrols were completely preoccupied with trying to bring the chaos of the burning HQ under control, leaving Strauss alone and unchallenged. Peering carefully through the corner of the open window, he’d watched as his colleague had led them all inside and they’d continued their meeting. While one hand grasped the window sill for support, the other held up his prized iPhone-4 and recorded the entire conversation in high-definition video, the brightness of the device’s touch-screen dimmed as far as was possible so its illumination wouldn’t give away his presence or position.

At the time they’d originally arrived in the past from Realtime, Strauss couldn’t have given any legitimate reason why he’d insisted on bringing the iPhone. He’d known full well the device would be completely useless for communications in a world that was still a good fifty years away from cellular mobile phone technology, yet he’d also carried his entire music collection stored within its 32GB internal memory, and he could argue that in that sense alone it had been in some way useful. The truth of it really was that he’d loved using the device in the 21st Century, and hadn’t wanted to part with it simply because it’d become his one personal, intimate link with the world he’d left behind. As it turned out however, the compact little phone had eventually come into its own as a very useful tool, and had justified its presence many times over.

As they’d sat talking in Reuters’ briefing room before the attack, Strauss had smiled and listened along without saying a word, and none of the others had noticed the very tip of the iPhone projecting from the top pocket of his suit jacket the whole time. Just enough of the device had been exposed to allow its rear-mounted, five-megapixel camera to record the entire discussion in quite high resolution. No one of that era could possibly have guessed at the capabilities of such a tiny device, and that fact worked perfectly in its favour as Strauss captured the entire event for posterity and the protection of the New Eagles’ Board of Directors, should any of the others present decide at a later date to renege on their agreements or try to sell the others out.

It was for this reason that Dieter Strauss was also able to clearly capture the murders of all four men on that same HD-quality video. So intent had he been in watching the proceedings, that he’d not even noticed Schiller’s emergence from the room at the far end of the stable until it was far too late to call a warning. The man’s gun fired seconds later, and Strauss was frozen in fear as his colleague and friend, Zeigler, had fallen with the first bullet. A man born of a media-savvy generation, he’d continued filming despite his terror, and he’d eventually recorded the entire episode, from the first entry of the group into the stable right up to Schiller’s exit after starting the fire.

The flames that burst up at that end of the stable however were far too close for comfort right from the outset, and at that point, Strauss finally decided discretion would definitely be the far better part of ‘valour’ in this particular instance. Shutting down the phone’s camera function, he pocketed the device and backed carefully away from the outside wall of the stable as smoke began to pour from the windows. A quick check around his position reassured him the coast was clear, and with that small comfort, he moved off quickly to the north-east, heading away from the scene of the crime and any possibility of being required to answer some very difficult questions.

Strauss wasn’t sure what he should do next. He needed to get in contact with the rest of the directors… that much was certain… but their leap at ultimate power had now been shattered, turning to smoke and ash as quickly as the bodies being consumed by the fire within the stable behind him. First things first, he decided with a simple rationale, and first of all he needed to get well away from that Wehrmacht HQ and find somewhere far safer, away from the influence of Reuters and Schiller. He had no doubt his absence would raise questions soon enough, and he intended to make sure he was a long way away when those questions were eventually asked. He patted his hand instinctively against the hardness of the iPhone in his trouser pocket, reassured he still felt its presence, and set himself a slow but steady, lumbering pace as he headed off across the French fields.

The nearest road passed straight by the northern perimeter of the property, running between Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux, and within a few moments, Strauss found himself standing by the side of the Route d’Amiens, his only illumination the gibbous moon above and the glow of the still-burning mansion perhaps 200 metres behind him to the south-west. He began to walk slowly eastward along the road, his mind reeling as he tried to come to terms with what had just occurred and what that meant with regard to his own safety in particular.

He was still considering the problem as the flicker of headlights behind him caught his attention. Strauss stopped for a moment and turned to stare as a large, black Citroen Traction Avant sedan approached, slowing down as it drew near and pulling onto the verge beside him. He stood watching, somewhat apprehensive, as the driver leaned across and wound down the passenger side window on his side. He found that the vehicle’s sole occupant was a uniformed colonel of the Waffen-SS.

“Looks like there’s been a bit of excitement back there for the OKW,” the officer remarked, mild surprise and interest showing on his face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, but there’s been an air attack,” Strauss replied nervously, panting and fighting for breath after the exertion of his flight from the scene. He paused for a moment as a shrewd expression crossed his face. “As an officer, you’re aware perhaps of the group known as the ‘Board of Directors’?”

“Mein Herr, everyone has heard of the ‘Directors’,” the standartenführer acknowledged with a wry smile.

“Well, my name is Dieter Strauss, and I’m one of them!” He shot back, needing no further urging to throw open the passenger door and slide in beside the man in the front seat. If the officer knew of their reputation, then he’d not be likely to deny any request Strauss made of him. “I need to get to Paris immediately!”

“Then you’re in luck, Herr Strauss… I’m headed there tonight myself — I just need to collect my adjutant from his billet at Villers-Bretonneux, and we can all head down there together. We’d be happy for the company.”

“Excellent!” Strauss nodded, almost smiling as he released a sigh of relief over the fact that at least something was finally going right that evening. “Rest assured you’ll be well compensated for your troubles.”

“Not at all, Mein Herr,” Phillip Brandis grinned back with a true sense of irony as he slotted the Citroen into gear and pulled back out onto the road, continuing his journey east. “It’s my pleasure entirely…!” The sedan accelerated quickly away and was soon lost to the darkness of the night.

“Bugger it!” Thorne growled angrily as a warning signal popped up on his main display. “Our EW systems are picking up emissions from a Flanker-type air search radar to the north… there goes the neighbourhood!”

“Can they see us?”

“Wouldn’t think so… not yet anyway… the signal’s very faint, and it’d have to cut through a lot of clutter to get us. He’d have trouble at that range even if we were returning a signal from a full-sized radar cross-section, which we’re not. Radar emissions can generally be picked up long before they’re able to detect an aircraft in return — particularly one such as ours.” He consulted a map of France slipped inside a clear-covered pocket on his upper right leg. “Looks like they’re out over the Channel somewhere… maybe near Guernsey or Cherbourg,” he shook his head in silent appreciation, “and he’s really been legging it to get that far so fast… we’ve had the better part of a half-hour head start.” The next shake of his head was one of displeasure. “That bastard isn’t on a search pattern either… he’d never have gotten this far already without having some idea of where to look.” He grimaced. “Looks like those ground radars did get a look at us as we shot past.”

“Can we evade…?”

“Maybe… maybe not,” Thorne shrugged, disengaging the autopilot and taking the F-35E even lower… as low as he dared at night without radar. “We might get away with it if we carry on as we are and stay on the treetops, but we’re running a very real risk of ploughing into something tall and hard that doesn’t have blinking red lights on top of it like they would in peaceful old ‘Realtime’. This Old Girl’s got night vision systems, but I’m not ashamed to admit I’m no expert flying that way, and if I miss spotting a smokestack or transmission tower, neither of us’ll know much about it until its way too late at this speed.” He gave a morbid chuckle. “Last thing going through our minds if that happens will be our own arses!” There was a thoughtful pause as Trumbull couldn’t help but grin at the man’s customary use of coarse figures of speech… something he seemed to have in common with the rest of the Australians in the unit to some extent.

“There’s that danger,” Thorne continued, “and then there’s the more important concern of leading the bastard to the Extender. If they’re looking here already, it means they probably know I won’t make it anywhere safe without refuelling. The Extender won’t be able to hide down low, and it’s not stealthy like us: it’ll stand out like dog’s balls on radar…” he went silent as the beginnings of a plan started to form in his mind. “Which may actually do us a favour,” he mused. “If the other bugger’s out there with his systems off, waiting to jump us, then we’re probably screwed, but if they’ve split the pair up and he’s on his ‘Pat Malone’, we might just have a chance.” He checked the jet’s fuel status for the fourth time in twenty minutes. “Tanks are down a bit, but we’ve still got some to play with… what do you say to us seeing what we can do to stitch this bloke up?”

“Harbinger to Phoenix-Two… come in please, Phoenix-Two,” Thorne called out over his radio following some adjustment, the chances of the enemy tuning in on the frequency-agile transmission extremely unlikely.

“Receiving you, Harbinger… loud and clear…”

“Phoenix-Two, I need you to leave the assigned rendezvous area and head due north at best speed… we’re going to need you closer to England for our refuel.”

“Is everything okay there, Harbinger?”

“Roger, Phoenix-Two… everything A-OK… just a slightly higher rate of fuel consumption than expected,” Thorne abjectly lied through his teeth with a completely straight face. “Airspace in my area is clear…”

“Roger that, Harbinger… altering course as requested… we’ll see you soon… Phoenix-Two over and out.”

“They’re going to be rather upset with you,” Trumbull observed, submitting his entry for understatement of the evening.

“Only if they… one: detect this bastard before I can get a chance to take him… and two: also only if they survive the experience to get pissed-off at me.” The grin Thorne gave beneath the oxygen mask was only barely humorous. “They’ll be quite safe if this works, Alec: the Flanker’ll pick them up long before he’s within missile range, and if he goes after them, which I think he will, he’ll have to cut his speed to conserve fuel…”

“Meanwhile, we’ll be able to strike at him from behind while the pilot’s attention is elsewhere…” Trumbull deduced the basic outline of the plan perfectly.

“Most fighters have only minimal detection capability to the rear,” Thorne explained, “and while he’s concentrating on what’s ahead of him, we may be able to get close enough to shove a couple of Sidewinders up his arse.” He shrugged. “It’s not foolproof by a long shot, but we’re definitely in with a chance.” He took the Lighting into a smooth bank to port that opened out into an wide 270 degree turn. “If I can get in behind him without him seeing me, we’ve got a shot, and at the speed he’ll need to slow down to, we might be able to get into range pretty quickly.”

With both aircraft flying above 10,000 metres in altitude, Hawk-4’s pilot picked up the KC-10A at a distance of well over 300 kilometres. There was no sign of the F-35E they were also seeking, but the tanker aircraft was an important target in its own right. If the fighter hadn’t yet refuelled, which was likely, destroying the tanker was as good as shooting down the Lightning into the bargain: the strike fighter would never have enough fuel to reach safety without it.

“Hawk-Four to Control… I have a large contact… range one hundred and sixty nautical miles, on a bearing of two-four-seven… heading three-six-zero. Size and flight profile suggests it’s the tanker aircraft we’re looking for.”

“Receiving you, Hawk-Four,” the reply from their controllers came back after a few seconds’ pause. “Has there been any sign of the enemy fighter?”

“None so far, Control… only jet-type contact I have on-screen is that tanker.”

Another pause, then: “Understood, Hawk-Four… you’re ordered to proceed at best advisable speed to engage tanker.”

“Reading you loud and clear, Control: Hawk-Four over and out,” the pilot responded before addressing the nav/weapons officer behind him. “Best course for intercept.”

“We’ll need to back off our airspeed… we’re pushing the limits of our combat radius now after that dash run… another three hundred nautical miles tacked onto the round trip isn’t going to help.”

“He’s not going anywhere, Feodor,” the pilot assured with a smug grin, “and there’s no need to break the sound barrier to catch him!” The pilot took control from the autopilot, killed their afterburners, and hauled back on the throttles as he pushed the jet into a light turn to starboard that took them away from the Brittany Peninsula and out toward the Atlantic Ocean. The pair of now-empty outboard auxiliary tanks fell away as he dumped them in the interest of reducing resistance and shedding unnecessary weight, every little improvement an aid to increasing their available range.

“You little beauty…!” Thorne crowed in triumph over the intercom, a little louder than was comfortable for Trumbull’s ears. “The fuckers have taken the bait… he’s turning away!” He’d managed to obtain an angle of approach on the Flanker following that wide, circling turn that was roughly perpendicular to its own flight path, and the noticeable drop in radiated emissions was an obvious indication that the aircraft had turned away. Since the initial large drop in signal, the Flanker’s emissions had started to increase once more, this time in a steadily gradual fashion that clearly indicated the F-35E was flying faster and hauling back the distance between them and their unsuspecting prey.

“So now we wait?” Trumbull asked simply, voicing more of a statement than a question.

“For a while, yeah,” Thorne agreed. “We have to stay as low as we can for the moment… even if he can’t see us, ground radar might, and we need to close within six miles to have a good chance of a kill with the Sidewinders… maybe less when you consider the buggers could be four or five miles above us as well.”

“That close…? Couldn’t we use the AMRAAMs instead?”

“Sure… I could fire those from about forty miles out, but I’d have to light up our systems before firing, and there’d be no more hiding then. I don’t want to give the pricks any more warning that I have to… makes it that much safer for everyone else, us included.” He made a few adjustments to his course that placed them directly behind the Flanker and on the same course. Both aircraft flew on, the gap between them closing steadily.

The KC-10A Extender had no idea of the approaching danger. As a tanker aircraft, it wasn’t designed to be in combat areas or anywhere near them, and as such it was provided with only the most basic weather and navigation radars, neither of which could pick up the Flanker that was approaching from its starboard beam. It continued on its steady, northerly heading and waited for further contact from Thorne, but the crew were growing a little concerned…no only would the F-35E be running perilously low on fuel, but spending much longer on their current course would also take them closer to the English coast than was safe under the circumstances without escort.

One of the more powerful of the Luftwaffe’s ground-based stations at Brest could now see the Extender as it cruised on at high altitude, and it could also see that the Su-30MK was approaching from a perfect firing position off the tanker’s starboard rear quarter. It was still closing as the station’s operators noticed an unusual glitch on their screens and broke radio silence with the aircraft.

“Hawk-Four… please confirm… we’ve picked up a signal ‘echo’ five nautical miles directly ahead of your position, thirty nautical miles off the target’s starboard beam… please check your internal systems and advise…”

The revelation caused great consternation with the aircrew of Hawk-4, and there were a few nervous moments of checking and rechecking their search systems, all of which came up with nothing at all.

“Not possible!” The weapons officer complained in confusion. “There’s nothing in front of us except that bloody tanker!” He shook his head in frustration. “It must be a system problem at their end… we’re thirty miles from target!” But the truth hit the pilot in front of him like a sledgehammer a second later.

“Christ!” He howled, dumping his remaining external tanks and hauling desperately back on the stick. “The fucker’s behind us!” He jammed his throttles forward as the Flanker suddenly hurtled upward into a loop, g-forces jamming them both hard into their seats and hampering their breathing as their afterburners kicked in.

Thorne knew there’d been a chance of ground radar picking them up as they’d left the safety of low altitude and commenced their long climb toward the Su-30MK at full throttle. The growling lock-on signal from his IR systems had been buzzing in his ear for a few minutes during their final approach as the Lightning drew closer to firing range, the actual closing speed between the two aircraft no greater than 200km/hr.

He really felt their luck had held longer than he’d any right to ask, and they’d managed to get far closer than he’d expected at the moment the Flanker suddenly entered into a sharp, radical climbing manoeuvre, indicating the jig was up. They were still at extreme range for his Sidewinders, but distance would close far more quickly now the enemy was turning in toward them. He also knew there were just seconds before the Flanker also had a clear lock on him, and Thorne didn’t hesitate as he launched both AIM-9X Sidewinders stored within his internal weapons bays. The twin flares of their rocket motors was almost blinding against the blackness of the night sky as they hissed away beneath the aircraft in pursuit of a target that was still ten kilometres away, five thousand metres higher in altitude and completely invisible to the naked eye.

The detection of incoming missiles put the pilot of the Sukhoi at an immediate disadvantage as his radar and IRST systems detected the F-35E within seconds of rolling through the apex of the loop. Years of training kicked into action in an instant as he simultaneously fired off two missiles of his own, pulled into a hard turn away, and dumped flares and chaff in an attempt to decoy the incoming fire. Thorne also prepared to go on the defensive, but held his course for a few precious seconds as the two opposing salvoes of missiles passed close to each other in mid-air. Waiting for what instinct told him was the last safe moment, he kicked into afterburner and entered into his own series of complex manoeuvres as chaff and fiery flares also fell from beneath the rear of the Lightning in lurid streams.

The aircraft suddenly lurched upward and to one side at a rate Trumbull wouldn’t have thought possible, assuming he’d actually had time to think as he waiting for his stomach to catch up, and the pair of Vympel R-73 heat-seeking missiles were suddenly presented with an extremely difficult target. Codenamed AA-11 ‘Archer’ by NATO forces, the missile was the most modern short-range missile in the Russian Air Force’s inventory and was a simple, yet remarkably manoeuvrable design. No guided weapon was perfect however, and one of the approaching missiles quickly decided on an easier target as it veered off to starboard and followed one of the burning flares on a long journey down toward the cold Atlantic below. It detonated harmlessly a few seconds later, but the second R-73 came much closer, not so easily fooled by the flares and heavy manoeuvring.

Both Trumbull and Thorne simultaneously drew sharp, frightened breaths as the Archer sizzled past within metres of the cockpit, diverted at the last minute by another flare, and detonated just thirty metres astern. The shockwave of the blast from the 7.5kg fragmentation warhead slapped the Lightning like a giant hand, and shrapnel filled the air around the aircraft, several pieces tearing large holes through the surface of its starboard rudder. Thorne suddenly found the aircraft far more difficult to handle as the damage instantly created serious control and airflow problems.

“Well bugger me…!” He howled in anger and fear, fighting momentarily to regain level flight and praying there’d be no further missiles to dodge.

They were in no immediate danger. Hawk-4 had been targeted with two AIM-9X Sidewinders — one of just a handful of AAMs more advanced than the R-73 — and the pilot’s attention was far too focussed on avoiding his own death to consider a follow-up attack at that moment. He’d instantly banked away south and downward after firing, and turned onto a course away from the Lighting, the Sukhoi’s own incandescent flares pouring in streams from its tail accompanied by clouds of aluminium strips that glittered brightly in the illumination of those desperate fireworks.

The first of the Sidewinders held an excellent lock on the Flanker’s exhausts for most of its flight as the jet turned its nose to the south, and although it was ultimately tricked at the last moment by a tight combination of heavy manoeuvre and hissing flares, it nevertheless still detonated close enough behind the aircraft to damage its port wings and send fragments tearing along the rear fuselage. The damage mattered little, as the second Sidewinder powered on unerringly, its imaging-IR seeker head completely oblivious to a sky full of decoys. It scored a direct hit on the exhaust nozzle of the Sukhoi’s portside Lyulka turbofan and detonated on impact, also igniting the SU-30’s remaining internal fuel in a massive, billowing explosion of fire and thick smoke.

“Phoenix-Two, this is Harbinger,” Thorne began a few seconds later as he brought the Lightning back under control. As the aircraft was controlled electronically through ‘fly-by-wire’ systems, there was no real feedback of the damage through his joystick, however both men could feel the aircraft shuddering due to the disrupted airflow around the jet’s damaged twin rudders, and manoeuvres also took slightly longer than they should as a result. “Sorry about the scare there, gentlemen… we had a close call, but its all clear now and we’ve splashed one Flanker.” Thorne knew the crew of the Extender had to have noticed the all-in air battle in their area, and that was bound to raise some questions as to why their course had been rerouted in the first place.

“Receiving you, Harbinger… glad to hear everything’s OK… thanks for the heads-up.” The tone of the last sentence was distinctly sarcastic.

“Oh yeah… they’re pissed,” Thorne observed with a nod and a wry grin. “They’ll get over it though…” He keyed transmit once more. “Not a problem there, Phoenix-Two… I’m twenty-five nautical miles off your starboard beam and getting close to ‘bingo’ fuel… could definitely need some assistance.”

“Roger that, Harbinger,” The reply came in an instant, sarcasm immediately replaced with professionalism once more. “Crew is ready and awaiting your arrival.” A bright star suddenly lit up in the night sky ahead of them as the Extender turned on its navigation and operating lights, guiding the fighter in to a rendezvous.

The refuelling took a good deal longer than it normally should have, most of that extra time taken up by Thorne fighting with his damaged aircraft while attempting to link up with the Extender’s refuelling boom. Task finally completed, the pair formed up for a long and leisurely cruise back to base, on their wide detour around Ireland to avoid any further potential threats. It wasn’t long however before that potential threat became a realised one. As they closed on the south coast of Ireland, Thorne’s search radar detected a single, high-level contact approaching from the north-east at high speed.

“Looks like we’ve got some more ‘fun’ coming our way, Alec,” he advised, locking the aircraft into his targeting systems while it was still more than 200 kilometres away. He then radioed the crew of the KC-10A to also advise them of the newly-detected bogie. “Phoenix-Two, we’ve got our last Flanker heading in at high speed from the north-east, range one-one-zero nautical miles… recommend you head further west and descend to low level. Turning in to intercept now… we’ll see if we can keep him off your tail…”

“Understood, Harbinger… will comply… thanks for the warning.” There was no sarcasm this time, and within seconds the tanker had began to turn sharply away from the Lightning’s port wing, seeking safety in distance and a lower altitude. Thorne turned the F-35E in the opposite direction, putting them on a collision course with the remaining Sukhoi.

“One way or the other, this is the last of them, isn’t it, Max…?” Trumbull observed with a seriousness borne of tension and fear.

“Sure is,” Thorne agreed slowly, his own nerves starting to show in his voice as the aircraft continued to shudder noticeably in flight. The jet still flew well enough, but the continual vibration was beginning to sap at both men’s mental and physical strength. There was also the danger that constant stress placed upon the airframe itself might cause some other unknown weak point to fail, although Thorne decided it probably best not to mention that fear to Trumbull at that moment. “Not much chance of sneaking up on them this time, either,” he grimaced. “It’ll probably come down to technology in the end…”

“What do you mean?”

“We know the New Eagles bought these bloody Flankers from the Chechen Mafia, but we’ve no idea what ordnance they got with them. If they’ve got eighties-vintage AA-10 medium range missiles, then we’ve got an advantage… they’re less capable than our AMRAAMs,” he explained, using Cold War NATO codenames out of habit rather than the correct Russian designations. “If they’re got the newer AA-12s on the other hand, then we’re up against it… the ‘Adders’ are pretty-much the equal to ours, and pack a longer range… the military community even nicknamed them the ‘AMRAAMSKI’ in recognition of their similarity to the AIM-120.”

“I don’t think I’d like a career with the air forces of the future,” Trumbull growled softly, his tone vaguely bitter. “Life or death seems to revolve more around who pushes the first button than any real ability as a pilot.”

“Actually, I kind of agree with you,” Thorne replied grimly after a moment’s consideration and a slight nod. “Personally, I’d rather sort this out with guns in an all-in ‘furball’ any day.” His grimace became a thin, wry smile. “Don’t think our ‘mate’ here would agree, though.”

Flying higher and faster in Hawk-3, Schwarz loosed two of his missiles at a range of 100 kilometres, providing his opponent plenty of time to prepare countermeasures. The early launch however also put extra pressure on his enemy, and Schwarz in any case still held another pair of R-27 missiles in reserve beneath the Flanker’s fuselage, a medium-range weapon also known by the NATO codename AA-10 ‘Alamo’.

Trumbull had learned enough about flying the F-35E to pick up the approaching missiles on radar, and he was more than a little concerned as Thorne continued to do nothing other than close the distance between the two aircraft at full throttle.

“Those two new contacts are guided missiles, aren’t they…?” He asked tentatively.

“Radar-guided, far as I can tell…” Thorne confirmed, voice deadpan.

“Oh good… just… just checking…” Trumbull nodded nervously, trying to force a smile beneath his oxygen mask but not really managing.

“I can’t counter-launch yet, Alec,” Thorne explained with a thin smile. “Their missiles have better range… I need to be closer to have a chance of hitting them.” A tense silence followed as time ticked by, and with one last range check on his HDMS readouts, Thorne finally released both of Hindsight’s remaining AIM-120s at a range of seventy kilometres. They hissed away from his weapons bays like tiny meteors, and the engagement suddenly became a waiting game once more.

“We’ve got about forty seconds or so,” Thorne continued tensely, his teeth clamped together as he watched carefully for the telltale flare of the enemy missiles’ exhausts. “If he’s fired AA-10s at us, he’ll need to maintain radar lock for them to hit us…”

“But he’ll have to turn away at some point to try and avoid our missiles!” Trumbull suddenly saw the method in Thorne’s actions.

“Exactly,” the Australian confirmed, nodding. “Basically, we’re playing a bloody great game of ‘chicken’…” He managed a vaguely evil smile. “Of course, the problem for him is; from about ten miles out, our missiles can track all by themselves.”

“And if he’s fired those ‘new’ missiles at us…?”

“Then we’re probably screwed,” Thorne replied cheerfully.

“Incoming missiles just went active… they’re AMRAAMs… AMRAAMs!” Weapons Officer Hauser called out his final warning at a range of just fifteen kilometres. As the combined approach speed of missiles and aircraft was better than hypersonic, there was no time for discussion or any further comment at all… there was barely time for anything other than reflex and instinct. Schwarz hauled back on the stick and began to turn, pumping chaff into the sky behind the Flanker in an attempt to blur his radar return.

The Sukhoi was travelling faster than sound, and it was loath to change direction as a result, making it necessary to dump speed dramatically before the air rushing past around them would allow the jet to make any radical manoeuvres. The Su-30MK, although state-of-the-art by the Russian standards of its time, was nevertheless a generation behind the avionics of the F-35E, as were the aircraft’s defensive countermeasures. The pre-cut clouds of aluminium filling the air behind the turning aircraft didn’t fool the pair of AMRAAMs for a second, and the first ploughed into the climbing Sukhoi’s belly amidships after flicking upward from its original course at the last moment. The second missile detonated amid the expanding fireball and wreckage a moment later.

The pair of R-27 ‘Alamo’ missiles targeted on the Lightning lost lock the moment their mother aircraft turned away and then rather inconveniently exploded. Thorne and Trumbull could actually see the flare of their exhausts in the dark sky ahead by that stage as they suddenly fell from their guided flight plan and nosed downward, still in formation. Both passed just a thousand metres below the jet as they continued on below and behind, both men in the F-35E releasing sighs of relief.

“Well done, Max… well done…” Trumbull said softly, tension finally starting to ease as they flew on into a night sky that was finally safe. “Thank God that’s all over…!”

“Oh this isn’t over,” Thorne replied, his own stress and frustration still high. “There’s going to be an analysis of the damage there at that Wehrmacht HQ once the dust settles, and they’re going to find what’s left of that bomb.” He shook his head in angry displeasure. “When they do, they’ll know we have nuclear weapons that don’t fucking work!” His voice was hushed, but was also filled with renewed vehemence. “We just shot our bolt and came up well short, mate… this is far from over!”

Wehrmacht Field Hospital Unit

Amiens, Northern France

Monday

9 September, 1940

Kurt Reuters woke up in mild discomfort sometime after eleven that morning, the pain of the burns on his lower legs beginning to overcome the low levels of morphine in his system. Schiller was seated by his bedside in the private ward, and had the look of a man completely worn out, exhausted and utterly despondent, although the sight of his friend and commander regaining consciousness went some way to improving his foul mood. The Reichsmarschall was incredibly weak, and couldn’t manage much more than to raise himself slightly and stare with apprehension at the man seated beside him.

“Things are so bad as that?” He asked slowly, his voice soft and wavering slightly.

“Things are bad, Kurt… yes,” Schiller answered honestly with a grimace, “but they could’ve been far worse for all that…”

“Casualties…?”

“Nearly a hundred injured, including fifteen officers of various ranks… five of those, staff officers. Among the thirty-three dead, we lost Admirals Canaris and Raeder, Generals Von Bock and Von Brauchitsch…” He paused a moment before continuing, managing to hide the guilt and fear coursing through him. “We’ve also retrieved the bodies of Field Marshal Göring, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, Deputy Führer Hess… and Oswald Zeigler. Direktor Strauss is missing and is also feared dead, although his body is yet to be located in the wreckage.” Schiller decided he could provide selected, ‘edited’ details regarding their deaths at a later date. He looked away as he spoke the next few sentences. “Kurt… we also lost Joachim… murdered by that Jewish bastard, Lowenstein, who made his escape during the confusion.”

“Oh Christ…!” Reuters lay his head back in disbelief and closed his eyes, equally devastated by the loss of such a group of experienced men and the painful news of the death of their friend.

“There’s more, Kurt. Both Flankers were sortied in an attempt to intercept the attacking aircraft and supporting tanker… there were two separate engagements, in which both Sukhois were also lost… no survivors. We’ve no idea whether either of the enemy jets detected also survived… or their whereabouts, if they did.”

“Thank God at least it wasn’t a nuke they threw at us… I thought we were done for when I saw that bomb come down!”

“It was a nuke, Kurt,” Schiller began slowly after another pause.

“What do you mean?” The man was staring at him once more, his head turned on the pillow. “How is it then, that we’re still alive at all?”

“An investigation team went through the wreckage after the fire was extinguished. It appears the weapon didn’t function correctly, and there was no nuclear detonation as a result. Most of the damage was done by a much larger, secondary explosion originating from a fuel truck parked at the rear of the building. We believe the driver was sleeping in the cab, and was in any case killed in the blast.”

“Which saves us the necessity of having him shot,” Reuters added coldly, ignoring the fact that he himself had spotted the sleeping man earlier that night and neglected doing anything about the situation.

“The weapon malfunctioned for some unknown reason… we believe it was either a B61- or B83-type thermonuclear weapon, and that it was the initial, conventional imploding charge that ignited the fuel in the tanker truck.”

“Why the hell didn’t it go off?”

“We’re not sure. We’ve salvaged a number of large fragments of what appears to be weapons-grade plutonium from the site. Only problem is, it doesn’t register on our Geiger counters. It looks, feels and weighs about the same as plutonium should… the material just isn’t radioactive.” He lowered his eyes for a moment. “I’d have preferred to have Joachim to consult with on this, but the only theory we can come up with is that the original fissile material may have been neutralised as an unexpected side effect of temporal displacement. As we had no radioactive material to bring back with us, we couldn’t have known that would happen… and that’s really just a theory…”

“Theory or not, we’re certainly still here,” Reuters observed, his mind working over that information for a moment or two, “and they didn’t know what was going to happen, either…! They thought it’d destroy us all… perhaps frighten the Führer into abandoning Seelöwe into the bargain.” He forced himself to sit up, wincing at the pain in his legs, and reeling from sudden head spins, but retaining his balance all the same. “I need to speak to The Führer, and I need to be at a command centre: we can’t afford to allow anything to hold the operation back now, regardless of our command losses.”

“I’ve already made the appropriate arrangements, and The Führer’s been informed,” Schiller reassured, leaning forward and resting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Suitable reassignments have been made to replace those men we’ve lost, and field promotions to match where necessary. Preparations for ‘S-day’ are going ahead as planned.”

“I knew I could count on you, Albert!” Reuters smiled genuinely for the first time. “Well done!”

“We’ve no idea where the remnants of Hindsight have holed up, and everything we’ve got’s committed to Seelöwe now anyway. This was their last gasp, Kurt, and their attempt at a nuclear deterrent has turned out to be a paper tiger.” Schiller took a breath. “The general alert and the authorization for S-Day is out, and we’re in the last week of preparations… best way we could avenge this attack is by wiping Great Britain off the map!”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, old friend,” Reuters commended, clearly seeing a capability for command shining to the fore that Schiller had previously kept hidden, although the Reichsmarschall had known it was present nonetheless. “They wanted to slow us down… make us back off and think about what we’re doing…” A steely edge crept into his voice as he considered a new course of action. “Well, I’m thinking about what we’re doing right now, and we’re not going to slow down… we’re going to bring the schedule forward, and go in two days! We’re not giving them any more time to try anything else… we’ve been ready to go for weeks now: we’ve just been biding our time for the moon and the tides. Send the word out to all the Western Commands that we’re now officially ‘S-Minus-Two’… we’ll have plenty of time to deal with Scapa Flow or any other potential hideaway once the invasion is over.” He halted for a moment as an unrelated thought occurred. “How bizarre, Albert: we’ll be launching Seelöwe on ‘Nine-Eleven’…” He dismissed the piece of trivia a second later, then added: “Get me a phone, Albert: I really need to speak to The Führer right away…”

18. Too Many, Too Much and Too Few…

Fields near Lympne Castle

West of Hythe, County Kent

‘S-Day’

Wednesday,

September 11, 1940

Hauptmann Rudolf Witzig crouched by a short tree line and cast his eyes carefully across the open fields that lay before him in the bright moonlight. In the distance he could pick out the darker line that was Royal Military Rd and the canal beyond, running along the southern edge of the fields on its journey between Seabrook and Cliff End. West Hythe lay a short distance away on the far side of the canal, and Lympne stood perhaps a kilometre beyond the low hills to the north: it was difficult to find an open expanse of countryside in Southern England that wasn’t in close proximity to some kind of town or urban centre.

Turning his head to the east, he could already see the faint glow in the sky that warned of the impending dawn, and he checked the luminous dial of his watch for the third time in five minutes. The aircraft they awaited were due very soon, and they had to be completely ready. He gestured to his NCO and the man instantly moved to stand at his side.

“Place the LMG to provide covering fire, and get the rest of the men setting up those flares,” he whispered softly. “Make sure they’re well clear of any trees, and that the smoke’s at its ‘head’.” He didn’t really need to remind the feldwebel; they all knew their job.

“Jawohl, Mein Herr!” The man hissed in return, and he was gone in a moment, organising the placement of the two men manning the squad light machine gun before taking the other six with him out into the open.

The brightness of the flares seemed almost blinding in the darkness as they ignited, and the troop worked quickly, as much for fear of discovery at any moment as the short timetable they were working to. Taking a deep breath and reaffirming his grip on the assault rifle in his left hand, Witzig gestured to another NCO who was carrying the unit’s backpack radio. The man was beside him in an instant and held out the handset, which the officer accepted and lifted to his face.

“Nighthawk, this is Badger: come in please…”

The reply was almost instantaneous. “Badger, this is Nighthawk… we read you loud and clear. How is your position, over?”

“Our position is secure, Nighthawk… there’s been no observable activity for several hours, and we’re activating landing flares now, over.”

“We read you, Badger — deploy your signal please, over.”

He set his rifle down and drew a leuchtpistole from a bulky holster at his waist. Cocking it laboriously with his one free hand, he raised it over his head and aimed for a break in the tree cover above. There was a soft ‘crump’ and some considerable recoil as a bright, shimmering ball of blue-white light hissed skyward, rising several hundred metres into the air.

“We see the flare, Badger… we have a blue light, over.”

“The colour is blue, Nighthawk, over.”

“Thank you, Badger… we have correct bearing onto target now… ETA of first wave approximately five minutes… Nighthawk over and out…”

Witzig took up his rifle once more and drew back the cocking handle, loading a round and then setting the safety. At twenty-four years of age, he’d already served the German military for five years, having joined the fallschirmjäger in 1938. Blessed with sharp eyes and chiselled features, Witzig was a dedicated front-line officer and a well-trained paratrooper into the bargain. As an oberleutnant, he’d participated in a glider assault on the roof of the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael in May of 1940. Part of a larger attack on the installation, the garrison had surrendered the next afternoon, and he’d been awarded Ritterkreuz for his actions.

He’d received a promotion to hauptmann since then, and now commanded the Ninth Parachute Company of the 1st FJ Div. The unit had dropped into Kent four hours ago, leaping at low level from a single Arado transport, the T-1A Gigant howling past at full speed, just two hundred metres above the rolling fields below. They’d subsequently spent the last three hours making a detailed reconnaissance of the area, and had determined there was no notable British activity. All that was to be done now was to await the arrival of the rest of the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division.

The 1st FJ Div was part of the XVI Army under General Busch, which in turn was under the control of Army Group A and the command of Generalfeldmarschall Von Rundstedt . It was the pre-dawn Wednesday morning of 11 September 1940, and landing craft were already underway from dozens of ports along the Dutch and French coasts enroute for the south coast of Britain. Vessels destined to land as far west as Portsmouth and The Solent had already been at sea for a day or more, chugging their way slowly across the choppy waters of The Channel.

The 1st Fallschirmjäger and other airborne forces would lead the way, and carry the first battles of the operation to the British on their own soil, something that would also present the first serious military threat to England and its sovereignty since 1066. Theirs was the most important of the initial actions, and ten thousand airborne troops would soon be dropping all over Kent, their objective to secure the southern flanks of beachheads that would be forced near Dover, Folkestone and Dungeness. The general feeling was that the only real chance the British had of resistance would be during the initial assault phase, where they might conceivably drive the Wehrmacht back into the sea. The 9th Company’s specific mission was to capture the strategically-important Lympne airfield and hold it until reinforcements could be brought in.

Thirty kilometres east above the French coast, the first transports of the 1st FJ Div turned on to their final approach as the flare’s position was relayed to their lead pilot via a lone S-2F FAC observer circling high over the area. In line-astern formation, the first dozen aircraft held their altitude steady, three hundred metres above the surface of The Channel. It was dangerous to fly any higher than necessary: Fliegerkorps had assured that all radar installations in the area had been completely neutralised, but no one was taking that for granted.

As they neared the Kent coast, sixteen kilometres and two minutes from their target, the pilot of the first Gigant activated the red ‘ready’ light inside the cargo bay. At that moment, the senior NCO loadmaster opened the access doors at the port and starboard rear of the aircraft, and all forty of the paratroops inside stood as one, clipping their static lines to the rails running the length of the bay on either side. In tense silence, they made final checks of weapons and equipment and waited patiently. They’d been training for this moment for months, and that training had been intensive: all that was left now was for them to prove themselves in battle.

Many of them were veterans of the campaigns in Poland and Western Europe… some, like Witzig, had seen action at Eben Emael. A greater majority were newer recruits that were part of a huge expansion of the force in preparation for Operation Seelöwe. All of them were highly trained and highly motivated all the same: the continuing existence of the Fatherland rested on their shoulders, and it was up to them to do their duty and ensure the security of the Reich. None of them would ever know how true that belief actually was.

The lead pilot saw the landing flares from several kilometres away, and instantly increased his altitude to five hundred as he activated another switch that caused the red light in the cargo bay to begin flashing, signalling that the jump was imminent. Increasing his flaps and dropping his airspeed slightly to ensure a slightly smoother ride, the pilot noted the wind direction revealed by the lines of smoke trailing away from the flares. He banked momentarily, placing his aircraft in a more suitable position, and waited until the nose of the aircraft drew level with the trees where Witzig waited below.

The jump light inside the cargo bay changed to green, and there were screams of “Go!” from the loadmaster as paratroops began streaming from the open access doors on either side of the aircraft. It was all over in just sixty seconds, all forty troops had left the aircraft, and the crew were dragging in the static lines before closing the doors once more. The moment he was given the ‘all clear’ from his crew chief, the pilot activated his navigation lights and went to full power, banking away to the north. A thousand metres behind him, the second pilot in line watched his squadron leader’s tail and wing lights began flicking faintly and readied his own aircraft, knowing the first drop was complete.

Lieutenant Clement Howell of the West Hythe Home Guard yawned as he and his platoon trudged tiredly along Royal Military Rd, the condensation of their breath swirling around them in the pre-dawn darkness. Howell was a small, bookish man who, at fifty years of age, had served in the Great War as a junior officer in a supply unit, and had spent his civilian life as an accountant with a small firm in Hythe. Their unit was one of many around the country, garrisoned in smaller communities like West Hythe, with the duties of providing observation of any enemy activity and of local defence in the case of an invasion.

With the current hysteria concerning imminent invasion over the last few months, Howell’s unit had been kept quite busy at all hours of the night and day, and had frequently been sent traipsing all over the local area in recent weeks in search of spurious parachute sightings, reported by excited night piquets and nervous civilians alike. One such report had reached their barracks within the last hour from a local farmer, who swore blind he’d heard a multi-engined plane come over his farmhouse just after midnight, and had seen parachutes coming down nearby.

So Howell and his platoon had been dragged out of bed, and had ventured out into the chilly early morning to investigate and reconnoitre the area, crossing the canal at the West Hythe Bridge and immediately turning left down Royal Military Rd. They’d personally observed no unusual activity so far, and it’d been the third night in succession they’d been called out for what had previously turned out to be wild goose chases. Howell was close to ordering his men to pack it all in and head back to barracks when a member of his three-man advance squad — an experienced corporal who’d seen combat in France during the First World War — appeared out of the darkness ahead in a rather agitated state.

“We’ve got something, sir!” He panted seriously to the great surprise of all, shifting the weight of his Tommy gun from one hand to the other. “There appears to be some kind of force in section strength, setting up flares about five hundred yards away near the ruins of the Roman fort.

“Very good corporal,” Howell replied nervously. “It might be best if we…!” He was cut off by the sound of aircraft off to the east, and they all looked skyward but were initially unable to see anything at all. As the sound passed overhead however, they clearly spotted the small, blossoming flowers of open parachutes in the pre-dawn sky, and a moment later the transporting aircraft’s navigation lights came on as it powered away at the same time that a second aircraft’s approach became audible.

“Quickly…!” Howell snapped, turning to a lance corporal beside him. “Jones… get back to barracks immediately and ring through to HQ Twelve Corps! Give them our position and tell them to broadcast Codeword ‘Oliver’! Make sure they’re clear that we’re reporting ‘Oliver’ and not ‘Cromwell’: make sure they understand we’ve seen parachute troops!” The report of such a sighting would send command centres all over England wild with activity, and as the junior NCO saluted and disappeared quickly back the way they’d come, Howell turned back to the corporal who’d first approached him. “Lead the way, man… let’s see if we can get a better look at these cheeky buggers!”

The platoon spent fifteen minutes trying to approach the landing area without being detected. Howell had kept two squads with him and had headed directly through the trees for what was clearly becoming the greatest source of audio and visual activity. Three-section had been sent off to the left flank, with the intention of setting up a crossfire against the enemy from cover along northern edge of the canal. Howell had been given enough training regarding the engagement of parachute troops to know their enemy was at their most vulnerable in the moments directly following a landing, while they were still trying to gather together and organise into coherent units. With every minute that passed, more of them would reach designated rally-points, dig in and become far more difficult to attack.

They were within two hundred metres of the nearest German lookouts when one of Howell’s riflemen stumbled, accidentally discharging his weapon into the ground. It was as if hell itself had opened up against the British soldiers in the moments that followed. Tracer instantly arced in at them from several directions as enemy light machine guns began to lay down suppressing fire, and a parachute flare ignited above their heads, illuminating their area and casting weird, swinging shadows as it floated slowly earthward trailing smoke.

Half-a-dozen rifle-grenades detonated nearby fired from under-barrel, and six of Howell’s men were killed instantly, with another three severely wounded. Their screams mingled with the cacophony of gunfire as greater numbers of automatic rifles added their weight to the already considerable fire pouring into Howell’s position. Two successive gunners manning one-section’s old Lewis gun were killed outright, with a third injured while trying to return some kind of heavy fire, and Howell was forced to order a withdrawal after just ten hectic minutes. Just eight fit men out of twenty remained, dragging another four wounded with them as they retreated to a position of relative safety.

By complete contrast, three-section was able to reach a more secure position in a lightly wooded area, a few hundred metres further west, without any opposition whatsoever, and the NCO in charge immediately set up a broad firing line as they prepared to attack with his Thompson SMG, one battered old Browning BAR, and a brace of bolt-action .303 rifles of various models. From their flank position, they could clearly see the activity of several hundred fallschirmjäger out in the open fields before them, in the process of collecting their equipment and organising into units as dozens more continued to fall from the sky.

Even as the other two squads were coming under a hail of heavy fire to the east, three-section opened up on the exposed Germans near their positions with complete surprise. A hail of .30- and .45-calibre slugs ripped through the ranks of paratroops, killing and maiming with murderous efficiency. The airborne invaders were at first confused and unable to determine the direction of the incoming fire as their comrades fell about them, but it wasn’t too long before telltale muzzle-flashes against the blackness of the tree line betrayed the British position.

A single rifleman began to return fire in the correct direction, quickly joined by several others and a squad light machine gun, while 40mm grenades also began to fall close to their position. A few moments more, and an entire squad of fallschirmjäger managed to reach the cover of the trees to their left in an attempt to flank the British position. Although still without casualty, their position was quickly becoming untenable, and their sergeant made the decision to also withdraw. They made a clean break from the engagement, eluding the attempted flanking manoeuvre, and made their way back to the rendezvous point with what was left of the rest of the platoon, having inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy of more than fifty dead double that injured.

Howell fell back a hundred metres or so to a point where a narrow bridge crossed the canal to the north-west of West Hythe, and had three section set up positions on the opposite side, protecting the western approaches to the town. He then took the rest of his unit back along the southern side of the canal to the West Hythe Bridge at the intersection of Royal Military and West Hythe Roads, with the intention of preventing a crossing of the canal at that point also. They solidified their positions and waited as the lieutenant sent a second messenger back to barracks with an update on the engagement. In that fashion, the most significant battle of the Twentieth Century began with a single, desperate firefight in darkness, just before dawn.

The 1st Fallschirmjäger wasn’t the slightest bit interested in taking West Hythe, and instead moved northward as their numbers grew, pushing through Lympne and taking the town without a single casualty as they caught the Home Guard garrison there completely by surprise. The airfield on the western outskirts of the town was also captured quickly, the RAF defensive units stationed there quickly overrun and overwhelmed under the first rays of morning sun.

The moment the strip was secured, several T-1A Gigant transports began to drop supplies from low level, using a system known in Realtime as LAPES — Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System. Each aircraft would come in at extremely low level — as low as two metres off the ground in some cases — and retain as high a speed as was possible in order to present a harder target. As each roared past above the flat, open expanse of the runway, a large parachute would billow out from the open rear loading ramp and catch the slipstream, dragging out the attached cargo in the process.

Stores dropped in this fashion were predominantly food and ammunition, however three light artillery pieces, four anti-tank guns and six P-1F Wiesel light tanks were also delivered to provide useful fire support. It was known that the First London Division was dug in just a few kilometres away toward Smeeth, and the added firepower of the guns and the tanks’ light cannon would be vitally important should a counter-attack materialise.

Further west along the south coast, the 3rd and 5th Fallschirmjäger dropped on the Brighton and Portsmouth areas respectively, wreaking similar havoc to that erupting in Kent, and by first light, the parachute divisions had taken control of substantial areas close to the coast stretching between Brighton and Bognor Regis, and were digging in as they awaited the arrival of Strauss’ IX Army. The landings near Brighton progressed well in those early stages, although the British 50th Division and 21st Tank Brigade, both equipped with new, Hindsight-inspired weaponry, were giving the 5th FJ Div an extremely hard time further west, near Portsmouth.

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

News of the invasion reached Scapa Flow within thirty minutes of confirmation being received at Whitehall, and things happened very quickly from that moment on. Klaxons rose up in protest all about the base, and on warships anchored out on the dark waters of The Flow, similar battle stations alerts roused their tired and frightened crews and sent them heading for their assigned posts as every vessel prepared to put to sea. So much closer to the Arctic Circle, it’d be another hour or more before dawn broke over the eastern horizon across the cold expanse of the North Sea, and it’d be a long cruise at full steam ahead for the Home Fleet as it headed south along the coast of Britain in a desperate race to interdict German invasion forces.

Thirty-six warships in line-ahead formation were currently steaming out into Pentland Firth in the early morning darkness, the fleet comprised of two battlecruisers, four battleships and one aircraft carrier being escorted by three cruisers and twenty-seven destroyers of various classes. There’d been no reported sightings of enemy warships or landing craft as yet, but as he stood on the bridge of HMS Nelson, Rear-Admiral Henry Harwood was under no misconception regarding their enemy’s presence heading for English beaches, somewhere to the south. Reports of fighting against parachute troops coming in from all over Kent, Sussex and Hampshire were a clear enough warning that the main invasion force they’d been expecting was finally on its way.

At fifty-two years of age, Sir Henry Harwood KCB OBE had joined the Royal Navy in 1904, and had served in the First World War aboard HMS Royal Sovereign. Something of a ‘natural’ officer, his broad, almost affable features and trusting smile concealed a fine naval mind and able tactician. In command of a cruiser squadron at the outbreak of WW2, he’d been promoted to rear-admiral for his ships’ successful efforts in hunting surface raiders in the South Atlantic during that first year of war. Three months ago, he’d joined the Home Fleet to take command of Nelson, and had since turned an already excellent crew into a superlative one.

Lead ship and namesake of her class (Pennant Number 28), HMS Nelson, along with her sister-ship, Rodney, were the most heavily armed battleships of the Royal Navy. Laid down at shipbuilders Armstrong-Whitworth at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1922, she was launched almost three years later and commissioned into service on September 10, 1930. With a displacement of thirty-four thousand tons, she’d been designed to conform to the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922: an agreement that was perhaps the world’s first serious attempt at strategic arms limitation.

The Royal Navy was forced to scrap twenty-eight capital ships as part of its requirements under the treaty, and was also subsequently forced to look at more novel approaches to shipbuilding and design to produce new battleships that remained powerful and were well-armoured that also met the upper tonnage limit of 35,000 tons. Nelson and Rodney were the initial result, their short, truncated sterns as unusual as her layout of three triple 16-inch turrets, all mounted forward of the bridge, with ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets superimposed and able to fire directly across a 300-degree frontal arc, while ‘X’ turret could fire in broadside only, at angles of traverse between 60- to 120-degrees to port or starboard.

Nelson was third in line at the head of the formation as the ships steamed out into the North Sea at twenty-three knots (the highest speed all ships present were capable of). The battlecruisers Hood and Renown led the fleet, the battlecruisers less armoured than their colleagues, but also capable of a higher speed and able to forge ahead to scout the way if necessary, flanked by an escort of cruisers and destroyers. Nelson followed, and behind her came the rest of the battleships: Malaya, Warspite and Queen Elizabeth respectively.

All three remaining battleships were of the same Queen Elizabeth-class, and were veterans of the First World War. All three had given sterling service against Germany twenty-five years before, and were now ready to provide good account of themselves once more. All were also armed with the same tried and true ‘Mark’I’ 15-inch guns (eight apiece, in four turrets) that also armed HMS Hood (also four twin turrets) and HMS Renown (three twin turrets). Powerful and supremely accurate, the weapon was probably the best large-calibre gun ever fitted to a Royal Navy warship, and although nearing obsolescence by the beginning of the Second World War, it could nevertheless pack a heavy punch under the control of skilled gunners and fire directors (of which the British were the best trained in the world). Following up the rear and protected by a cluster of destroyers, the carrier Ark Royal cruised with the fleet, ready to fly off her aircraft in support should the enemy be located.

Harwood shivered against the cold that managed to bite at him despite the long, heavy woollen coat he wore over his uniform, and lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes. An almost-full moon struggled to cast any illumination through a layer of low-level cloud, but the dark outline and winking navigation lights of Renown were nevertheless faintly visible eight hundred metres ahead through a soft, misting rain that quickly coated everything it touched in a damp sheen. His body shuddered a second time, this time in recognition of the task laid before them. Currently aboard his flagship, HMS Hood, Admiral Sir John Tovey had been more than clear in his assessment of the situation, and Harwood and the other commanders knew the how bleak that situation was. They also knew there was no chance of the RAF stopping the Luftwaffe, or keeping the skies clear over England or The Channel, let alone finding spare aircraft to interdict the Kriegsmarine invasion forces. That left the bulk of the task to the Royal Navy, and as such The Home Fleet — their fleet of just thirty-six warships — was the only major force within range that had any chance of slowing or halting the enemy’s movements across the Channel.

For all that, Nelson was in the company of some fine veterans. Of the other capital ships present, only Hood had been completed too late to see service in the Great War, and both Warspite and Malaya had served twenty-four years before at Jutland (a battle the Germans knew as Skaggerak). In that greatest of naval battles of the First War, Admiral Jellicoe had mustered no less than two dozen battleships to face the High Seas Fleet in an engagement that saw both sides proclaim themselves to be the victors once the smoke had cleared. At Jutland, Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet had intended to trap and destroy their German counterparts, and thereby ensure British dominance of the waves and freedom of the sea lanes between the Britain, the United States and the rest of the Empire.

The end result of the engagement had been a source of debate ever since. Although on paper, Germany could in some ways claim victory in terms of outright losses, the Royal Navy had held the ‘field’ of battle at the end of the day and was ready to continue the fight, whereas their enemy was not. It could be reasonably argued that victory at Jutland had gone to the British as a result, at least in spirit if not in actual fact, and many certainly believed that as armistice loomed two years later in 1918, the memory of Jutland alone had been enough for the crews of the German High Seas Fleet to threaten mutiny rather than engage the Royal Navy again in battle, as some of their officers had desired.

Harwood remembered it all well enough. Royal Sovereign hadn’t been commissioned in time to participate in the battle, but Jutland was ‘required reading’ as far as naval warfare was concerned, and was also famous within naval circles as the most successful ‘crossing the T’ manoeuvre in history, as all of Jellicoe’s capital ships were at one stage able to concentrate their entire broadside fire on the van of the German fleet in a terrifying bombardment that spanned the entire horizon. But Harwood, Tovey and the others also knew there’d be no repeat of Jutland in the hours to come. Aircraft hadn’t been a potent force at the time of the Great War, but there was no denying the power of the Luftwaffe in the present one… and even without the added danger of aerial attack, the Home Fleet didn’t have twenty-four battleships to throw at the Kriegsmarine, or anything even remotely close to that number of capital ships.

There were warships of various sizes and classes, from patrol boats to some older battleships, moored in ports right around Southern England, but individual ships engaged in single actions weren’t going to stop an invasion force — assuming of course the Luftwaffe let them to survive long enough to put to sea, which was in any case unlikely. The next closest RN fleet of any real strength, ‘Force H’, had indeed also mobilised and was heading north from Gibraltar at full speed, but the truth was they were too far away to be of any immediate assistance, and the rest of the navy was spread around the world, guarding the British colonies, territories and protectorates of an empire that spanned the globe. The Home Fleet was the only force that had any hope of disrupting German shipping across the Channel, and he, his fellow ships’ captains, and every man on the vessels they commanded were well aware of that fact.

The entire Hindsight group had crammed themselves into their usual briefing room within twenty minutes of the alert being raised around the base. Thorne allowed the group a few minutes of hushed but active discussion before climbing onto a chair in a far corner of the room and clearing his throat. All eyes turned to him in that moment and the room fell silent, all watching expectantly as he prepared to speak.

“Approximately fifty minutes ago,” he began slowly, visibly unsettled and shaking faintly in reaction to the ramifications of what was happening, “a general alert was broadcast throughout the British isles following confirmation of massed landings of enemy parachute troops all over Kent, Sussex and Hampshire.” The statement sent a collective gasp rippling through the crowd: despite having feared exactly such news, the reality of it was no less dramatic. “There’s been a general mobilisation right across the Southern Defensive Zone, but it’s far too early to determine how any of the engagements are progressing. There have been no confirmations of any seaborne landings as yet, however Whitehall’s certain these are the opening moves of Operation Sealion… the opening moves we’ve been both fearing and expecting since our arrival here.” He took a deep breath.

“What intelligence we do have suggests the Wehrmacht won’t have sufficient reserves to support an effective beachhead across the Channel and make a concurrent move against us here with any kind of credible force. That means that we should — emphasis on the word ‘should’ — be relatively safe here at Scapa Flow for the time being. They’ll be throwing everything into this invasion… they can’t allow any chance of defeat, no matter how unlikely that might seem on paper.” He shrugged, as much for his own benefit as theirs. “That being said, we’re not taking anything for granted… from now on, we remain on a five-minute-warning status at all times and will be prepared for immediate take off, should any enemy force indeed makes a move toward us.

“Regardless of the appearance of any threat, we will be taking off no later than first light tomorrow morning and setting course for Bolthole with all available aircraft.” He took another breath. “Everyone should be crystal clear that Hindsight will be in the air at dawn, and there will be no waiting for any stragglers, so I suggest everyone ensure they’re waiting at Alternate and prepared to leave well before time. We’ve had plenty of tents and bedding set up over there, so there should be space for everyone.” Another pause, this time for impact rather than any need for air.

“This is one of the contingencies we’ve had planned for a long time… even before arriving here. This is going to be hard for all of us, but we need to accept the fact that we can’t remain in Britain and stay safe. Should the invasion be turned back or defeated outright, we can return within days, but the truth is it’s unlikely we’ll ever set foot in the United Kingdom again. The next twenty-four hours are going to be difficult for everyone, but there’s going to be plenty to do to keep everyone busy, and I’m asking you all to hang in there and bear with us.” There was another pause.

“That’s pretty much all I have for you right now… normally I’d throw it open for questions right now, but time is against us and I’ll instead ask you to direct any questions to your respective unit commanders, who’ve all been fully briefed. I’ll be off base today on field ops, and Commander Donelson will be in command during my absence. That’s about it… thanks for your time… dismissed…”

Their equipment was already waiting as Thorne, Ritter and Kransky arrived five minutes later at the open grassed area near the ruins of the Hindsight base that the Mustang fighters had been using as a landing strip. It was still quite dark and exceptionally cold in the open, exposed to the gusting winds and a misting rain, and all three men wore thick flying jackets over their flight suits. Eileen and Trumbull were present also, standing nearby and wearing parkas over their own uniforms. None of the five were particularly reassured by the appearance of the aircraft before them on the flight line.

The Fairey Swordfish Mark I had first entering service in 1934, and was the foremost torpedo bomber of the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. In Realtime, it had given sterling service in that role throughout the war, operating from British aircraft carriers in every theatre in which they served. Nevertheless, the fact remained that the Swordfish, affectionately nicknamed the ‘Stringbag’ by those who flew it, was an obsolescent biplane of a largely bygone era. That being said, the aircraft had also developed a reputation for ruggedness and versatility that belied its antiquated appearance, and its nickname had been earned as a result of its ability to perform a wide variety of duties: like a string bag, it could carry a substantial amount of stores and ‘conform’ itself to suit whatever the situation at hand required.

The aircraft’s fuselage sides and upper surfaces were painted in broad, irregular stripes of grey and dark green — the Fleet Air Arm’s standard Temperate Sea Scheme camouflage — and it mounted just two machine guns as armament over and above the torpedo normally slung beneath the fuselage between its main undercarriage legs. One fixed .303 Browning in the nose fired forward, while a single Lewis gun of similar calibre was mounted on a flexible mount in the rearmost of the three cockpits… cockpits that were completely open to the elements. There was no torpedo carried by this particular aircraft, and an external fuel tank had been fixed in its place to provide added range.

The Swordfish was an exemplary platform for launching torpedoes at enemy shipping because of its slow speed and excellent flying characteristics, but Thorne and Eileen, with the benefit of historical hindsight, also knew how vulnerable the aircraft might prove if thrown into combat areas where effective enemy fighter cover and flak were present. With such a slow speed — no better than 160km/hr — the aircraft would be flying in daylight for most of the five-hour trip south, and would therefore be exposed to the danger of interception during the entire time. As ground crew finished last-minute checks on the aircraft, Thorne drew Ritter aside somewhat, knowing Eileen would want a few moments to say farewell to Kransky — a ‘farewell’ that might well be forever.

“We’re going to go ahead as planned this evening and release you as close to the front lines in Kent as we can get,” Thorne explained quickly, “assuming of course the invasion isn’t repulsed.”

“And if it is…?”

“It won’t be,” Thorne stated with unhappy certainty, but if it is, we can work something out.”

“That’s assuming we actually make it, Max,” Ritter observed dubiously, unable to shift his concerned gaze from the aircraft itself and thinking exactly how long it might last under fire from a J-4 fighter, or even one of his own S-2Ds… the answer that entered his mind being ‘…not long at all…’

“It may look rough, but it’s the only three-seater they could spare us!” Thorne growled, no happier. “I originally requested two fighter aircraft, with the idea of letting you fly one of them, but the CO here wouldn’t be in it for some strange reason…” he grinned “…they’re just not all that trusting, these days…”

“I hardly blame them,” Ritter conceded with a wry smile, “although if I were to fly away on my own, it’d merely serve to get me where you want me anyway… and a good deal faster at that!”

“Might be a bit hard to explain how you got hold of the plane, matey,” Thorne observed with a chuckle, “if you managed to make it somewhere safe without getting your arse shot off along the way.” He gave the German a pat on the shoulder. “Come on… let’s get this crap loaded while we’re waiting for Richard there…”

“Anything I say’s going to sound really stupid, I think,” Eileen began slowly, outright sadness in her eyes as she and Kransky stood close together on their own, a few metres away from Thorne and Ritter.

“Same here,” Kransky added lamely after a long pause. There was no way for him to explain the feelings within him at that moment… they were feelings he’d never before experienced, and were well beyond his ability to fully understand in such a short time.

“I know what you’re going to be doing,” she said softly, reaching out and taking his hand in hers, “and I know the truth is this’ll probably be the last time we see each other… ever…” The last word was unnecessary, but she somehow felt it needed to be said.

“I always knew I’d be going back into the field,” Kransky began, struggling with sentiments that were alien to his world, “and since I’ve known you, I’ve been thinking hard about what I was gonna say when this moment arrived.” He swallowed hard and took a breath, his eyes unable to meet hers for a few moments and searching the dark skies above for the right words. “There are a lot of things I could say, but the most important of them is ‘thank you’.”

“You’re thanking me?” That was something Eileen hadn’t expected at all, considering their circumstances and her inability to fully reciprocate the feelings she knew he felt for her. “What on earth for…?”

“For showing me that the journalist I used to be ain’t dead… that he still exists somewhere in this killer’s body.” She began to protest his self-criticism but he pushed on, cutting her off. “What I do, I do well, Eileen…” The way he made that statement, while devoid of pride, nevertheless left no doubt as to exactly how very well he did his work. “For a long time now, it’s felt like what I do is all I am… but you showed me that wasn’t true… that there is some of the man I was left. Things haven’t worked out the way I’d have liked,” he shrugged, “but they can’t work out that way… it’s just not possible. What you said about it never getting easier was right… it never does… but at least you’ve given me hope that maybe — just maybe — there’ll be a time somewhere in the future when I can stop being the person I am now… now I know I can still be something else.”

Eileen embraced him then and they hugged tightly for a few moments, enjoying the sensation of proximity before separating once more. She lifted her head and kissed him once on the lips as they parted, running a hand along his shoulder.

“You stay lucky, ‘Jimmy’… you hear…!” She breathed softly, the hint of tears at the corners of her eyes. “There’s always a tomorrow…!”

He grinned faintly. “Like that Miss Scarlett says: ‘Tomorrow is another day!’”

“Would it be inappropriate at this moment,” Thorne interrupted from a metre or two away, standing expectantly beside the biplane with hands on hips, “to say ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!’?” He gave a broader grin. “We do need to get a wriggle on!”

“You’ve no sentimentality, Maxwell Peter Thorne!” Eileen snapped back, but there’d been no real offence. Kransky, snapping automatically back into ‘business mode’, simply nodded as he grabbed the gear and weapons at his feet and walked across to load them into the rear cockpit of the Swordfish.

“Sorry… I was almost expecting Bogie to come waltzing out of the fog with Ingrid Bergmann on his arm.” Thorne didn’t care that he was mixing up his movies in going for the right imagery.

“Well you just make sure you get yourself back here before dawn tomorrow, mister!” She countered as she moved to his side, trying to keep a light mood but not quite managing.

“I will,” he nodded, a little more solemn at the thought. “You just make sure you take off at the scheduled time regardless… got it?”

“I’ve got it,” she reassured, but there was clearly more she wanted to say and he quickly interrupted her.

“And if you tell me to ‘be careful’, I’ll kick your pert little ‘thirty-something’ ass up to the top of Ward Hill and back… this is all starting to sound like a bad bloody movie as it is!”

“Don’t worry,” she reassured, chuckling a little despite her fears. “I wouldn’t dare!”

“Two golden rules of the movies,” he continued in the same, mock-lecturing tone. “The guy that talks about what he wants to do after the war is over, or shows someone a picture of his girl always gets killed… and the girl who tells ‘The Hero’ she loves him always gets killed! That’s why Dina Meyer’s character bought it in Starship Troopers! If she’d just shagged Casper Van Dien, like Denise Richards’ character did, that bloody alien wouldn’t have done her in…!”

“Max,” she whispered softly with a kind smile, leaning in close. “You’re rambling.”

“I’m just trying making a point is all,” he said lamely, and the frayed nerves behind his bravado suddenly became very obvious. He was heading into a real war, and was quite reasonably scared witless by the thought.

“Well, mister, you’re safe with me then… you know I only want you for your body! Purely physical… love’s got nought to do wi’ it!” She managed to get another grin out of him with that remark even if it was at least partly a lie.

“Well, good… just so long as we’re clear on that point!” She’d given him an ‘out’, and he took it gladly, immediately hiding his sensitive side once more behind the usual bravado and humour.

“Get yourself into that plane and get the hell out of here, Max… time’s a wastin’!” He nodded and turned toward the aircraft into which Ritter and Kransky were already climbing. “Hey…” Eileen called, catching his arm with one hand and turning him back momentarily. “…Be careful!” She added with a faint smile. The look that passed between them at that moment said a lot more than words could have, and he simply grinned as she added: “Now you’ll just have to make sure you come back and give my arse that kicking!”

“When I come back, I will…” he replied, his voice low enough to keep it between them, but the tone in his voice was honest and caring — he had no stomach for either mock anger or mock lasciviousness.

“‘Pert’…?” She suddenly added with a disconcerted frown, that particular piece of what Thorne had just said about her behind finally registering.

“If the arse fits…” he grinned, shrugging almost apologetically as he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. Turning back to the aircraft, he quickly clambered into the forward cockpit and dragged the flying helmet and goggles he found there over his head. The Bristol Pegasus radial engine began to turn over, and he gave a wry smile as it caught and spluttered loudly and unevenly into life in clouds of smoky exhaust.

“Don’t be concerned, Commander,” Ritter called loudly as Thorne gave the engine a few tentative revs. “Assuming that Max can actually fly this thing, we’ll take care of him!”

“Just what I bloody need… a ‘rear cockpit’ driver…!” Thorne growled loudly enough for everyone to hear, drawing smiles from all of them. “I think I liked him better when he was on the other bloody side!”

Thorne was glad of the lightness of his headgear compared to the flight helmet of the Lightning, even if it couldn’t give him a helmet-mounted sight and deadly-accurate weapons to go with it. The buffeting of the three-bladed propeller’s backwash whipped past them, adding to a wind-chill that was already making them terribly cold… what the conditions were likely to be like flying at speed in the icy morning air didn’t bear thinking about. With a final wave to Eileen that Kransky duplicated from the rearmost cockpit, he gunned the engine and signalled the ground crew to remove the chocks beneath the Swordfish’s main wheels.

The airstrip was sparsely lit, and there was barely enough illumination for a take off in that fine rain, but the biplane surged forward all the same as Eileen and Trumbull moved away, their clothing and hair buffeted heavily in the increased backwash. The take off run was relatively short without the added weight of a torpedo slung beneath its belly, and in a few moments the ‘Stringbag’ had lurched into the dark sky, navigation lights winking as it turned slowly south and continued to climb beyond fifteen hundred metres. The flight would be a long and arduous one without automatic pilot, but the first part over the northern wilds of Scotland would a least be free of threat from enemy fighters, and he could therefore stay at a higher altitude. The real dangers would come as they flew further south in daylight hours, through skies ruled completely by the Luftwaffe.

3rd SS Shock Div Marshalling Area,

Tardinghen , Northern France

Dawn was just minutes away as Second-Lieutenant Berndt Schmidt and the crew of Panther-321 of the 3rd SS ‘Totenkopf’ Division waited inside their vehicle for the signal to ‘go’, their brand new P-40A itself sitting on the flatbed cargo area of a Typ-2 Schnellmarinefährprahme, something the Wehrmacht called a ‘fast naval landing barge’ and the officers of Hindsight might’ve classed as an assault ACV or hovercraft. The landing craft was almost 27 metres long and fourteen wide, and could carry as much as 70 tonnes of payload. The sound of their engines was deafening: each Typ-2 was powered by no less than eight huge BMW808 radial engines of the same type that powered the S-2D and several other Luftwaffe aircraft, of which four were used solely to produce lift and the other four to turn the huge ducted fans mounted at the rear corners of the vessels to provide propulsion.

That huge payload could comprise a main battle tank and light tank; two infantry fighting vehicles; four Wiesel light tanks; half a dozen trucks; or up to 180 fully-armed troops. It could carry that multitude of payloads at close to 90km/hr, out to ranges of almost 500km, and as an ACV it could also operate equally well over land or water — something that made it particularly well-suited to the Channel assault they were about to commence. The 3rd SS consisted of almost five thousand men and five hundred combat vehicles, and had been training heavily for weeks for exactly that moment. The Kent coast at that point was forty-five kilometres away across The Channel, and in their exercises, they’d perfected a crossing of that distance in less than sixty minutes. The 100 Typ-2 ACVs waiting there that morning had been loaded with their first payloads during the night, and could transport the entire division to the beaches of Kent in just over six hours.

Everything was on a tight schedule that had been rehearsed dozens of times over the last eight weeks, and at the head of the formation on that French beach, ten Typ-4 fast assault barges also warmed up, the craft built up from the same basic hull as the Typ-2 SMFP but armed with a variety of heavy weapons in multiple turrets. They’d be escorting the landing craft and providing covering fire as the 3rd SS deployed and secured a beachhead. They’d also be accompanied by air support from helicopter gunships of SHG2, flying from a forward ‘airbase’ in open fields a few kilometres away, and would also be supported by units of SS Fliegertruppen that remained in reserve, ready to deploy into forward areas as required.

Schmidt glanced nervously at his watch. The sun would rise over the eastern horizon within moments, and they were part of the first wave of landing craft. From his commander’s position, head and torso protruding out of the turret hatch of Panther-321, he couldn’t quite see directly over the high sides or the forward loading ramp of the Typ-2, but the slope of the beach as it stretched down to the water meant he could still see some of the Channel and western horizon in the distance, faint as it was in the lightening, pre-dawn sky. A gathering layer of low-level cloud was threatening to fill the entire sky — the forecasts had all carried warnings of light showers over the next few days — and the water ahead seemed hazy and indistinct. Schmidt grimaced… good weather or not, their part of the assault would begin in a few moments and they’d surge out onto the waters of The Channel as a pre-planned bombardment softened up the English beaches that were their ultimate goal.

Nine kilometres to the north-east, Battery 672(E) had been prepared and on alert for several hours. South of the weapons’ projected firing paths, a single NH-3D utility helicopter hovered above the surface of The Channel, careful to remain well out of range of British anti-aircraft fire. The chopper was attached to the battery’s plotting team, and was ready to report each fall of shot and advise on any required adjustments if necessary. At a pre-determined time, carefully synchronised to the invasion timetable, Gustav fired its first shot for the day at the English coastline.

The five-tonne high-explosive shell detonated a few hundred metres inland, just half a kilometre or so south of the beachside town of St Mary’s Bay and not far short of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway line. There was a huge blast, a gigantic cloud of smoke and dust rolling into the air in a mushroom-shaped cloud, however there was no crater. The specifically-designed shells were fitted with proximity fuses that had been set to go off when the shell was still several metres above the ground, and the blast effect of the subsequent ‘air burst’ was significantly magnified as a result. Aboard the NH-3D, the artillery forward observer noted the fall of shot on his map and radioed through the appropriate corrections to traverse and elevation. Dora fired the moment those adjustments to aim had been made, followed by Gustav’s second shot three minutes later.

The wide, sandy beaches in that area were lined with layers of anti-invasion defences that included concrete dragons teeth, tank traps made up of clusters of welded angle iron, and row after row of coiled razor wire. Further up the beach, there were also minefields intended to take care of anything that managed to make it through the obstacles and other defences, and they too were ringed with barbed wire, this time as a warning for the local populace. That section of coastline approached the water at quite a shallow gradient, and as such it had been identified as an area of great strategic value for any landing force… the War Department had done its best to ensure that section of Kent coastline was completely inaccessible to the enemy.

That particular strip of broad, sandy beach running three thousand metres south from St Mary’s to Littlestone-on-Sea was suddenly shattered by blast after blast as the huge, 80cm shells began to fall from the sky and detonate in a slow but inevitable rolling barrage. Powerful blast waves radiated outward from each massive explosion as visible ripples of compressed air that shattered the concrete and iron obstacles and shredded the coils of barbed wire. The shockwaves were enough to shake the very earth, and many of the mines buried nearby were also set off by the resulting tremors, adding their own destruction to the maelstrom.

Smoke, sand and debris rose high into the air, mingling with the low cloud cover and hanging like a pall over the entire area as large sections of the defences were obliterated under the onslaught. Further inland, the British defenders watching from trenches and prepared defences could only look on in awe, and steel themselves for the attack they knew was sure to follow. Shells continued to fall as the pair of guns shifted their fire methodically from north to south, their helicopter-borne observer ensuring no visible section of beach was spared.

The word to go was given just a few minutes after the bombardment commenced, the havoc wrought by the giant guns faintly visible as a thin line of black smoke on the western horizon. Schmidt and Wisch hung on for dear life, but refused to leave the vantage points of their respective turret hatches as the first wave of hovercraft rose on cushions of air, accelerated quickly down the French beach, and roared away across The English Channel in a mass of deafening noise and spray of salty water. They were in the first line of twenty ACVs, howling across the choppy, grey waves in a tight, even formation at better than seventy kilometres per hour, a heavily-armed Typ-4 assault craft ‘riding shotgun’ at either end of the group. A second, then a third line of twenty craft followed them out across The Channel from the marshalling area at intervals of three minutes, the process continuing until the entire hundred were heading for the enemy coast at full throttle, each wave escorted at either end by similar Typ-4s.

Before the first wave had travelled more than a few kilometres, they were passed overhead by twenty SH-6C attack helicopters of I./SHG2, chin turrets armed with cannon and machine guns and their wings laden with rocket pods. The gunships circled around ahead of the assault force once before breaking into four-ship sections and also taking up positions in escort of each of the five waves of assault craft. By the time the head of the invasion force had reached the half way point of the journey, several flights of S-2D attack aircraft had also roared past overhead in finger-four formation.

The Lions flew on ahead, disappearing into the haze of the smoking beaches and pounding the remaining defences with napalm, high explosives and cannon fire. Long, yellow fingers of tracer reached up into the sky from various points as anti-aircraft guns attempted to engage, downing two of the attacking aircraft and sending them into the ground in flames. The victories were short-lived however, as further waves of S-2Ds pinpointed and destroyed each weapon that fired in turn.

Even for seasoned veterans like Schmidt and Wisch, the display of force was somewhat unsettling, and it was difficult to imagine anything surviving such an attack. Yet there were definitely survivors for all that, and as they drew to within a few thousand metres of the coast, they began to come under the fire of enemy artillery positioned further inland (and therefore more difficult to locate and destroy). Geysers of water sprayed high into the air around them as they charged on toward the beach, but the British gunners were fighting a losing battle. Taking their aim second-hand via radio from forward observers, neither those observers nor the gunlayers had any experience in firing on such fast-moving targets. The inevitable delays in the relay of information meant by the time any changes to traverse or elevation had been made, those new coordinates were already well out of date.

The first few waves of the invasion force swept on through the scattered artillery fire into relative safety, although several of the ACVs in the rearward echelons were destroyed by close or direct hits. Two were struck squarely by shells from 60-pdr artillery pieces and were blown to pieces, men trapped inside their fighting vehicles as the 30-tonne APCs instantly sunk to the bottom of the Channel. Few defenders made any attempt to open fire on the approaching hovercraft as they neared the beach between St Mary’s and Littlestone-on-Sea, few capable of actually seeing anything through the smoke of the bombardment. Gunships dealt harshly with any who did make an attempt at engaging the approaching force, as did the four-barrelled 23mm cannon of the Typ-4 assault craft at either end of the first wave. One of the Typ-4s to the south also ripple-fired its entire load of 100mm artillery rockets from the modular nebelwerfer mounted between the pair of large propulsion fans at the rear of the craft.

They hit the beaches with little real opposition in the end: three months hadn’t been anywhere near enough time for the British to rebuild following the loss of over 300,000 men at Dunkirk, and total Luftwaffe air superiority had in any case made reinforcement of the beach defences a task not unlike outright suicide. Those men that were available to man the trenches and emplacements were thinly spread, poorly armed, and were in most cases unable to get a clear view of anything to shoot at anyway through the smoke and dust.

It was in those moments that the utility of those hovercraft truly became apparent. Instead of being forced to land on the beach itself, as would’ve been the case with landing ships or barges, the drivers of the Typ-2s were able to continue on unimpeded, generally able to ignore the shattered remnants of barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles as they thundered up onto the sand at high tide. One or two in the first wave were savagely and rather suddenly brought to a halt as the remains of concrete bollards or welded masses of angle iron ripped through their air cushion skirts and tore through the delicate lift fans and machinery beneath, but most were able to run straight up the beach and onto solid ground beyond, leaving the SS commanders the luxury of deciding on a disembarkation point that was suitable to themselves rather than the British defenders.

The bulk of the first two waves continued inland for the better part of a thousand metres, bypassing the ruins of the Littlestone Golf Course and sweeping over the raised tracks of the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch tourist railway that ran slightly inland along that part of the Kent coast. Only one of the few craft disabled at the sea shore was too damaged to unload its cargo of men and armoured vehicles, most also able to join the battle with few casualties as tanks and infantry fighting vehicles made their way up the beach toward the rest of their comrades.

Panther-321 surged down the loading ramp the moment the Typ-2 came to a complete halt, blue clouds of exhaust billowing into the air as the panzer was quickly joined the rest of Schmidt’s 3rd Platoon. Seventeen main battle tanks and five of the smaller, lighter P-1C Wiesel light tanks broke clear onto English soil in a rush supported by Marder infantry fighting vehicles filled with mechanised infantry, three Wirbelwind self-propelled flak, and a pair of Nashorn assault guns. The armoured assault spread out in a practiced, pre-planned manoeuvres and deployed to an initial defensive perimeter between the railway line and the Dymchurch Road that ran parallel beyond.

There inside of the tank was a raucous symphony of noise as Schmidt turned his commander’s episcopes this way and that in search of a target. Rifle and machine gun fire rattled and whined against the P-40A’s hide to no effect whatsoever: with armour as thick as 150mm in places, rifle-calibre ammunition was no more dangerous than a passing breeze, although the deafening environment it created was annoying to say the least. Mortar fire began to fall around them sporadically, the danger small for a main battle tank, although a three-inch mortar bomb could destroy one of their thin-skinned Wiesels with a direct hit. All the while, constant air patrols ensured heavier enemy artillery in the area never managed more than a few initial shots before the guns were taken out of action by bombs and cannon fire.

There was a deafening clang against the right side of Panther-321’s turret that could mean only one thing, and Schmidt quickly picked out a sandbagged anti-tank emplacement, 400 metres to the north-east at a point where the railway line and the Dymchurch road crossed. His low-magnification cupola optics easily spotted the low, squat shape of a shielded two pounder gun as it fired again, and for a second time a 40mm projectile of solid steel shot ricocheted uselessly away from Panther-321’s tough hide, this time deflecting off its thick glacis plate.

“Load sprenggranate…!” Schmidt called sharply into his throat microphone. “Target… four hundred metres… pak-kanone…!”

“Sprenggranate ready…!” Loewe, his loader advised a moment later, accompanied by the metallic rattling of the main gun’s breech slamming home on an 88mm shell.

“Pak-kanone, four hundred metres,” he heard Wisch confirm a few seconds later as the turret turned in the appropriate direction under his control, accompanied by the whine of electric motors. There was a loud hammering below him in the turret as Wisch also opened up with the MG3C mounted coaxially beside the main gun, hosing the sandbagged area around the AT gun with 7.92mm tracer and keeping the enemy’s heads down.

“Fire…!” Schmidt bellowed, adrenalin racing as it was through all of them now that combat had begun in earnest. There were no higher philosophical issues to think of or consider in the heat of battle for these seasoned veterans, and the ‘equation’ was simple: kill or be killed. The fact that in this case they were invulnerable to the enemy gun’s fire in return wasn’t even considered. There was a roar, and the entire tank bucked and shuddered as the KWK49 main gun let loose at their enemy. Muzzle blast obscured the sights a second or two, but the result was clear enough as shattered bodies, debris and flame erupted into the air above what had once been an anti-tank emplacement.

“Hit…!” Schmidt crowed loudly, immediately spinning his scopes to seek out another target as Panther-322 shot off a round to their right, the blast wave ringing heavily against their hull and filling the air around the tank with more dust and smoke.

Little of the propellant gases from the spent shell entered the turret as the smoking spent shell casing ejected automatically: a short, thick section of outer sleeve added to the midway join of the 88mm’s two-piece barrel contained a fume extractor — a new and novel device that removed smoke from the fired shell and pumped it out through the muzzle before the breech was opened to reload. Of all the things about the P-40A that were new and wonderful, that was one of those most loved by the crews that manned them. While space was a little cramped for some in the flattened dome of the turret, that piece of equipment at least provided a clear and relatively breathable atmosphere to work in, and that alone made the crews much more efficient and far more deadly.

“Forward at current bearing…!” The Obersturmführer directed the driver, Klugmann, as orders from his company commander came over the radio. “New position… fifty metres east of the A259… go…!” He relayed his orders to the rest of 2nd Platoon, and Panthers -322, -323, -324 and -325 following suit, spreading out across the Dymchurch Road to provide covering fire to their eastern flank as the second wave of hovercraft arrived behind them and began to unload more tanks and infantry vehicles.

One of the Wiesel light tanks of 3rd Company’s recon platoon powered ahead and into the field of Schmidt’s vision, firing its 30mm automatic cannon and coaxial MG at an unidentified target. A moment later, there was a small flash against its glacis plate, and the light tank came to an abrupt halt, rocking on its suspension as smoke began to pour from its forward-mounted engine. Spinning on his seat as he turned the episcopes set into the rim of the cupola above him, Schmidt was already looking for what had hit the P-1C as its three-man crew bailed out into a hostile battlefield.

He wasn’t long in searching, and quickly picked out a troop of three enemy A13 Cruiser tanks, their forward hulls and turrets protruding from the cover of a treeline off to the south-west. Part of a squadron from the British 1st Armoured Division, two of the tanks fired again, this time at Schmidt’s Panthers, and once again the solid shot of their 2-pdr guns ricocheted or shattered against the German panzers’ superior frontal armour.

“Cruising panzer… three-fifty metres…!” He cried, the turret already turning as Wisch anticipated his command. “Load hohlgeschoss… middle target has antenna!” A long radio antennae indicated the tank in question was almost certainly a commander’s vehicle, and was therefore a priority target.

“Hohlgeschoss loaded…!”

“Befehlspanzer acquired…!” Wisch confirmed his aim on the enemy command tank as the turret’s traverse halted once more.

“Fire…!”

Wham! An 88mm HEAT round hurtled away as the Panther shook once more. The A13’s armour was just 38mm thick at best, and that was nowhere near enough as the hollow-charge anti-tank round caught the nearest of the British cruisers low on its turret face, just above the mounting ring. There was a bright flash upon impact, and the entire turret was suddenly spiralling high into the air at the head of a fiery tail as the shattered hull ‘brewed up’, sheets of flame roaring from the gaping wound where it had once been. None of the four-man crew got out alive, and its colleagues were similarly destroyed seconds later as two more of Schmidt’s Panthers fired and blew them to pieces. The tree line would continue to burn for some time.

Alerts of enemy infantry came through a moment later, and they turned their turrets in the warned direction to discover a series of previously-undetected trenches nearby, north of the rail line. Infantry attacks could be deadly to a closed-down tank — one of the reasons armoured vehicles went into combat with their own infantry support wherever possible — and as they brought their guns to bear on the new targets, a suicidally-brave British infantryman leaped from the nearest of the trenches and let fly with a No.76 anti-tank grenade, shot down just a second later by the coaxial machine gun of the tank at which he was aiming.

“Infantry close in… load kartätsche! Where the fuck are our bloody frontschwein?” Schmidt called the warning to his crew, at the same time voicing a protest at the lack of support as the grenade, no more than a half-pint glass bottle filled with white phosphorous and benzine, shattered against the rear of Panther-324’s hull. Fire instantly engulfed the rear of the turret and its engine deck, the hissing phosphorous depriving the tank’s diesel powerplant of oxygen and stalling it almost instantly. A stalled tank on fire was a fatal combination, and Schmidt radioed its crew to bail out.

Spurred on by momentary success as they watched the panzer crew abandon their vehicle, a dozen men burst from their trenches armed with grenades and bayonet-tipped rifles, charging forward and intent on doing similar damage to other nearby tanks. Schmidt’s main gun had a clear shot as the crew of Panzer-324 dived for safety, and he gave the order to fire the loaded canister round. The air around the charging Tommis was instantly filled with hundreds of lead balls the size of large bullets, and at a range of just fifty metres or so there was little chance for the grapeshot to spread. None of the exposed British survived the blast, most literally disintegrating under the multitude of impacts.

An SH-6C gunship swooped in out of the sky a few seconds later, hammering the trenches with cannon fire and rockets and silencing whatever enemy might still be hiding within. The moment the firing from above had ceased, a pair of Marder IFVs lurched to a halt at the edge of the smoking trenches and disgorged two squads of shock troops to secure the area.

“Bravo to our glorious grenadiers,” Schmidt growled sarcastically, mostly to himself but gaining a smile from the other men in the tank all the same. “Better late than never, as always…!” The remarks were through tight lips and partially-clenched teeth, but lightened the tension a little nevertheless.

He caught sight of Lötzsch, Panther-324’s commander, standing close in to the burning tank with a fire extinguisher and ignoring the phosphorous, flames and enemy fire as he worked desperately to save his panzer from serious damage. The platoon commander allowed himself a thin smile of his own as he turned his attention back to scanning the area for enemy targets: the man was an excellent NCO, and had shown a good deal of courage… if he and his tank survived, Schmidt would make sure he got the iron cross for that act of bravery.

Another moment or two, and someone on the southern edge of the widening beachhead had picked out another cluster of anti-tank weapons and infantry further to the south-west. Orders came in over the radio, and Schmidt and his Panthers were moving off and firing again.

Behind them on the beach, successive waves of hovercraft continued to pour in as the troops already on the ground began to push north and south and expand the embarkation area to make room. Flak vehicles, self-propelled guns and rocket artillery joined the men already on the ground, although the Wirbelwind AA vehicles would find more use for their quartets of 23mm cannon against ground targets that day than the non-existent RAF. They took casualties as the defending enemy began to concentrating their forces, but those losses were comparatively light all the same, and the seemingly endless stream of men and armoured vehicles continued to arrive as attack planes and gunships howled overhead, firing their cannon and releasing bombs and rockets with impunity. Although the battle in that area would continue into the morning, in truth it had already been won.

The men of 7RTR and the rest of the 1st London Division could hear the muffled sounds of artillery, and see the eerie flashes of explosions as they lit up the grey cloud that skirted the eastern horizon. Battle reports from the local area command were sketchy at best, partly due to the requirements of censorship, and partly because they simply didn’t have better information. The gravity of the situation was nevertheless clear enough and chilling in the extreme. Engagements with enemy paratroopers had been confirmed right along the Kent and Sussex coast during the night, and there were now reports of a large landing force on the beaches near the Romney Marsh. Davids had heard of plans to flood the marsh and set it alight with oil, should invaders land, but it seemed the enemy force there had already secured the beaches with little or no opposition. By all accounts, German paratroopers had already seized control of many key strategic points in that area, and many of the planned invasion defences had either failed or had been rendered significantly less effective as a result.

Their dug-in position across the A20 were less than a dozen kilometres from the nearest beachheads, and a good deal closer than that to some of the pitched battles that had been fought against fallschirmjäger earlier that morning. As such, they expected to see action at any moment… depending on how fast the beach defences collapsed. As it happened, the defences at Smeeth were provided a few hours grace as the bulk of the 3rd SS Shock turned north and pushed up the coast, slamming into the outnumbered but well dug-in defenders around Hythe and Folkestone. The resulting engagements were short, but were also particularly intense as mechanised troops were forced to dismount their IFVs and engage British defenders in vicious house-to-house fighting. Both towns had fallen within hours, and the Wehrmacht had eventually held the field of battle, but the victory had come at a higher cost. The 3rd SS lost a number of tanks damaged or knocked out, and took heavy casualties among their grenadiers, although their enemy was ultimately wiped out entirely in return.

Civilian casualties were also incredibly high, as many hadn’t considered evacuation until the last moment, and had subsequently been caught up in the invasion itself. Many had been killed or wounded by bombardments from the division’s self-propelled rocket launchers and artillery guns as they reduced huge sections of Folkestone to rubble prior to any advance. What remained of the city was little more than a smoking ruin, but the division’s first major objective had been reached, and Folkestone’s port had been captured basically intact. Freighters and transports would arrive within the hour carrying more troops, armoured vehicles and supplies.

With enemy resistance in the area finally crushed, the 3rd SS was ordered to dig in and await resupply and reinforcement by the rest of Von Rundstedt’s Army Group A as it steamed toward them across The Channel’s narrowest point. The division had also linked up with sections of the 1st Fallschirmjäger near West Hythe during their advance, and as the fighting there subsided, news reached the division commander that the paratroopers were in danger of losing their hold on the vital Lympne airfield, ten kilometres inland from Folkestone. Schmidt was immediately given orders to take 3rd Company west along the Hythe Road at full speed to provide heavy armour support against any counter-attack. As the intensity of the fighting near Folkestone began to wind down, the eyes of the Wehrmacht area commanders turned inexorably toward Dover; the next vital objective on their list.

Much like the rest of the area commands in Southern England, the local British HQ at Dover Castle had placed the city defences on immediate alert as ‘codeword Oliver’ had been broadcast, just before dawn. Luftwaffe air activity had been intense, with fighters, attack aircraft, transports and heavy bombers constantly passing overhead in both directions, yet there’d rather unexpectedly been no attacks on Dover itself… something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by the local commanders. They were grateful for the small respite, all things considered, as many of the soldiers ostensibly manning defences there that day were instead tied up acting as glorified police officers, forced into vain attempts at controlling a mass exodus of the civilian population.

Like numerous other towns along the coast, many of the town’s residents had decided to remain until the last moment in the ill-considered opinion there’d be ample time to evacuate, should the need arise. Of course, now the invasion warnings had finally come, the huge majority were now attempting to leave at the same time, clogging the streets and lanes leading west into the countryside with masses of terrified people, many of whom were also trying to bring what seemed on the face of it to be their entire life’s belongings into the bargain. Roads were jammed by every imaginable form of transportation. Cars and trucks, motorcycles and bicycles, horses, drays, hand-drawn carts… all were squeezed together as a chaotic sea of human beings forced its way slowly out of the city.

The High Street and Maison Dieu Road were at a standstill as they headed north-west toward the London Road, the A2 and the relative safety of Canterbury beyond. Castle Hill Road was also gridlocked heading north toward Deal, as were most of the city’s cross-streets as confusion and panic reigned. No one dared take the risk of making an escape to the south-west. Rumours that were based on a good deal of solid truth were already circulating of enemy landings on the Romney Marshes, and that an armoured division had already taken Hythe and was pushing down on the outskirts of Folkestone, just twelve kilometres away. The stories were backed up by the dull thud of distant artillery from that direction, and few were willing to risk suicide by taking the Folkestone Road that morning.

The lack of aerial attention came to an end perhaps an hour after the 3rd SS had hit the beaches near St Mary’s Bay. Seeräuber medium bombers and the ubiquitous S-2Ds were among the first waves to hit the town, sweeping in from across the water at extremely low level before hitting the docks and surrounding areas with bombs and cannon fire. Their intelligence prior to the attack was excellent, and many gun emplacements and defensive positions believed to have been well hidden were destroyed in that first attack.

The retreating aircraft also served to distract the defenders on the ground, and as they fired back in retaliation, the streams of tracer reaching into the sky gave away their positions to the gunships of III./SHG1 as the insect-like helicopters powered in from The Channel in the wake of their fixed-wing colleagues. Splitting into pairs, they formed into wide, ‘figure-8’ flight patterns as each helicopter took its turn to dive in, engage with cannon or rockets, then climb away again, circling around to come back onto their target as their wingmen made their own attack runs. Fires burned around the entire harbour, and towers of thick, black smoke streamed up into the sky to taint the lighter grey of the clouds above.

The gunships continued their assault for the better part of fifteen long, gruelling minutes, during which time many of the original twenty-four had been forced to terminate their attacks and head east once more as their ammunition ran out. As the remaining aircraft of III./SHG1 finally turned away and made their way back toward the French coast in loose formation, they were passed by their colleagues from II Gruppe, flying in the other direction. Strung out in a long line, two-dozen of the SH-6C Drache helicopters drew to within a few thousand metres of the Port of Dover before a single order from their commander brought them all to a complete halt. Another moment or two and they were joined by a single NH-3D utility helicopter, which aligned itself to the southern end of the formation and also assumed a stationary, holding position. The line of aircraft was clearly visible to observers on the Western Heights, below the Drop Redoubt, and it was a sight that instilled much foreboding as the choppers hovered in place as if waiting for something to happen… which was exactly the case.

Gustav first shell struck completely without warning, within minutes of the appearance of the second wave of waiting gunships, the seven-tonne armour piercing round landing perfectly on target. The southernmost of the two guns at Battery 672(E), Gustav had fired upon the huge and complex fortifications that stretched across the top of Dover’s Western Heights, many of which were connected by a maze of secret tunnels.

The northernmost section contained the Drop Redoubt, a large, pentagon-shaped fortress dug into the top of the hill and surrounded by a deep, dry moat, built with the purpose of protecting the port from landward attack. Its last official garrison had been withdrawn around the turn of the century, but a squad of Royal Commandos had secretly taken up residence there following the outbreak of war in 1939, tasked with the sole duty of destroying the harbour in the event of an invasion.

The shell struck the outer fortress at the southern end of the moat, quite close to a protruding casemate known as Caponier 2. It easily penetrated the brick and earth walls, punching deep into the earth below, and the subsequent explosion, although relatively small in comparison to the guns’ high-explosive rounds, was still sufficient to create a substantial camouflet beneath the Redoubt’s southern corner. The ground disappeared beneath that part of the structure, collapsing into a crater several metres deep and taking a large section of Caponier 2 and the adjoining fortress wall with it. As the detonation occurred underground, there was surprisingly little smoke or flame, but a thick plume of dust rose into the sky nevertheless, billowing upward as solid fortifications were reduced to useless rubble.

Observers aboard the hovering NH-3D relayed some minor adjustments, and Dora fired second 7-tonne shell a moment later that fell forty metres north-north-west and tipped a similarly large section of wall and fortification into the western side of the dry moat in a pile of dust and debris. Gustav’s second shell struck four minutes later, followed soon after by another shell from Dora, both of which landed inside the central walls of the Redoubt, sending larger sections of the 150-year-old fortress tumbling into deep underground craters and leaving the entire area partially obscured by spreading clouds of dust and smoke.

What was less apparent to the external observer was the damage also being wrought to the complex maze of secret underground tunnels that criss-crossed the entire area beneath the Western Heights, and linked the Redoubt with the Citadel and Centre Bastion complexes. The terrible subterranean shockwaves produced by just those four shells were powerful enough to collapse many tunnels in the immediate vicinity and seriously weaken many others at far greater distances to the point of being unsafe. All of that was collateral damage however, as the initial purpose of the shelling had been to neutralise the commando squad stationed within the Redoubt and prevent them interfering with the integrity of the harbour below. The fire mission had been a complete success in that respect: those few men inside the fortress who’d not been killed in the first blast had certainly been wiped out by the following three.

In the fifteen minutes that followed, the next six shots from Battery 672(E) shifted their aim to the port area itself. This time, both guns again fired the same proximity-fused ‘airburst’ shells they’d used to good effect on the beach defences earlier that morning… this time, those same shells were instead targeted at high-density urban and commercial city areas. Still not completely recovered from the damaged suffered during the artillery duel of weeks earlier, Archcliffe Road and Limekiln Street again felt the huge guns’ wrath as blasts rocked the area, demolishing entire blocks of houses and leaving just empty, rubble-strewn landscapes in their wake. Hawkesbury, Bulwark and Snargate Streets suffered similar fates, the smoke and fires that ensued adding to the dark haze of blackness already collecting over the port area as a result of the air attacks.

The shelling of the town had been intended to serve several purposes. Firstly, it’d helped to spread panic and terror throughout the crowds clogging the congested streets heading out of the city, which not only tied up desperately-needed troops and kept them away from their defences, but also helped to prevent the approach of any reinforcements that might seek to launch a counter attack in the hours to follow. Secondly, it’d also helped subdue any defenders still within the port area who’d managed to survive the bombings and rocket attacks and were still in hiding awaiting a chance to strike back. Lastly, the bombardment also directly aided the masses of troops now heading directly for Dover with the intention of capturing the harbour intact. The cliffs around Dover had made a hovercraft assault impossible, and something quite different had been required to solve the problem of getting troops on the ground quickly to secure the port. As had been the case further south at Folkestone, supply vessels and transports were also enroute for Dover and due to arrive within a few hours, but the task of paving the way and providing them with safe harbour fell to the newest combat units of the Waffen-SS: 1st SS Flieger Division.

As the bombardment finally lifted, the waiting gunships immediately powered in once more and began to patrol freely over the harbour and town centre, ready to attack anyone foolish enough to fire on them, but also taking care not to engage any targets further away. There’d already been a huge loss of life from the shelling and air attacks, but these deaths and injuries had been considered an unfortunate necessity that was an incidental side effect of the assault’s true purpose. There was no intention to target civilians directly, something that’d been made completely clear right from the very top, and the SH-6C pilots therefore took great care to cause as little damage to non-military personnel as was possible.

As the Drache gunships circled over the area, more helicopters appeared on the horizon and swarmed in toward the port in formations of dozens at a time. More than a hundred NH-3D helicopters swept across the waters of The Channel as wave after wave came in low against the eastern horizon. Vast areas around the harbour had been flattened completely by the huge airburst shells, and these blast sites now provided the approaching helicopters with almost perfect landing sites.

As they drew closer, the aircraft would break into groups of three or four at a time, each touching down on the uneven, rubble-covered ground just long enough to deploy a squad of airborne infantry, then powering away into the sky once more to make way for the next flight. Many of the landed troops took up positions to form a defensive perimeter around the Harbour, finding plenty of wreckage and uneven ground for use as cover. Several squads turned back toward the docks, accompanied by experienced pioneers tasked with ensuring that any demolition charges or booby traps that the British might’ve left were disabled safely.

Sporadic firefights broke out around that defensive perimeter as scattered British units that’d survived the bombardment regrouped and made an attempt at dislodging the invaders, however it was a relatively simple task for the supporting gunships to quickly turn the battle against them. With no effective ability for the British to push heavier reinforcements or armour through the human tide streaming out of Dover, the Germans were easily able to hold their positions and link up with some of the fallschirmjäger units already dropped into the surrounding areas earlier that morning.

By mid morning, the invasion had already been a far greater success than the Wehrmacht could ever have hoped for, and by late afternoon on that first day, the XVI Army would have control of the entire English coastline, from Dungeness to just south of Deal, while most of the Sussex beaches would also be under the command of Strauss’ IX Army. Von Reichenau had unbelievably been repulsed and pushed back into the sea off Hampshire with massive casualties, thanks to the modernised arms of the infantry and tanks in that area, but that was no great matter in the grand scheme of things. Seventy thousand men would pour onto the two successful beachheads in hordes on that first day, as ACVs, LSTs and troop transports continued to steam back and forth across The Channel.

Those specialised assault craft were also supplemented by substantial numbers of conventional shipping as ports under German control became fully operable once more from Brighton to Dover, surprise so great in most cases that no effective sabotage of port facilities had been possible. Within three days there would be three hundred thousand German troops on British soil, that figure including ten panzer and five mechanised infantry divisions. As night drew closer on that Wednesday, Lympne and several other coastal airfields also became operational. Transport after transport began to fly in, emptying their cargo bays of light tanks, artillery pieces and tonnes and tonnes of supplies as they added their support to the slower ships in transit across The Channel.

By eight that evening, Generalfeldmarschall Gerd Von Rundstedt had successfully transferred the HQ of Army Group A to Dover Castle as SS-trained military police began to round up any remaining civilians in the area. There was little effective resistance: the most the average farmer or townsperson could field against the might of the Wehrmacht was a shotgun or, more often, a sharpened spade or pitchfork, and as hardy as the British people might be, they were on the whole neither stupid nor suicidal. Most could only accept the situation for the moment, bide their time, and hope for a successful counter-attack.

None of them had any way of knowing that the entirety of Allied armed forces across the whole of Britain numbered little more than 120,000 men, many of them short of rifles or ammunition, or that there were almost no effective tanks or field guns available. The Wehrmacht would land three times as many troops by dusk on Friday, supported by three thousand tanks and twice that many armoured vehicles of various other types. Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters had been correct in his prophetic statement of some months before… it really had been a matter of ‘too many, too much and too few…’

19. England Expects

Typ-X Unterseeboot U-1004

North Sea, north of The Dogger Bank

‘S-Day’:

Wednesday,

September 11, 1940

The Dogger Bank was a large, irregular sandbank approximately 260km long and up to 90km wide, running east-to-west between the British Isles and the west coast of Denmark. With a maximum depth of thirty-six metres, and as shallow as fifteen metres as it drew closer to the English coast, it was an area of the North Sea that had had figured regularly in British naval history over the last two centuries. The British and Dutch navies met in battle there in 1781, resulting in a Dutch rout, while the Russian Baltic Fleet commanded by Admiral Zinovi Rozhestvenski had opened fire on British trawlers off the bank in 1904 under the mistaken fear that the vessels sighted had actually been Japanese warships.

Russia had been at war with Japan at that time, and the fear wasn’t as ludicrous as it might at first seem in light of the Japanese Navy’s predilection at the time for British-made ships and equipment. A full-scale engagement with the Royal Navy had only been avoided through profuse and continuous apologies from both the fleet’s commanders and the Tsarist government of the time. Even so, the RN was at battle stations as the Russian ships transited The Channel at the beginning of an epic and valiant, if ill-devised war cruise of almost 29,000km for the Baltic Fleet that would end in a resounding defeat at Tsushima Strait in May of 1905.

The most famous event of the sandbank’s more recent history was the almost ‘non-engagement’ that was The Battle of Dogger Bank of 24th January 1915, in which Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battlecruisers clashed savagely with their counterparts in Franz von Hipper’s German High Seas Fleet. Although the Royal Navy held the ‘field’ of battle following the engagement, as would be the case at Jutland the following year, Hipper’s ships nevertheless inflicted severe damage against a British fleet that had missed several opportunities to run down and annihilate the German battlecruisers in return. In the end, although the British press would claim a great victory, there’d be much recrimination within Admiralty circles over lost opportunities in bringing the enemy fleet fully to battle and dealing it a mortal blow.

Fregattenkapitän Gunter Kohl watched the Home Fleet task force intently through his attack periscope as U-1004 glided silently toward them below the surface of the North Sea at a steady 12 knots. He had to be careful, so close to the large sandbanks: the water wasn’t deep in that area, and with the right conditions it might be possible to see a U-boat at periscope depth from above… and for the same reason, there’d be little room to manoeuvre should they be discovered. Kohl would raise the scope every thirty seconds or so and rotate it quickly through a full 360̊ circle, each time relaying important positional information to his XO, who in turn passed the relevant details on to the navigator and the torpedo chief.

Although his mouth was dry, as it always was during times of stress, he never let the crew see his nervousness: it was important that to them, he at all times remained the cool, calm commander. At thirty-four, the stocky, fair-haired officer was the eldest of three brothers in Wehrmacht service, and the only one in the Kriegsmarine. He’d joined the service in 1934, and entered the U-boat arm two years later, rising quickly through the officer corps to his own command just prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. He was well-liked by his crews and went out of his way to look after them, something that drew a great deal of loyalty and effort from his men, and he’d so far proven to be an efficient commander who achieved excellent results.

“Destroyer, bearing nineteen,” he announced softly, professionally. He halted for a moment in the middle of the sweep and noted the nearest escort, watching just long enough to estimate speed and distance before continuing his scan. “Heading one-eighty… speed constant… range two thousand metres . . .” He’d just told the XO the destroyer in question was at a bearing of 19º relative to the heading of his ship, was maintaining a constant speed, and was heading due south… all of which meant that the destroyer was to all intents and purposes heading away from U-1004. At a range of two kilometres, there was no likelihood of it detecting the submarine even if it were equipped with the new ASDIC detection equipment that’d been appearing on Royal Navy ships.

ASDIC — something the Americans and the rest of the world would come to know as SONAR — was a new and potentially effective system for detecting submerged U-boats, but from Kohl’s experience it didn’t yet possess a particularly useful range. He’d personally eluded an ASDIC-equipped corvette a month before that had closed to within three hundred metres, and U-1004 had still gone undetected despite being at only moderate depth. When rigged for silent running, U-1004 and her fellow Type-X U-boats were almost impossible to detect at ranges greater than two or three hundred meters, unless caught suicidally close to the surface.

Kohl turned the scope to the other destroyer he could see, this one further away and to the west of the convoy, and reported the range at 3,500 metres. It was quite overcast that afternoon over the North Sea, with occasional rain squalls and very choppy surface conditions, and lookouts on any enemy vessels would need to be very lucky to see the tiny wake of U-1004’s small, high-powered attack periscope. He returned his attention to the convoy itself: more than thirty warships of various sizes and classes, covering a dozen square kilometres of ocean in a long, drawn-out line-astern formation.

The fleet wasn’t ‘zig-zagging’ as the enemy’s merchantmen convoys were prone to while making their perilous journeys across the Atlantic, something that made targeting substantially easier for the U-boat commander. Even so, gaining a firing position was going to be difficult: the fleet passing across his bow was steaming at better than twenty knots, which was well in excess of U-1004’s top submerged speed of slightly more than 18½… and Kohl couldn’t use anything close to full speed if he wanted to remain undetected by the enemy’s passive hydrophone sensors.

It was several more minutes before the U-boat reached a workable firing position, the enemy fleet still unaware of any danger as it steamed southward toward The Channel and inevitable combat. There were few operational vessels in Dönitz’s infant U-boat fleet, as the construction of capital ships had taken precedence, and capital ships like battleships or carriers also took up far more space, manpower and resources. The small number of U-boats that were available to the Kriegsmarine however were the most modern and advanced in the world, and had already had an effect upon the course of the war that was way out of proportion to their number. Kohl, one of the more experienced of the U-boat service’s commanders, had alone already sunk twelve ships for more than 70,000 tons. Most of that tally had been in the older but nevertheless quite deadly Type-VII fleet boat, but his record had been good enough to accord him the honour of working up a new crew on just the fourth ship of the new Type-X class to come down the slipway.

The Type-X was quite literally a quantum leap forward in submarine technology. To begin with, she’d been designed from the outset as an underwater vessel, rather than a seagoing vessel that could submerge (as was the case with the submarines of the rest of the world’s navies). Until the moment the Type-X left the drawing board and entered service, all submarines had been designed with a shape more conducive to surface sailing; intended primarily to remain on the surface, only submerging in times of combat. As a result, all other submarines, while possessed of adequate capabilities while surfaced, were little better than poor performers when submerged.

The preceding German Type-VII was a good example of conventional submarine technology and better than most, and it’d been capable of just 18 knots surfaced and no more than seven when submerged. The choice of a surface-going layout also meant she was a comparatively noisy vessel when underwater (as were all conventional subs) due to an abundance of nooks and crannies around the hull and conning tower where water could catch and swirl to produce the deadly turbulence and cavitation that cried out like a thunder storm to an enemy’s hydrophones.

The Type-X changed all that, and had been designed from the outset as a vessel intended to spend its time beneath the surface of the ocean. She had a blunt, streamlined nose joined to an equally-featureless hull that was exceptionally ‘clean’ and devoid of protrusions or indentations throughout its entire length, stretching right back to the stern. Its tail was also a departure from usual practice: instead of twin propeller shafts mounted beneath the hull on either side of a single rudder, the stern tapered to a rounded tip, at the end of which was a single large, multi-bladed screw. Instead of a conventional rudder, the tail also sprouted four fins in a ‘+’ shape just ahead of the large propeller that provided the boat with a level of manoeuvrability much improved over other, less advanced models.

The new type of stern design did however precluded the firing of torpedoes to the rear, and all six of the 533mm (21-inch) torpedo tubes the vessel possessed were subsequently mounted forward in two vertical columns of three on either side of the nose. The vessel carried 24 torpedoes for her main armament, and the advanced, semi-automatic loading mechanisms for the six-metre-long ‘fish’ were efficient enough to reload all six tubes in the same time it would take any normal submarine crew to reload one. A secondary anti-aircraft armament consisted of a pair of twin turrets mounted at each end of the long, narrow conning tower. Those turrets each sported a pair of 30mm automatic cannon which, when not in use, could be depressed to point directly downward and were locked away inside sealed hatches along the fore and aft edges of the conning tower so as to leave no projection when submerged. The old standard of a heavy deck gun had been done away with entirely: not only did such a fitting create a great deal of noise and drag when underwater, but it also didn’t fit with the new, altered role of the U-boat. The Type-X was intended to spend its days on patrol entirely below the surface, and as such it would have no use for a deck gun at all.

The layout of her engines was also a massive departure for U-boat construction. Conventional designs usually comprised a set of main diesel engines (usually four, as was the case with the Type-VII) used as the primary source of propulsion when surfaced, and would also charge the comparatively small store of batteries used to power the secondary electric motors used when submerged. The Type-X instead used just one pair of far smaller diesel engines, and those engines were at no time directly connected to her single screw. They powered a 450-kilowatt electric generator that could either drive her more powerful primary electric motors (which were connected to her single screw) or charge the greatly increased store of lead-acid batteries packed into the pressure hull below the crew decks. The lower reliance on diesels meant far less fuel need be carried, and the increased battery power also meant the vessel had much greater endurance and speed when submerged — something that Kohl and his crew were putting to great use at that moment.

“Range to target two-thousand, five hundred,” Kohl noted softly from his position in the conning tower, his eyes never leaving the attack-periscope’s viewing port in the dim, red light of battle-stations. “Bearing fifteen degrees… heading one-eighty and steady… speed twenty… twenty-two knots.” As the XO passed on his observations to the appropriate crew stations, he carried out another 360° sweep, which came up clear of any threats.

Three destroyers had passed ahead of them, now far enough away to no longer be an immediate problem. A cruiser squadron had also sped through some time earlier, but had been too far away for an attack, and as the scouting force for the British fleet, they’d in any case be searching for bigger game than Kohl’s boat. That left just the vessels that were yet to pass before his bow… and juicy targets they were indeed. The OKM quite logically placed higher priority on merchant shipping than attacks on capital ships — preventing Britain from receiving supplies was far more beneficial to the Wehrmacht’s objectives than the sinking of any single warship — yet capital ships were still a prestigious target nevertheless, and U-boat commanders understandably lusted after them with a passion.

For Kohl, there was also something a little more personal. Wolff, the youngest of his brothers, had been serving with the Luftwaffe and had been stationed with a Zerstörergeschwader in France. Upon return to base in August after his last patrol, Kohl had learned that his brother had been shot down during an air raid on the British naval base at Scapa Flow and was listed as ‘missing, presumed killed’. The blow had struck his entire family hard, and he wasn’t sorry to be given the chance to now exact some vengeance on some of the warships that had been stationed at The Flow at the time of the raid.

Rain had started falling in a fine mist again and visibility was down as a result, but the line of warships parading before them was clear enough to at least identify their types if not the actual classes. Two battleships had already crossed U-1004’s path, and there were at least another three to come of similar size. It was the third and fourth in the line that Kohl was lining up on, intending to fire three torpedoes on each and then dive, hopefully sneaking directly under the fleet as he reloaded tubes, leaving the escorts to search for him on the wrong side of the formation. If one or two of the ‘fish’ hit each target, it probably wouldn’t be enough to sink or mortally wound a battleship, but they’d be enough to slow one down to the point where U-1004 might be able to keep up and finish it off.

He thought to himself at that moment that it was a shame they’d not gotten into position a little sooner: the second ship in line had been easily identified by her three forward turrets as HMS Nelson, sister-ship to the battleship Rodney that he himself had sunk outside Scapa Flow back in April. The Knights Cross he’d been awarded that now lay at his throat meant as much as the almost 40,000 tonnes the sinking had added to his total tonnage and ship tallies.

“Open outer doors… flood tubes one to six…”

“Open outer doors… flood tubes one to six…” The repeated orders again went out in a hush, and for the first time in an hour, the faint hum of the sub’s electric motors was drowned out by a different sound: the rumble and hiss of hull fairings sliding back to allow U-1004’s torpedo tubes to bear on her target. Within moments, the fire control officer informed that all six tubes were cleared, flooded and ready to fire.

“Set torpedo depth to six metres… speed to thirty-five knots…” Kohl continued, his mind continually active as he took in everything he could see through the scope. The draught of a battleship (the depth below the waterline) was far greater than that of a tanker or merchantman, and as such they could allow a greater torpedo running depth, greatly reducing the danger of ‘broaching’ on the surface. They’d require greater speed in return however, as warships could also steam much faster than commercial shipping. All of the U-boat’s torpedoes used electric propulsion and therefore produced almost no visible wake, leaving no warning of their approach.

Kohl made another defensive sweep of the seas around them — he’d survived that long as a U-boat commander by being careful rather than reckless, and 44 other officers and men also owed their lives to that fact.

“Bearing ten degrees… range eighteen hundred metres,” Kohl stated after a few more moments, releasing a deep, calming breath. “Tubes one to three… narrow spread… match bearings… and shoot!” That order was relayed instantly, and within seconds the correct target information had been transferred to the automatic gyroscopes within the torpedoes themselves. The whole ship shuddered faintly as three torpedoes hissed from their tubes one by one and immediately altered course onto their preset trajectories.

Kohl turned the attack scope to the fourth ship in the line — another battleship — and began to check bearings in preparation to firing his second salvo. The first three torpedoes had the better part of two minutes running time before impact, and that’d easily be enough time to acquire and fire on the second target. He was about to call out the first range and bearing reading as the boat suddenly and rather unexpectedly lurched sideways as the a nearby explosion shook them savagely. All thoughts of his second target vanished as they came under attack, probably from an unseen aircraft. Kohl almost gave the order for a crash dive, but suddenly remembered the shallowness of the surrounding waters and decided against it.

“Depth twenty-five metres! Set course to forty-five degrees, all ahead flank!” A crash dive would run the risk of hitting the bottom of the North Sea and leaving them stuck fast as a result… or worse. Instead, he lowered the periscopes and turned the boat to the north-east at full power, hoping their high submerged speed would fool any destroyers now turning in on the position of the attack.

Henry Harwood was still standing on the bridge as a warning reached the fleet that a U-boat had been sighted by one of Ark Royal’s air patrols. The enemy sub had been close to the formation — dangerously close — and the effectiveness of German U-boats was well known: that effectiveness could easily have crippled Britain and brought the country to its knees in a relatively short period of time, had there been a few more of them in service. The fighter bomber had spotted the grey shape of the vessel at periscope depth, faint but still visible in the dark waters of the North Sea, and had dropped a bomb on it but couldn’t confirm a hit. A subsequent fly-past could detect no debris or evidence of damage, nor could it find any further sign of the U-boat itself.

Harwood knew Admiral Tovey would be torn over what course of action to take next. A hundred kilometres south, the 2nd Cruiser Squadron had already reported smoke on the horizon — enough to suggest the presence of a large enemy fleet — and as such they couldn’t afford to break away from their current course or waste time in pointless manoeuvring at the whim of U-boat sightings, confirmed or otherwise. Destroyers Intrepid, Inglefield and Active were already turning in toward the area of the sighting at full speed, one of those vessels equipped with ASDIC; which might at least scare the enemy off, if not locate him and enable his destruction.

He was still waiting on the Admiral’s orders as two torpedoes struck Malaya amidships, the next ship in line behind Nelson. The impacts sent huge geysers of water spraying up her sides and superstructure. Fire broke out across her decks above the first of the impacts, thick black smoke pouring into the air as her captain began to cry for damage reports and she started to take on water through holes torn in her armour belt below the waterline. Her speed began to slow dramatically.

Reports from Kent, leading the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, confirmed the presence of an enemy battle fleet to the south at that same moment; a fleet comprising at least three capital ships and numerous smaller vessels. That new information basically decided the issue, and Tovey gave orders for the fleet to carry on, while two destroyers remained behind to protect the stricken Malaya. The veteran battleship would be forced to fall behind and make repairs on her own, and if that could be done quickly enough, she might still take part in the upcoming battle… if she could rejoin the rest of the fleet in time.

Hindsight emergency airstrip ‘Alternate’

Eday, Orkney Islands

Alec Trumbull sat above the cargo area of the C-5M, surrounded by the empty seats of the transport plane’s passenger deck. Eileen Donelson was in the cockpit, using the Galaxy’s radios to maintain contact with Whitehall and Home Forces GHQ in an attempt to keep abreast of the ongoing battle in the south. Particularly of interest was the main battle raging in Kent that represented the largest established Wehrmacht beachhead: also the area of fighting into which Thorne, Kransky and Ritter had flown hours before. Thorne had taken a belt radio, and they’d received sporadic reports relayed via Whitehall, but the last of those had been over an hour ago, and the message had been brief. It’d been little more than a notification the Swordfish was on the ground, and that they’d joined a convoy of fresh troops moving toward the front. There’d been no further word since then, and the strain was starting to show on all their faces. Then there’d suddenly been a new, direct communication from Thorne himself, patched through a number of radio relay links along the long axis of the country. Trumbull hadn’t been able to pick out the exact nature of the conversation that had transpired between Thorne and where Eileen sat beyond the bulkhead leading to the Galaxy’s flight deck, but the Commander’s voice was raised by the time it had finished, and she’d clearly been left in a poor mood.

“The man’s a pig-headed bloody idiot…!” She snarled angrily, stomping out of the cockpit in disgust as Trumbull rose to his feet instinctively. Eileen caught his concerned stare and forced herself to calm down a little. “He’s got Ritter there, with Richard to keep an eye on him, and still Max refuses to get out of there until he’s sure they’ve got the bugger back to his own lines!”

“Surely he realises the risk to himself!” Trumbull observed with mild disbelief. “He can’t endanger himself like this!”

“Tell him that, Alec,” she shook her head and gave an angry half-growl of exploding breath. “He takes no bloody notice of me!”

“The longer he waits, the harder it’ll become! Even after dark, enemy night fighters will make the flight back almost suicidal!”

“I told him that…!” She moaned plaintively. “I told him all that, and it made no bloody difference! I might as well…!” She was cut off as another transmission from the radio beyond the hatchway caught their attention, this time with further news of the invasion.

Alec remained standing as Eileen dived back onto the flight deck and received the new information. He was torn in a number of directions by the news… torn between his natural instincts, and the conditioning of his military service regarding orders given by a superior officer (Max Thorne, in this case). Almost subconsciously, his fingers reached up and touched at the T-shirt showing at the neck of his flight suit. It was the ‘Somewhere In Time’ shirt Thorne had given him as a remembrance of his ‘jump’ in the Lightning that had signified his officially joining the Hindsight team. The T-shirt had come to mean a great deal to him — more than he’d have thought possible in his days before coming to Hindsight — and the significance of it, and what Thorne had done for since, hadn’t gone unrecognised. Not the least of that was the fact that the man had saved his life so many weeks ago over The Channel.

He suddenly found the confines of the passenger deck quite oppressive, and Alec made his way down the access ladder and out into the main cargo bay, a brisk wind whipping past as it channelled through the open nose of the Galaxy and out the lowered rear ramp. The rain they’d experienced during the morning had eased off, but there was still the noticeable feel of moisture in the air, and the dark clouds above threatened more at any moment. He shuddered a little at the cold before making his way down the nose ramp and out onto the concrete runway. Before him lay a makeshift tent camp that was now home to the remains of Hindsight as they waited in anticipation of take off.

The F-35E was also there in the foreground, fuelled, armed and ready for a quick departure. Several makeshift patches of unpainted alloy were clearly visible against the grey paint scheme covering the rest of the aircraft, welded over the holes blown in the aircraft’s tail from Thorne’s battles with the Flankers. Jack Davies was leaning into the forward cockpit, standing on a set of metal steps pushed against the fuselage and seeming to be more interested in swearing softly at the instruments than actually accomplishing anything. As he spied Trumbull’s emergence from the camouflage nets, he dragged his attention away from the Lightning’s cockpit and jumped to the ground.

“Any news…?”

“Only that he’s refusing to stay out of trouble,” Trumbull replied as he reached the American’s side. “Max claims he’s not going to get out of there until he’s sure Ritter has made it back to his own lines.”

“The boy does know there’s an invasion going on, doesn’t he?”

“Luftwaffe fighter sweeps across Southern England are blowing the RAF out of the sky wherever we take off,” Trumbull nodded angrily, “and it’s a miracle he managed to get that Stringbag in there in the first place. Lord knows how he’s going to get out again!”

“Five hours’ flight time back in that thing, with the invasion in full goddamn swing? Jesus…!” Davies shook his head. “Getting the guy back to his own lines means he’ll be a whole lot closer to that front line himself! The Krauts are moving fast wherever they push forward, and he’s really risking the chance of ending up POW!”

“No prizes for guessing how much interest the SS would pay in him if that happened!” Trumbull observed sourly, unimpressed by the thought.

“Shit, they’d have electrodes on his balls faster than you could say ‘Jawohl Mein Herr!’!”

“I should think Reichsmarschall Reuters would make sure any interrogation was more than thorough,” Trumbull mused, and his eyes unconsciously fell on the F-35E over Davies’ shoulder, “which would put Ritter in a particularly difficult position.”

“That’d waste one hell of a lot of the work that Max himself put in here,” Davies added, his eyes also straying back over his shoulder toward the Lightning. He gave a half-smile as he returned his gaze to Trumbull and they both reached the same conclusion simultaneously.

“It’d be rather poor form of someone with the power to right that situation not to do something about it, I’d warrant,” Trumbull observed innocently. “Thorne has one of those radios with him, doesn’t he?” He inquired.

“Yes… yes, I believe he does,” Davies smiled lightly. “Don’t know how much use they’d be, but I believe the gun pod’s fully loaded, and there’s some Sidewinders in the weapons’ bays…” He leaned in toward Trumbull, as if about to reveal some vital piece of classified information. “I’ll let you in on a little secret… if you get close enough, those heat-seekers can lock onto ground targets too! Mightn’t carry a big enough warhead to kill a main battle tank, but it’d probably disable one, and they’d sure as hell take out anything smaller… never know when that might come in handy.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “I think… I’ll go… and have a chat… with Eileen…” Davies stated rather slowly and deliberately, taking care to make sure Trumbull caught every word. “I may be a while…” And with a silent nod, the agreement between them was made. As Davies turned and walked off toward the C-5M, Trumbull called over two of the Lightning’s ground crew.

200km east of Sunderland

Dogger Bank, North Sea

Admiral Gunther Lütjens watched from the bridge of Bismarck as Kriegsmarine Schlachtflotte-1 steamed north at full speed across the Dogger Bank, the rest of the fleet’s capital ships — Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau — stretched away behind in an impressive display of line-ahead formation. Radar-equipped patrol aircraft had been shadowing the Home Fleet for several hours as it travelled down the east coast of the British Isles, its position constantly updated for the benefit of any U-boats in the area, and the enemy’s order of battle was well known to Lütjens by the time the two fleets drew near in the middle of the North Sea. More U-boats were racing to intercept the enemy’s approach following Kohl’s attack in U-1004, and the attack aircraft of TG186, Graf Zeppelin’s carrier air wing, were also being readied for take off armed with bombs and torpedoes.

The carrier’s aircraft had been participating in support of the invasion with raids on Bomber Command coastal airfields in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, and many of the RAF’s heavy and medium bombers had been destroyed on the ground. The few that survived had been quickly shot out of the skies by massed Luftwaffe fighter sweeps before they’d even come close to the invasion forces. Losses among the aircraft of TG186 had been negligible, and as they now turned north to engage the Royal Navy that afternoon, they were being refuelled and rearmed in preparation for battle with the Home Fleet.

Graf Zeppelin was the lead ship of the largest class of warship in the world. With a full-load rating of more than 73,000 tonnes, she and her sister ships were fleet aircraft carriers built up from the hulls of the huge Bismarck-class ‘superbattleships’. The term überschlactshiffe (‘superbattleship’) had been coined by Reichsmarschall Reuters himself in reference to that new class of ships, their dimensions and tonnage so much greater than that of a ‘normal’ battleship that the conventional title hadn’t been considered sufficient to do them justice.

Bismarck’s hull design was also quite suitable as the basis for a matching class of fleet carrier, of which Graf Zeppelin was the first. She was more than 260 metres long, almost 40 metres across her beam, and a long, ‘island’ superstructure rose amidships on her starboard side above her broad, steel flight deck. Her large, single funnel rose from the rear of that island, and at each end of the superstructure, a pair of superimposed triple turrets mounting three 128mm guns apiece, providing her with heavy flak and some close-in defence against lighter enemy vessels, should one manage to draw within range. Those heavy turrets were complimented by forty light emplacements spread around the edges of that long flight deck, the smaller mountings boasting equal numbers of twin 37mm or ‘quadruple 23mm flakvierling’ flak guns fitted into turrets almost identical to those of the Wirbelwind self-propelled AA vehicle.

Trägergeschwader 186 called Graf Zeppelin its home, the mixed air wing comprised of one gruppe of fifty J-4B naval fighter-bombers and one of S-2C Seelöwe attack aircraft. Each gruppe consisted of two staff aircraft and four staffeln of twelve, and the carrier also kept within its huge, 170m-long hangar bay five anti-submarine/reconnaissance helicopters. That air wing was now preparing to launch in response to the approach of the Home Fleet as Graf Zeppelin turned into the wind to begin flight operations with her trio of escorting destroyers, thirty kilometres astern of the rest of the fleet.

Schlachtflotte-1 powered north at best possible speed, eager to engage the British warships. Lütjens had released the First Cruiser Division, and the smaller warships, commanded by Kapitän zur See Hans Langsdorff in Admiral Graf Spee, had driven ahead upon sighting a corresponding British cruiser force to the north of the Dogger Bank. The two groups were now just twelve thousand metres and had commenced the firing of ranging shots. The powerful optics of the warships’ fire directors and those of the lookouts atop the main masts could make out the closing cruiser forces beneath the grey skies, although visibility was too poor to make out any real detail. The smoke on the horizon and the images on their radar screens however were clear indications that a larger fleet was definitely drawing near.

A pair of helicopters from Bismarck and Tirpitz were already circling the action, remaining well out of range of enemy AA guns as the spotters on board provided an excellent, first-hand account of the developing engagement to both Lütjens and Langsdorff. On paper, the presence of heavy cruisers Kent, Exeter and York and the light cruisers Ajax, Galatea and Achilles were for the most part an even match for the Kriegsmarine ‘heavies’ Blücher and Prinz Eugen, and their lighter support from München, Essen and Vienna, however the German warships had two major factors in their favour.

The first was radar gunnery. Radar was still a new and temperamental invention for the British that hadn’t yet been fitted to all of her smaller warships. None of the Royal Navy’s cruisers that day had were equipped with it (some of The RN’s older battleships hadn’t received radar either), while all of the Kriegsmarine’s warships from light cruiser and above were fitted with search and ranging radars, and the ability to accurately determine distance, bearing and speed of their enemy would prove vital almost from the start.

The other important factor was Admiral Graf Spee. Classed as a panzerschiffe, or ‘armoured ship’, by the Germans, she and the others in her class were known in allied circles by the somewhat diminutive title of ‘pocket battleship’. Her armour and guns however were nothing to be mocked in comparison to the heavy cruisers she was now facing up against at the head of her line. Twelve thousand tonnes’ displacement at standard load, she was 186m long and almost 22m across her beam, and could steam at almost 29 knots with the aid of her powerful MAN diesels. She was also quite heavily armoured for her size, and carried two triple turrets that mounted a total of six hard-hitting, accurate 11-inch guns.

Even as the leading British ships were firing their first ranging shots, accurate fire from Graf Spee, Blücher and Prinz Eugen was already falling about them, with 150mm shells from the three German ‘City’ class light cruisers close behind. With plenty of warning of the British approach on radar and by aerial reconnaissance, the Kriegsmarine ships had been able to place themselves directly across their opponents’ line of approach, crossing their ‘T’ and enabling all six German vessels to concentrate broadside fire on the leading enemy ships, while only the British warships’ forward guns could respond. Within fifteen minutes, the intense bombardment left Kent, Exeter and York severely damaged and burning furiously, with Exeter and York seemingly out of control. The former wandered out of the battle line to the east at low speed with all guns silent, while York circled aimlessly, chasing her own tail with her steering gear out of action.

Kent was still firing back with her rear turrets as the ship came about, but was receiving a savage battering in return as the three British light cruisers turned away to the north under orders and attempted to break from the battle, trailing a thick smokescreen in their wakes. With all three heavy cruisers damaged and out of effective combat, they’d be seriously outnumbered and stood little chance even of survival, let alone success. Their German counterparts continued the chase, and the cruiser skirmish quickly moved off to the east.

Taking counsel from Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann commanding Bismarck, Lütjens initially gave orders for the aircraft of Graf Zeppelin to hold off, thinking that superior German radar-directed gunnery should be able to deal with the fleet on its own. Based on the evidence at hand, it certainly seemed a likely possibility: only one of the approaching British ships — Nelson — was armed with 16-inch guns, while the rest mounted the superbly-accurate but smaller 15-inch gun that had become the standard RN capital ship main armament from World War One onward. Although radar surveillance had originally detected seven large warships in the British fleet, continued monitoring had revealed two of those ships had dropped behind the main formation in the last hour or so. Lütjens knew that at least two Type-X U-boats were patrolling the area through which the enemy fleet had travelled, and that there’d been several unconfirmed attack reports from the submarine service so far. It therefore seemed reasonable to deduce that torpedo damage was behind the delay of those two lagging vessels. That left five capital ships against their four, but Lütjens was still confident his fleet would get the better of their English opponents, and taking into consideration the line of ships behind him, that belief was understandable.

At the rear of the formation, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were easily the equal of the battlecruisers Hood and Renown, each armed with three twin turrets of 15-inch guns that were accompanied by the most modern fire directors and radar assistance in the world. Although the Kriegsmarine classified the vessels as a schlactkreuzer (battlecruiser), at 40,000 tonnes full-load, they were easily large enough to be considered battleships in their own right. The ships had originally been designed to mount three triple turrets of the same 11-inch guns now arming Admiral Graf Spee, but this had been revised to their current, heavier armament prior to completion.

Ahead of them, Bismarck and Tirpitz were something else again. At 71,000 tonnes, the superbattleships were, save for the carrier based on the same hull layout, the largest warships to ever sail the seas. Along with their two completed sister ships, Von der Tann and Derrflinger, their construction had been maintained under the heaviest veil of secrecy and misinformation, and two further ships — Rheinland and Westfalen — were yet to be completed. The ships also carried the heaviest armament ever put to sea on a warship: nine huge guns of 18.1-inch calibre (460mm), mounted in three gigantic turrets that could fire armour piercing shells weighing almost 1,500 kilograms out to ranges of over forty kilometres. They were also backed up by a morass of secondary turrets and flak guns that surrounded the vessel’s towering central superstructure in multiple layers of 128mm, 37mm and 23mm weapons. Although yet to be ‘blooded’ in actual combat, their crews’ training and morale was high, and they were ready for their baptism of fire. For that reason — morale as much as superiority — Lütjens decided to hold back their carrier air wing and give the men of his warships a real victory in battle.

That decision would eventually cost the Kriegsmarine far more dearly than they expected on a number of counts. Only as a rather unexpected, low-level mass of aircraft appeared suddenly on their search radars did the German fleet realise that at least one of the capital ships that’d fallen behind the enemy formation was actually an aircraft carrier, rather than a damaged battleship. At that point, the order for launch of Graf Zeppelin’s air group was given, but this time with a new target — the enemy carrier. The Swordfish and Skua attack aircraft of the British Fleet Air Arm were well known in Wehrmacht circles to be obsolete, however their presence still needed to be taken seriously, particularly as the enemy had gotten the ‘jump’ on TG186 by launching first. Defence was first priority of the day, and J-4Bs of the carrier’s fighter gruppe were the first to lift from the flight deck.

On the other side of the ‘battlefield’, the squadrons launched from Ark Royal were under no such illusions as to the composition of the forces they too could see quite clearly on radar. Reports of the morning’s attacks on RAF bomber bases had been enough to indicate that a carrier force was definitely operating somewhere in the North Sea, and armed with that extra information, it needed no great leap of logic to identify the large contact some miles behind the main enemy force and designate it as a prime target.

Ark Royal carried five squadrons within her hangars — two of Blackburn Skua fighter-bombers and three of the Fairey Swordfish — and all five of those squadrons had launched, heading off in two separate waves that’d taken a clear detour to the west of the enemy battleships to avoid AA fire. The Skuas of 800 and 803 Sqns were in the lead — twenty-four planes in all — a single 227kg (500lb) bomb recessed beneath each aircraft’s belly. There were just a handful of Graf Zeppelin’s J-4Bs in the air and on combat patrol as the Skua’s headed in for their final approach, several blown from the sky in moments as the German fighters engaged, but the majority made it through the fighter screen and fell upon the huge carrier from high altitude.

Clouds of heavy flak began to burst about the Skuas as twenty of them came out of the grey sky in staggered pairs, long streams of tracer from the ship’s 37mm and 23mm automatic cannon joining in as they drew closer. Although eager and well-trained however, Graf Zeppelin’s gun crews had never fired on an enemy aircraft in combat until that moment, and they found, initially at least, that the diving Skuas were far more difficult to hit than the gunnery targets they’d become used to in training.

The pilots of 800 and 803 Squadrons, by contrast, knew exactly what they were doing. As well-trained as their opponents, the airmen of the Fleet Air Arm also had actual combat experience; something that counted for a great deal as the first attack wave came out of the clouds toward the carrier below. Even from a height of several thousand metres, the clustered aircraft gathered on the long flight deck were clearly visible preparing for take off, and the attacking pilots instantly recognised their importance: those aircraft could inflict serious damage to both the Home Fleet and, more importantly, Ark Royal herself. The fact that the British fighter-bombers had gained a momentary advantage of initiative was something they couldn’t afford to squander, and the flights’ commanding officer gave a few radioed words of instruction and encouragement before pointing his Skua even closer to vertical and darting through the clouds of flak, bombsights centred on the enemy carrier’s flight deck near the bow.

At a thousand metres, he dragged back on the stick and released his single 500-pound bomb, the weapon swinging out on a long, crutch-like cradle to throw it clear of the propeller disc as the Skua powered away and manoeuvred heavily to avoid the mass of flak that followed his retreat. The next aircraft in line had dropped and commenced similar evasive action before his bomb struck, with the remainder of the two squadrons following on in a loose line behind them.

The first bomb missed the carrier by a few metres and punched into the water ahead of her bow, sending a towering geyser of foaming water skyward as it detonated. The second bomb also missed, this time to starboard with a similar lack of result, while the next three Skuas were shot from the sky as flak gunner began to find their range. The sixth aircraft however managed to make it through the clouds of enemy AA to land its single 500-pounder right in the middle of Graf Zeppelin’s flight deck, perhaps eighty metres aft from the bow. The damage done to the actual ship itself was relatively minor to begin with: the carrier had been had been designed to withstand air attack, and as such, the British practice of using an armoured steel flight deck had been adopted rather than the more common use of vulnerable wooden planking that was common with many other navies.

There was nothing that could be done however to protect the scores of fighters and attack aircraft gathered on her deck awaiting take off, and the damage inflicted on them was great indeed. With engines running, and filled with fuel and ammunition, the aircraft nearest the point of impact exploded instantly as the blast tore them apart, setting off a ‘domino effect’ that leapt from aircraft to aircraft along that crowded deck. More Skuas were shot down by the fighters already airborne, but fire from the Zeppelin’s flak guns began to trail off as the explosions spreading across the carrier’s deck either engulfed the gun emplacements completely, or the intolerable heat forced crews to abandon their posts and seek safety elsewhere. Four more bombs from the first wave struck the carrier, adding to the inferno as thick, black smoke poured from almost the entire length of the flight deck. One of those bombs punched its way through the much thinner armour of the island’s superstructure, exploding deep within and spreading fire and chaos through the vessel’s command and control areas. The impact struck near the forward end of the superstructure, killing most of those on the bridge, including the captain and many of the ship’s higher ranking officers. Out of control, Graf Zeppelin began to veer off to port as fires continued to build and spread.

No more than ten of 800 and 803 Squadrons’ original twenty-four aircraft came through the attack in one piece, and the survivors now made off to the west at full speed in an effort to avoid pursuit now their primary mission was accomplished. Their retreat also served to draw the defending J-4B fighters away from the stricken carrier, and although just five of the Blackburn Skuas would eventually make it back to Ark Royal, they’d managed to drag out the air battle long enough to exhaust the ammunition and fuel reserves of many of the enemy fighters. With the damage suffered by Graf Zeppelin, those same aircraft of TG186 were now also deprived of a place to land, and they were now forced to turn away to the east and the distant European coast in search of sanctuary.

This left the way clear for the second British attack wave to go in relatively unopposed, and the twenty-seven Fairey Swordfish of 810, 818 and 820 Squadrons found the burning bulk of Graf Zeppelin an easy target. The biplanes roared in at low level in pairs, the low speed that made them so vulnerable in aerial combat now serving to make them an excellent and stable launching platform for the 18-inch torpedoes beneath their bellies. Flak from the ship’s supporting destroyers managed to damage or destroy several of the Swordfish, but the gunners’ effectiveness was substantially reduced by the need to manoeuvre around the out-of-control carrier, and also by the thick clouds of smoke pouring from it’s burning deck.

As the burning ship slowed at the completion of a huge circle to port, fire from her deck began to spread to some of the lower levels, and the Swordfish were able to score no less than a dozen torpedo hits against her main armour belt below the waterline. The torpedoes the Swordfish carried mounted a relatively weak warhead that would be hard-pressed to penetrate Graf Zeppelin’s armour belt in some places, and effective damage control, had there been any, should’ve been able to restrict the effects of their impacts quite well. The fire already raging across her flight deck became the deciding factor, however. Throughout the history of naval warfare, from the age of sail through to modern times, fire was the deadly enemy of any ship… an enemy that if left to its own devices could quickly sweep through a vessel and destroy it. The inferno raging on the ship’s decks, combined with the loss of the ship’s commander and bridge officers, meant that no coherent damage control orders were ever given. Graf Zeppelin began to list notably to port as her speed dropped off even further and tonnes of seawater flooded unchecked into her hull below the waterline.

From the bridge of Bismarck, reports from the retiring fighters of TG186 and the lack of any response from Graf Zeppelin gave the officers there grave concerns regarding the heavy pall of smoke visible on the southern horizon. Lütjens belatedly requested urgent assistance from land-based units of the Kriegsmarine Air Arm on the Dutch mainland, but he knew that in reality, any assistance would be some time in coming by the time aircraft were reassigned from their original missions and rearmed. The cruiser battle moving off to the east looked likely of becoming a crushing German victory, but the main engagement was yet to be joined, and the Royal Navy had already dealt Schlactflotte-1 a telling blow.

The two forces were now no more than twenty kilometres apart, and lookouts and fire controllers could see the enemy capital ships quite clearly. Tirpitz was already calling for permission to open fire, but Lütjens, in accord with Lindemann, had so far refused the request, neither man seeing any point in wasting valuable ammunition at longer ranges that couldn’t guarantee decent accuracy. The distance between the two fleets fell as the minutes wore on, both approaching at oblique angles intended to prevent either from gaining a firing advantage. A tense period of manoeuvring began at the northern edge of the Dogger Bank, as the German ships took the initiative with their superior speed and attempted to cross the British ‘T’. A man of vast naval training, Tovey kept his cool despite his ships’ slower speed, and kept the Home Fleet zigzagging this way and that in tight turns of copybook precision that foiled each attempt, and continued to reduce the distance, enabling the Home Fleet to engage without any disadvantage of range or position.

After almost ten minutes of pointless manoeuvring, Lütjens finally, grudgingly gave up his optimistic attempt to outsail the commanders of the most well-trained navy on the planet, and fell back into formation in preparation for firing. It was therefore the British Home Fleet that won the initial moral ‘high ground’ and fired the opening salvo of the battle at a range of 15,000 metres. With five ships now operating in tight, well-drilled line ahead formation, the battlecruisers Hood and Renown and battleships Nelson, Warspite and Queen Elizabeth would make every effort to capitalise on their one-ship numerical advantage. The obvious size and danger presented by the two leading German warships was clearly apparent to Tovey and his captains, and orders were given for the first two ships in the line –Hood and Renown — to engage Bismarck simultaneously with their 15-inch armament. Nelson, next in the British line, would fire on Tirpitz with her 16-inch guns, while Warspite and Queen Elizabeth were free to engage Scharnhorst and Gneisenau respectively.

Although the sky was as overcast and visibility was moderate at best, as it had been throughout the trip south, the surface of the water of the Dogger Bank had calmed enough to provide no great hindrance to stable gunnery for either side. The British ships fired almost in unison, the flame and smoke of their broadsides simultaneously terrifying and inspiring as their guns reached out for the distant invaders. The crew in their turrets went through their thirty-second reloading cycles as the first of the enemy shells began to fall about them, and although the British ships were inferior in weight of shell in comparison to Bismarck and Tirpitz, they were able to offset that disadvantage to some extent by a higher rate of fire, made even faster by well-drilled and experienced crews.

The German battleships had none of the advantages their cruisers had exploited earlier: all the RN capital ships on the firing line were equipped with gunnery radar and, more to the point, were well-trained in its use against moving targets. Last in line, Queen Elizabeth landed a glancing blow on Gneisenau with just her second salvo, and was immediately able to change her gun status from ‘acquiring’ to ‘on target’. Her next shots were fired for effect with a full broadside of eight 15-inch guns on narrow dispersion, and she fairly bracketed her target with her next three barrages, in the process landing no less than five direct hits. Queen Elizabeth was the only British ship not currently under returned fire, and as such was able to concentrate on her opponent unhindered.

Gneisenau had managed to land two ineffective hits on Warspite, her target in the line, but was in serious danger of losing her part in the duel due to the undivided attention of Queen Elizabeth, with each of the shell strikes against her causing serious damage. Her main directors were quickly put out of action, her three turrets left firing under their own local control with a resultant loss of general accuracy, while one hit on her funnel had fouled her exhaust, cutting her speed and making her an even easier target for Queen Elizabeth’s ceaseless broadsides. Within just ten minutes she was already pulling out of the rear of the German line, taking on water and so badly damaged that she was unable to continue. As Gneisenau ceased firing entirely and her change in course was noted, Queen Elizabeth’s captain rightly dismissed her as hors-de-combat and was able to turn his ship’s attention the next ship in the enemy formation.

Warspite had by that stage already also managed to inflict some severe damage on Scharnhorst, particularly as fire from the stricken Gneisenau had fallen away entirely. With just her third salvo, she’d landed a direct hit against Scharnhorst’s superstructure forward of turret ‘Caesar’ — her single main turret aft. German turret ‘naming’ practice was to accord names in alphabetical order, working backwards. As such, all four of the Kriegsmarine battleships present that day carried the titles of ‘Anton’, ‘Bruno’ and ‘Caesar’ for their three main gun turrets.

The hit in Scharnhorst caused little real damage, but did send debris skyward and started fires that poured a trail of smoke into the air. Her next two ‘on target’ salvoes landed three palpable hits on the battlecruiser as Queen Elizabeth behind landed her own devastating hits on Gneisenau. The two British sister ships, both veterans of the First World War, were quickly gaining the better of their two newer opponents, whose returned broadsides of 15-inch shells were still mostly falling long on their own targets.

Warspite landed hit after hit on Scharnhorst with relentless efficiency as the minutes passed, putting the ship’s two forward turrets out of action and forcing her to also pull out of the battle line with thick clouds of smoke rising into the grey sky as great fires burned along her decks. Queen Elizabeth fired her first ranging salvo on Scharnhorst as Warspite’s next broadside resulted in more devastating hits, one penetrating her engine room and shattering the battlecruiser’s boilers. The resulting savage explosion tore deep rents along the rear of the ship’s hull, above and below the waterline, and Scharnhorst instantly began to settle by the stern as the North Sea poured into her. Her captain gave the order to abandon ship.

As quickly as the battle had turned against the Kriegsmarine at the rear of the battle line, it turned back to their favour at the formation’s head. Bismarck had found Hood’s range quickly and unleashed the full power of her devastating arsenal against the smaller battlecruiser without mercy. Her first ‘on target’ barrage gained one direct hit as a huge, armour-piercing shell tore through the ship’s hull like paper between her fore and aft superstructure and vaporised her seaplane crane, catapult and the decks beneath, leaving serious internal damage.

The very next salvo from the German behemoth landed two more hits on Hood, the first of which punched through her deck at a sharp angle and blew a large hole in her bow that flooded the ship with thousands of tonnes of seawater. The second of the strikes slammed into the battlecruiser’s hull in line with her B-turret, the steel armour belt more than thirty centimetres thick at the point of impact but still not enough to stop the tonne-and-a-half shell. It tore its way deep into the hull before finally detonating within one of the ship’s main magazines, and the resulting explosion vaporised several hundred tonnes of cordite and dozens of 15-inch shells in an instant. The massive blast threw water and debris high into the air as it broke poor Hood’s back and blew her completely in half, sinking her in less than a minute and leaving just three survivors.

Tirpitz also made relatively short work of her target in the battlecruiser Renown, the power of her nine guns quickly battering the lighter armed and armoured ship into submission within just a few minutes and a few savage, direct hits. A lucky first hit hammered through her quarterdeck and shattered the vessel’s steering gear, causing her to veering sharply out of line to starboard with a jammed rudder. Renown initially continued to fire on Bismarck, although she was unable to find much accuracy as her course continued to change dramatically, but Tirpitz’s next salvo slammed into her again with no less than three hits, two of which breached her hull below the waterline and flooded her badly.

She began to take on more water than her watertight compartments or counter-flooding could handle and began to sink. Two more salvoes hit her again as she slowed and settled in the water, and just moments later, Renown capsized and her stern began to rise. The Dogger Bank was well-known to be quite shallow in parts, and the dying battlecruiser’s sinking bow struck the thick sandy bottom of the sea below before her upright stern had disappeared below the waves. She would remain that way for several weeks, her nose embedded in the bank and her stern still buoyant due to air trapped within, before finally coming loose once more and disappearing for the last time during a late October storm. Propaganda newsreel footage of her angled, exposed stern with damaged rudders and screws still turning would provide the Nazi press with images that would be seen around the entire globe in the aftermath of the invasion, and no more than a few hundred of her crew would survive the incident.

Just fifteen minutes after the commencement of battle, the numerical odds had shifted but remained theoretically in the Home Fleet’s favour to the tune of three ships to two, although such statistics weren’t indicative of the true situation. While the three RN battleships were now able to concentrate fire upon the two remaining enemy warships, those opponents were a pair of superbattleships that were the pride of the entire Kriegsmarine. Bismarck and Tirpitz had been designed to take punishment from guns of a similar calibre to their own — guns that threw shells almost double the weight and penetrating power of those the British could bring to bear against them. The hardened steel armour that clad their hulls, decks and turrets was in some places up to sixty centimetres thick, and although three separate warships had landed a number of hits on both vessels during the battle so far, none had been able to inflict anything more than some insignificant, superficial damage.

Responding to distress calls from first Gneisenau and then Scharnhorst, the two superbattleships next turned their attention on the rear of the British line and the two Great War veterans, Warspite and Queen Elizabeth. Shrugging off successive impacts from 15-inch shells that dented her hide but did no real damage other than neutralising some of her lighter flak guns, Tirpitz quickly gained the range of Queen Elizabeth and slammed her with salvo after salvo of increasingly accurate fire. One shell penetrated and shattered her rear X-turret, smoke pouring from every opening as its guns lay pointing uselessly at the deck. Another shell smashed into her rear superstructure, killed hundreds and started several large fires, while a third and fourth punched holes in her hull and caused massive flooding.

A fifth shell penetrated and detonated a secondary magazine aft, the explosion not enough to destroy the ship but certainly powerful enough to inflict incapacitating damage. Queen Elizabeth suddenly found herself devoid of power as her main dynamos went offline along with her boilers, and she stopped almost dead in the water, pouring smoke into the air as debris from the magazine explosion sprayed into the air in all directions. The battleship began to take on a significant list to starboard.

Bismarck ranged and went ‘on target’ on Warspite at about the same time her sister ship was firing on Queen Elizabeth. In a savage and rather one-sided, five-minute duel, the Jutland veteran lost three turrets, her main fire director and most of her electrical power, with little damage inflicted in return. She also lost a substantial number of her crew, including all of her command, and she was soon drifting out of action and burning as furiously as Queen Elizabeth. As was often the case with the unpredictable and fluid nature of battle, advantages, either real of imagined, were often fleeting, and the advantage in this particular battle that had seemed to favour the British just moments before had now suddenly and dramatically turned against the Royal Navy once more.

Harwood had been forced to assume command of the fleet the moment Hood had been obliterated, taking Sir John Tovey with her. He could clearly see that although they’d initially had some success, it was becoming increasingly obvious their firepower simply wasn’t great enough to damage the remaining enemy ships at that range. Nelson had been firing on Tirpitz throughout the engagement and hadn’t yet managed to inflict any more than minor damage, although several small fires were now burning around the enemy ship’s superstructure; nor had the added fire of Queen Elizabeth and Warspite improved the situation. Rear-Admiral Henry Harwood realised that some kind of change was needed, and that change was needed quickly.

It was Nelson that would ultimately provide the Royal Navy with its last fleeting hopes of success. Harwood’s resulting actions would earn him, among others, a posthumous Victoria Cross and would guarantee his place in history in what would eventually become known as the ‘Second Battle of The Dogger Bank’. As he watched the burning Warspite drift out of the battle line, leaving Nelson to carry on alone, Harwood immediately gave orders for the ship to turn onto a sharper angle of approach toward the enemy fleet that would nevertheless allow her to present a full ‘broadside’ due to the unique disposition of Nelson’s main armament in three forward turrets.

“England expects that every man will do his duty!” That broadcast, which Harwood then made to his crew over open radio channels for all within range to hear, was a reiteration of the words of Viscount Horatio Nelson at the opening of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and it somehow seemed singularly appropriate aboard the ship that held that great commander as her namesake. There would be many who would later privately feel the award of the VC was as much for those famous last words as for any action that followed.

The statement certainly seemed to inspire his crew as Nelson turned onto her new course and increased speed to 22 knots. The sudden change in direction ruined the firing solutions of both German warships as they abandoned fire on their shattered opponents and tried to draw a bead on her, and they wasted many minutes in adjustments to their fire control as Nelson let rip with a broadside aimed directly at the tall silhouette of Tirpitz. That salvo and the one following produced only misses, some close, as shells fell about the battleship however the third broadside was far more fortunate. Four shells from that miraculous nine-gun blast struck the battleship, and although her heavy armour was able to shrug off two of them, the other two finally managed to deal the behemoth some serious damage.

Perhaps as a result of striking areas already weakened by prior impacts, one managed to penetrate the top armour of turret ‘Anton’, and the resultant internal explosion almost tore it from its mountings, setting it askew with its trio of guns left useless and pointing randomly into the air off Tirpitz’s port bow. The second shell tore through the hull amidships, spreading chaos in her boiler rooms, and two dozen men were lost to fire caused by the explosion before preventative flooding could quell the flames, adding their names to the hundred-odd killed instantly by the hit on A-turret.

The next combined return salvo from Bismarck and a subdued Tirpitz missed Nelson completely, at that point the only British ship that had managed to so far remain completely unscathed. Nelson’s fourth salvo struck Tirpitz again, two direct hits absorbed by the superbattleship’s thick hide of hardened steel as a third tore through the superstructure and killed dozens of officers and men. Fire control and power to turret ‘Caesar’ was suddenly cut completely by the damage inflicted, leaving the battleship with just one functional main turret and placing greater strain on her overloaded remaining boilers. She began to lose power, and with just one turret operating, Lütjens had no option but to order her out of the battle line.

The second German salvo against Nelson, now from only the guns of Bismarck, again missed her completely as the British ship suddenly changed course. She altered her direction 120̊ to starboard in a battleship’s equivalent of ‘tacking’, reversing her oblique angle of approach and allowing her nine guns to bear from the other side of her bow as she again threw out her enemies’ firing solutions. One shell of the next barrage did detonate against the upper part of her smokestack, killing a number of exposed ratings with shrapnel, but that was relatively minor damage all the same.

Nelson continued to direct her increasingly successful fire upon Tirpitz as the superbattleship began to pull out of line to starboard. Contact from the mainland advised that air support was no more than fifteen minutes away, but even so it seemed to Lütjens that perhaps the unbelievable was happening… that this single surviving British battleship might potentially turn what was already a disaster into an outright, crushing defeat.

Nelson fired again, and the gunnery direction behind that salvo was inspired. It would subsequently earn the officer in control of the fire directors — a man who’d be one of the few dozen of her crew to survive the battle — a Victoria Cross for his efforts. Five armour-piercing 16-inch shells out of nine fired hit the German warship, and of those, no less than three were able to punch through her weakened and abused top armour to reach the vulnerable decks below. One of them found Tirpitz’s forward main magazines, and the combined explosion of propellant and 460mm shells literally blew the warship to pieces forward of her superstructure. As a gigantic, boiling mushroom cloud of smoke and flame rolled skyward, and debris rained over many square kilometres of sea around her, everything forward of the superbattleship’s bridge simply disintegrated. She instantly began to take on water through her shattered forward hull at a rate no damage control could ever hope to contain. Within three minutes, Tirpitz’s stern lifted into the air and she slid beneath the surface of the North Sea.

The next salvo from Bismarck found accuracy that was as much out of desperation as any quality of training, and she finally managed to bracket the oncoming Nelson properly and switched to ‘on target’. Two of Bismarck’s 460mm shells hit her then, the first of those striking her a glancing blow across her foredeck and flooding her forward compartments with seawater, while the second ripped through her superstructure, grazing the port side of the bridge before exploding against her funnel. Shrapnel and fragmentation from the second blast tore through her superstructure, killing many on the bridge including Harwood, yet still she came on as her hard-won speed began to fall off dramatically. The only man left alive on the bridge, her XO, instantly took control of the situation and ordered her onward, the fleeting opportunity that lay before them crystal clear. He changed tack once more, trying to buy some more time as Nelson came about once more to port, and she this time fired her last, defiant broadsides at the remaining enemy vessel: Bismarck.

Three shells of Nelson’s third salvo struck the massive ship, one passing completely through her funnel to explode against the surface of the ocean, several hundred metres beyond. The second impacted against Bismarck’s superstructure, tearing apart one of the superbattleship’s triple 128mm secondary gun turrets in the process, while the third smashed through her broad, open quarterdeck at a sharp angle and destroyed the helicopter hangar below along with all five aircraft inside.

Luck seemed to remain with Nelson momentarily, as Bismarck’s next nine-gun barrage provided the only two duds of the entire engagement, both of them otherwise quite palpable hits. The first passed completely through the British ship’s starboard side at a sharp angle, exiting barely above the waterline and killing just four people unlucky enough to be directly in its path. The second scudded off the side of Nelson’s ‘X’ turret and embedded itself in the ship’s lower decks, most of its energy already spent.

Her good fortune vanished a moment later however as she was torn apart by no less than six massive explosions along the entire length of her port side.

During the course of the Realtime war, the Heinkel Model 177 Grief had entered service in 1942 as the Luftwaffe’s only true heavy bomber. A ludicrous insistence in also using the aircraft as a huge dive bomber resulted in numerous teething problems and an initial reputation of unreliability that it later found difficult to shake, regardless of some clear success in its designed role as a strategic bomber. The world of Reuter’s devising had created no such problems of ‘identity’ for the He-177, and it had entered service with the Luftwaffe in the middle of 1940 with the designation B-8B. A number of variants had been developed, including one for the expanding air arm of the Kriegsmarine (B-8E) that was proving to be an excellent long-range patrol and anti-shipping aircraft. The Grief could lift 6,000kg of ordnance into the air, and deliver it to a combat radius of over 1,500 kilometres, and the Kriegsmarine had found it perfect as a carrier aircraft for its newest and most secret weapon.

The Fiesler Fi-103 was known officially within the OKW as the SAR-2A ‘Dreizack’ (‘Trident’), and was the world’s first air-to-surface guided missile. Developed by the company that in Realtime would’ve produced the V1 ‘buzz-bomb’ (also given the designation Fi-103 in that original version of history), the Trident was eight metres long, and had moderately swept wings with a span of almost five metres. Weighing more than two tonnes each, they were far too large to be carried in the bomb bay of any aircraft, but two could be carried beneath the inner wings of the B-8E.

It could be directed onto targets up to fifty kilometres away by radar systems on the releasing aircraft, and was able to guide itself with its own active systems during the ‘terminal’ phase of the attack from ranges of approximately ten kilometres out. It drew its inspiration from a simple yet quite effective Soviet anti-ship missile of the Realtime 1950s that was known as the P-15 Termit (SS-N-2 ‘Styx’ by NATO designation), and its 500kg shaped-charge warhead could devastate all but the largest of vessels.

A battleship of Nelson’s size might well have shrugged off a single strike from one of those missiles, but the simultaneous impact of six such weapons was more than any vessel could hope to endure. No one had seen it coming: the trio of launch aircraft had remained completely out of visual range, and with an approach that was almost supersonic, the Tridents had been far too quick for anyone to spot in time to raise a warning. Nelson slowed to a halt, dead in the water and mortally wounded as another six missiles smashed into the ruined ship. The end wasn’t long in coming, and although a number of life rafts managed to get away, most of her crew ended up trapped inside her hull as the valiant old ship capsized. She turned over with incredible speed as her entire port side filled with sea water that poured in through twelve huge, jagged holes in her hull. One more Trident smashed into her exposed keel as her stern finally rose slowly into the air, and Nelson slipped slowly beneath the waves of the North Sea while another missile suddenly found itself devoid of a target and smashed itself to pieces on the water’s surface a few hundred metres beyond where Nelson had disappeared.

The whole time that battle had raged, an exceptionally fierce smaller engagement had played out between them in ‘no man’s land’ as escorting destroyers of both fleets met at closer range and tried to fight their way past each other to press home torpedo attacks on the enemy capital ships. In this smaller skirmish, the British outnumbered the German destroyers by fully two to one, and had won a resounding victory which had allowed the destroyers Lance and Punjabi to break through and finish off Scharnhorst with torpedoes. Their success was short-lived however, as single Trident missiles smashed each vessel to pieces moments later, and still more of the guided weapons slammed into the already stricken Warspite and Queen Elizabeth, both of them also sinking almost immediately. Many kilometres to the north, only Ark Royal and the torpedo-damaged Malaya were able to avoid destruction as the pair of ships formed up with their remaining destroyer escorts and retreated to the north at best possible speed, seeking the relative safety of Scapa Flow.

At the Battle of The Dogger Bank in 1915, neither the Royal Navy nor the German High Seas Fleet had been able to capitalise on their opportunities, and the engagement had ended in little more than a costly ‘draw’ as a result. The Second Battle of The Dogger Bank of 11th September, 1940 would soon be overshadowed by the rest of the momentous events unfolding that day, but within naval circles the world over it would be discussed for decades to come, and as was the case with the First World War engagement, that debate would be as much over missed opportunities as for what did come to pass. One thing that was certain was that the name of HMS Nelson and the story of her final, unforgettable last stand against the overpowering might of those Kriegsmarine superbattleships would become symbolic in its representation of what had been lost to the entirety of The British Empire in that moment she heeled over and capsized. With her passing, as with that of the ironclad Thunder Child in Wells’ novel of a different, Martian invasion, Britain’s last hope of halting the onslaught also vanished into history.

Hindsight emergency airstrip ‘Alternate’

Eday, Orkney Islands

The flight deck of the Galaxy was well-insulated and was also relatively soundproof as a result, and Davies managed to keep Eileen distracted long enough for her not to notice the sound of the Lightning’s engine spooling up until it was far too late to do anything about it. The F-35E was already starting to taxi along the concrete runway as she dived past him and down the access ladder to the main cargo deck, and Trumbull had executed a perfect short take-off by the time she’d bolted down the forward loading ramp.

“Where in the name of God is that silly bugger going?” She howled at Davies as the man joined her a moment later on the runway, and the Lightning disappeared through the low cloud cover above.

“Training exercise…?” Davies offered hopefully.

“‘Training exercise’ my bloody arse, Jack…!” Eileen snarled, drawing in close to him and standing face to face, blasting him with her words in a fashion he’d never before experienced. “I know where the bastard’s going, and I know you were in on the whole thing!” He’d never seen the woman lose her temper in a position of command, and it was a side of her that unnerved him… he found he didn’t care for it one little bit.

“I don’t know what upsets me more,” she continued, walking away from him again now, hands on her hips in exasperation and clutching at the waist of her combat jacket. “The fact that you’re disobeying orders in the stupidest possible way… or that you didn’t think to come to me first if you were working on a plan to try and find Max.”

“It was a kinda ‘spur of the moment’ thing,” Davies offered with an apologetic shrug. “The boy knows his stuff, Eileen… give him some credit.”

“Knows just enough tae get himself intae trouble…!” She growled, her accent becoming more pronounced under stress. “How the hell does he think he’ll find the man with all this shite going on?”

“He knows Southern England from the air, and he knows as much as we do: that Max is in Kent, somewhere near Ashford. He also knows Max has his radio with him, and the frequency he needs to contact him. You think Max won’t respond when he hears Alec calling for him…?”

“This is not over…!” Eileen snapped back, not in the slightest bit pleased by the situation, or how it had come about. “This is far from over!” Taking into account the dark expression on her face, Davies was inclined to believe her.

20. Prodigal Sons

Prepared defensive lines at Smeeth

South-East of Ashford, Kent

As the Home Fleet and Kriegsmarine were trading their first shots off the Dogger Bank, reports were beginning to filter back to the defences near Smeeth that enemy units were advancing in their vicinity. The consistent cloud-cover of morning had transformed after midday into a dark and brooding pall that flickered with the occasional burst of hidden lightning and threatened of rain, none of that helped by literally tonnes of smoke that had been pouring into the atmosphere all day across South-East England due to the intensity of combat. Visibility was cut severely, as was the ambient temperature to the point of almost being chilly, and there was an excellent chance of a fog or mist rising as evening drew closer; something that would certainly aid the defenders immensely.

The drop in available light due to the thickening cloud cover was enough to cut vision markedly, and that in itself would provide the tanks and guns dug in across the A20 with badly-needed assistance. There’d been reports that Dover and Folkestone had fallen already, and if that were indeed the case, masses of troops and extra materiel would soon be joining this first wave of invaders. There’d been no indication of how thing were faring in the other invasion areas to the south-west as yet, although landings in Sussex and Hampshire had also been confirmed.

Jimmy Davids and his crew were tense and as ready for their first taste of combat as they’d ever be. There was a certain amount of fear and nervousness of course, but the fact that they’d be defending their own country went a long way to balancing the scales. All had heard the sounds of battle off to the east that’d been going on since dawn, and could easily see the haze of smoke and dust that had hung across the entire eastern horizon, thick enough to taint and discolour the overcast skies across the eastern tree-lines that morning. They’d all also heard and felt the distant, booming detonations of 800mm shells as Gustav and Dora had first bombarded the beach neat St Mary’s Bay, then Dover into oblivion, and it hadn’t been difficult to guess at the origin of those far-off explosions, although there’d been no official reports. Captain Carroll was normally forthright in passing on information to his men about what was going on, and the silence they were now receiving from both their commander and 2IC, accompanied by their unsettling expressions, was as damning as any spoken words might’ve been.

Something the crew of Grosvenor hadn’t expected that afternoon was the arrival of three armed men on foot, guided by their own lieutenant. The trio were dressed in a varying manner of camouflage smocks and fatigues, and carried an equally-broad variety of weaponry along with their backpacks and webbing. Amazingly, one of them proved to be a German officer, dressed in a very poorly-maintained Luftwaffe uniform beneath a long, ‘tiger-striped’ battle-jacket. Little was given by way of explanation for the men’s presence, other than orders from the CO that Davids’ crew was to ‘look after them’, although for what exact purpose was intentionally left unsaid. An Australian and American accompanied the German pilot, and it quickly became clear that the Aussie was in charge, while the Yank was carrying a ‘rifle’ on his back large enough to be more at home mounted on a split-trail gun carriage. The fact that the German was also armed, the butt of a Luger poking from the flap of his regulation, cross-draw holster, gave none of the tank crew any feelings of amity or comfort.

Gerry Gawler, the German-hating gunner, had by his own admission almost gone into ‘conniptions’ upon discovery of a despised ‘Hun’ in their ranks, and there’d been some tense moments, along with some stern glares from the Australian and (to a lesser extent) the American, and some serious talk from Davids, before the corporal had calmed himself down enough for the Luftwaffe officer to be allowed anywhere near the tank. Although unlikely, Davids didn’t put it beyond the realms of possibility their commanding officer had purposefully volunteered his tank because of the well-known hatred Gawler harboured for the enemy: the CO’s warped sense of humour was well known, and to be honest, some light relief couldn’t hurt to boost morale.

The Australian — introduced as an Air Vice Marshal by the name of Max Thorne — was at least somewhat more forthcoming about why the trio were there. Although he quoted ‘Official Secrets’ and gave little detail, he explained they’d come along to make sure the German was returned to his side as the invaders advanced, and the rest wasn’t hard to work out: although no one was admitting it, the man was ‘obviously’ a British agent preparing to infiltrate the enemy. That was all well and good in Davids’ opinion, and the logic certainly mollified Gawler a great deal. Keeping in mind that the man might actually be an agent for MI6 or SOE helped the gunner force himself to at least try to be civil.

Within minutes of arrival, Thorne was using a small, strange-looking radio set attached to his webbing belt, its microphone mounted at his collar, and appeared to be communicating with a relaying station they all assumed was in London. He’d given their approximate location and a précis of the situation, and there’d been some relatively heated discussion that had left the man red-faced and ill-tempered for a short time, although he’d moved far enough away from the tank to keep the actual content of the conversation’s private.

It was in this fashion that the three newcomers spent an unusual hour or so in the company of the crew of Matilda II infantry tank Grosvenor of A Sqn, 7th Royal Tank Regiment. The tankers were obliging, and passed around warm tea that was gratefully received, although Connolly as usual insisted on coffee to be difficult, and was more than a little miffed when Ritter agreed with his choice of brew, requesting coffee also and spoiling the tank driver’s fun in being the only person wanting something different. Most of that time, the trio in any case preferred to keep to themselves by the rear of the Matilda, which offended no one. It also gave Davids and his boys a chance to speak about the trio in hushed whispers, and spend some free time in discussion over the group’s true purpose.

“How’re you holding up, Carl?” Thorne inquired as the three men stood together, holding tin cups filled with hot beverage. He could see the pilot was displaying signs of stress in his expressions and actions, and he didn’t envy the man’s situation. Ritter also stank to high heaven, which also must’ve been causing the man some serious discomfort, considering how much it was already offending his and Kransky’s senses of smell.

The story they’d devised for the pilot’s return to the Wehrmacht was one of having made a forced landing in Scotland following the attack on Scapa Flow, then escaping custody while being transferred to London for interrogation. Ritter’s uniform had been exposed to some rather rigorous environments in support of the pretence in order to produce the required look and, more importantly, the appropriate smell.

“This is… not easy…” The German admitted after a moment’s thought.

“Well… if it helps, the Wehrmacht was coming anyway, regardless of Hindsight, and as such you’d have ended up back home regardless in the end.”

“Back home, yes… the chance of being uncovered as a spy…‘no so much’ is the phrase I believe I’ve heard you use on occasion…”

“I can’t force you to do anything for us, Carl,” Thorne pointed out. “You know who to contact once you’re back in Germany, but no one will actively seek you out… it’s up to you whether you do anything about what you know.”

“I think I know you well enough now to know you would not expose me if I do not have the strength,” Ritter ventured, his tone holding great nervousness and fear. “But there are my wife and the boys now to think of also… I am… concerned…”

“There are a lot of things I probably could do, Carl,” Thorne agreed, nodding slowly, “and I’m a little ashamed to admit that I at least thought about some of them… you could be our only hope, and this is that important.” He shrugged. “But I like to sleep at nights too, mate,” he explained simply, hoping the man could understand that. “It’s your call on what you and your conscience can live with… I’m not going to push you into it.”

“I too have to sleep though, yes?” The man grimaced in return, his thoughts turning again to the exterminations his countrymen would exact on defenceless Jews and other so-called ‘undesirables’ in the next few years, the sadness of it all sweeping over him.

“What are we that we could do such a thing?” Ritter added with a hollow voice. “Is Germany a land of butchers? I’ve lived through these times, and I saw what was happening, just like everyone else…” his voice trailed off for a moment “…yet none of us have really seen what we’ve allowed to go on right under our noses.” Ritter hadn’t been one of the growing number of Germans from all over the country who’d voted for the NSDAP and Adolf Hitler in the elections that had eventually brought the Nazis to power in 1933, but thinking back now, neither could he recall anyone, himself included, being particularly active in decrying their tactics or their extremist creed. In his heart, he’d known they’d been be the major cause behind the waves of violence, disruption and civil disturbance that’d signalled the death knell of the Weimar Republic and caused the cries for order that’d swept those same Nazis to power… and he was now left wondering how he and his fellow Germans had allowed the insanity to continue without even a peep.

“There are hundreds of thousands of pages of discussions, arguments and dissertations in our time about it,” Thorne gave a sad, rueful smile of understanding sympathy. “People do PhDs on the ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’ of how Hitler manipulated and held the entire German population spellbound… or at least enough of it to ensure political victories and entry to the Reichstag.” He took a sip at the steaming tea and shrugged. “Hitler was — is — a freak of nature that defies complete explanation. Had he been born at any other time in history or made a home in any country other than Germany, he’d probably never have reached the heights he has. Carl, in many ways you’re not exactly a man of your time: you think too much in deeper areas than many care to venture. You’d be more at home in my time, I think, than this one, but you’re still a German for all that. The part of Europe your country occupies has been fragmented, invaded and fought over for centuries — its geographical position alone on the European continent means that there have historically only been two true states of being for what’s now the modern German nation: divided and controlled by other nations, or unified and dangerous.

“Your ancestors have historically been raised under the continual threat of invasion or other pressures, and have developed as an incredibly ordered and martial people as a result. You only have to look at the histories of Arminius, right through to the Prussians and the formation of Modern Germany to see that, and that kind of heritage responds to order and direction… it respects strong figures that promise more of the same. Hitler used and abused that natural tendency as a nation.” He gave a wry grin as a thought occurred to him. “There’s an old joke in our time that claims the two greatest tricks Austria ever played on the world were convincing everyone that Hitler was German, and that Beethoven was Austrian.” He paused. “There’s all that… and then, some of it’s our fault too.”

“Your fault…?”

“Well… not my fault as such… the fault of Versailles and the Allied Powers is what I meant.”

“This is hard to understand,” Ritter countered with the hint of an exasperated smile on his lips now as Kransky listened to the conversation with great interest. “First you show me how terrible The Führer is, and what he will do to Germany and the world, and then you agree with him and his claims regarding Versailles.”

“Like I said… Hitler was in exactly the right country t exactly the right time for him to succeed. I’m speaking from the benefit of hindsight of course — no pun intended — but the vindictiveness of the Allied Powers after World War One and the imposition of ludicrous, impossible war reparations and restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles produced exactly the right conditions for the rise of the Nazi party. The economic depressions that hit the world during at the end of the 1920s weren’t restricted to Germany alone, but the unwavering insistence of the Allies over the continued payment of reparations exacerbated the problems in your country beyond belief. The arrogant occupation of the Rhineland by the French between the wars, and Germany’s subsequent loss of industrial capacity only served to make things worse again… and all of that no more than vengeance in retaliation for the First World War, vindictiveness over the German occupation of Alsace-Lorraine prior to that, and French defeats at German hands at the end of the last century. The only voice even resembling sanity at the time was that of Woodrow Wilson and the United States, and their ‘compromise’ was to reduce German reparations to the point they’d be completed in Nineteen Eighty-Eight!

“And then, once the Nazis actually gain power, those same arrogant Allies finally start to feel some long-overdue guilt about the way Germany was treated at Versailles and turn a blind eye while Hitler gets away with murder — literally — in the abolition of democracy, the deceptive absorption of Austria into the Reich, and outright invasion of Czechoslovakia.” He shook his head, vaguely feeling genuine anger regarding the explanation. “The British and the French declare war on Germany after your lot invade Poland, then do nothing for the better part of a bloody year! They might as well have ignored the Poles and left Hitler alone, for all the good that declaration did… and the whole world war might’ve been avoided in process, or at least postponed. Hitler never wanted a war in the west… particularly not one against Britain: the east was always his objective right from the start. Carl, Hitler may have fooled Germany into allowing him his dictatorship, but the Allies played their part in giving him the opportunity to deceive you all.” Thorne’s voice became quite grim. “Germans aren’t the only ones to blame for where the world is at right now, Carl, and Germans sure as hell aren’t the only ones to suffer as a result.”

“But it’s a German who now holds the best chance of restoring this world,” Ritter conceded with sullen certainty.

Thorne nodded in thanks as much as in agreement, knowing the man had reaffirmed the decision they’d hoped for. “We’ll have you passed back to your lines as they push forward,” he veered off on a slightly different subject and patted one of the large pouches of his webbing. “I’ve a bloody great white flag here big enough to — hopefully — make sure no one gets trigger happy… as soon as the fighting starts, you’ll need to hole up toward the rear lines here and allow the battle to push past.”

“I am glad you’re so certain this is going to work.”

“As certain as I can be… war’s an unpredictable business after all…” Thorne was interrupted at that point as Davids poked his head from the turret of the Matilda and called out to him. He excused himself and clambered up onto the rear decking of the tank. Grosvenor and the rest of the tanks around them were dug in almost to the level of the turret ring, and the hull was now low enough to make it a relatively simple task to step up to the turret.

“You said you had kids?” Kransky asked softly as he stood alone with Ritter. He knew little of the man’s history, but recalled what Thorne had said back at Lyness regarding him being the father of Kurt Reuters in Realtime. He couldn’t help but wonder if that ‘boy’ might’ve been one of those he’d been referring to.

“There’s a young boy and an infant my wife and I have taken into our care…” Ritter began hesitantly, a little surprised by the unexpected question.

“Their own family is dead?”

“Murdered by the SS at their home near my airfield… his mother and sister both…”

Utter shock registered on Kransky’s face as the penny dropped. “Jesus, you’re talking about the St. Charles’ farm?”

“Yes, that’s the place exactly!” Ritter was also amazed. “You know of them, major?”

“I dunno if I should tell you this,” Kransky breathed deeply before continuing “but I was there that night… the night the family was killed.” There was a long moment of silence and intent stares before Ritter’s mind made the right connections.

“Mein Gott, you were the sniper! You shot that trooper.” As Kransky nodded, Ritter acted in a completely unexpected manner and instinctively reached out to grab the American’s hand, shaking it strongly. “You saved the boy that night… probably both of them… of this I’ve no doubt! They’re with my wife’s now, only because you gave him the chance to escape.”

“I didn’t know the kid was okay… I couldn’t hang around to find out,” Kransky shrugged and gave a self-deprecating smile, and in that moment of revelation, his impression of the German officer went from neutral tolerance to grudging admiration. “I’m glad to know it worked out okay. Look after him, okay buddy?”

“If I make it through this day I shall certainly try to do just that.”

“Well, have a little faith there,” the American almost smiled, clapping a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You won’t be on your own when you ‘go over’… I’ll be keeping an eye on you.” He jerked his head back toward the barrel of the huge rifle slung over his shoulder. “You’ve seen what I can do.”

Thorne was back beside them a moment later, his expression quite serious as both of the others looked up and noticed there’d also been a distinct change in the general tension around the tank crew.

“Forward scouts have reported enemy movement near Sellindge… that’s only a couple of klicks down the road.”

“How long have we got?” Kransky asked, his mind and senses instantly sharp and alert.

“How long’s a piece of string?” Thorne asked with a grim smile. “Your guess is as good as mine, but probably no more than five or ten minutes if they mean business.” He glanced about at the surrounding landscape. “Better get ourselves some cover… things might well be about to turn very ugly!”

The defenders waited in tense anticipation as the dark silhouettes of enemy armour began to appear in shadows and glimpses beyond the trees on either side of the A20 coming up from Hythe, staying well away from the road at all times. The approaching enemy were well-trained and conscious of the danger of ambush, and were therefore avoiding any situations that might allow defenders to launch a surprise attack. Most of the civilians fleeing the coastal areas had already struggled past 7RTR’s position that late in the afternoon, although some stragglers were still forced to vacate the road and seek what shelter they could find as the alert was raised.

The howling of enemy engines could be heard here and there overhead, but the lowering cloud cover made the shapes passing by above dark and indistinct: visibility and the weather in general were now so poor that any aerial attack would be almost suicidal. In any case, no one on the ground below was stupid enough to open fire and draw their attention, and without provocation to aid their targeting, picking out the dug-in, camouflaged positions under the trees would be near impossible in those conditions.

Kransky decided to stay well clear of any gun emplacements or tank pits, and instead dragged himself into the lower branches of some nearby trees, seeking a little height to better put his rifle to work. Seated with his head poking out of Grosvenor’s commander’s hatch, Davids noted with surprise that the Australian had slung his own strange-looking rifle and instead produced a small and unusual black device that appeared to be a camera of some sort, although it looked like none he’d ever seen before. Thorne crouched beside him on the hull decking to his right and rested the thing on the turret roof to provide a steady view. It was barely bigger than the man’s hand, with a long tube protruding from the front that Davids assumed had to be some kind of lens, and he also noticed with intrigue that there was a tiny, colour viewing screen set into its backing plate that removed any need for Thorne to stare through the viewfinder mounted in its top edge.

Davids forced himself to return his attention to the danger approaching from the east as the device clicked and whirred beside him, and Thorne took pictures of the distant enemy. The pictures he was hoping to capture on the digital camera might well provide them with intelligence that was useful for later operations, albeit operations possibly staged from the other side of the planet.

“That fancy-lookin’ rifle o’ yours mightn’t be much use agin’ tanks, sir, but I warrant it’ll be more use than takin’ holiday snaps o’ the buggers!” The sergeant observed softly without sarcasm or malice.

“Oh, this’ll be useful enough, sergeant,” Thorne replied with a dark smile, “but I do wish I’d something a bit heavier to throw at the bastards, I’ll admit…”

…like a fucking nuke or three…! He added in sour silence for perhaps the millionth time in the last forty-eight hours, cursing over the discovery not one of them had thought possible in all the months since they’d arrived in that era: that their temporal ‘jump’ back from the future had made the fissile material in all of their thermonuclear weapons completely inert. It seemed that ‘Curly’ and ‘Mo’ — the two remaining B83 weapons they possessed — would work well enough otherwise, but until equipment existed in that era to refine and machine sufficient bomb-grade plutonium, the weapons were no better than a pair of one-tonne paperweights.

German recon units appeared at the distant line of the trees at that moment. Several Weisel light tanks drew to a halt at the edge of the woods as troopers deployed from the rear of a pair of Marder infantry fighting vehicles behind them, spreading out to cover their flanks. With a light mist rising, and poor visibility that was becoming progressively worse as evening approached, it’d be unlikely they’d be able to pick out the concealed British defences across three hundred metres of hazy open fields.

“Years here ahead of us, and the bastards still can’t be original,” Thorne growled to himself, ignoring Davids’ quizzical expression as he zoomed in on the vehicles and took several pictures of each one in turn: to him, the P-1C tanks were instantly recognisable as direct copies of 1980s-vintage British Scimitar light reconnaissance vehicles.

“Never seen anything like those before, sir,” Davids mused uncertainly from his commander’s hatch, observing the arrivals through a pair of field glasses. The infantry vehicles were substantially larger than the light tanks, were armed with a long-barrelled, automatic cannon mounted in a small turret on one side of the forward hull, and appeared to be derived from a full-sized tank chassis of some unknown type.

“SS recon units…Totenkopf division…” Thorne noted clinically, continuing to take pictures as he spoke “…I can see the ‘Deaths Head’ insignia on the turrets.” He grimaced as he took in a trivial piece of information. “Yellow unit numbers… interesting…” He snapped his attention back to the matters at hand. “Those light tanks will be the advanced guard,” he advised Davids. “The heavies won’t be far behind them.”

“CO wants us to hold off until they’re right out in the open… to only fire once they’re within two hundred yards,” Davids explained, relaying the orders they’d all been given. “I just hope the bloody clouds up there keep their bloody aircraft off our heads.”

“You and me both, mister,” Thorne agreed heartily, still staring at the camera’s LCD screen and taking pictures as he watched more light armoured vehicles and infantry spread out across the distant tree line. “Hel-lo…” he growled with slow, emphatic sourness “…here come the ‘big boys’!” His eyes never left the screen as he lowered the zoom momentarily and scanned back and forth, now able to pick out the unmistakably low, squat silhouettes of main battle tanks beyond the trees. The Germans were following standard ‘overwatch’ procedure, and as soon as the first group were in position to give covering fire, the newly-arrived armour and troops would begin to slowly push forward across the open fields toward them.

“Those ‘big boys’ really are… big…!” Davids observed slowly, his voice wavering with uncertainty as his mind registered how large those new tanks actually were… far larger than any he’d ever before encountered, their shape alien and unnerving. The two-piece gun barrels projecting from their flattened, hemispherical turrets were longer than anything the defenders had seen fitted to a tank, German or otherwise, and just the sight of them was enough to place doubt in their minds regarding their ability to fight back.

“Shit a brick…!” Thorne exclaimed softly, the officer’s use of such language surprising Davids as the Australian continued to fire away with more photographs. Although there were some minor differences in detail, he also recognised the heavy tanks instantly, along with the shape of the main gun they mounted.

He looked up over the top of the camera for a moment, as if taking in the ‘bigger picture’ before them, and made an important decision. Lowering the camera and turning it off, he removed the lens and slipped both back into one of the large pockets of his jacket, immediately unslinging his rifle and drawing back the cocking handle.

“Those tanks are too much for your gun, sergeant,” he stated matter-of-factly as he engaged the weapon’s safety, the remark heard by all of the Matilda’s crew and doing their confidence no good at all. “The three-point-sevens can probably take them out… and maybe the ten-pounders from the flanks… but your two-pounder won’t even scratch the paint unless you can shoot ‘em in the arse!”

He paused for a moment, his eyes never leaving the approaching tanks as the rumble of their engines and the squeal of their tracks echoed eerily through the misty air. “I’m pretty sure the gun they’re mounting is an eighty-eight millimetre Flak-36, and I don’t have to tell you how nasty they are! Let your CO know that you guys’ll be able to take out the light tanks and probably the infantry vehicles, but you should leave the big bastards to the heavier guns!” He gave an apologetic grin. “That being said, I’m now going to bugger off! It looks like the shit’s about to hit the fan, and I need to make sure my boy’s tucked away somewhere safe and sound.” He reached out and patted the sergeant on the shoulder. “Good luck, mate, and don’t piss about if things turn savage: that lot’ll cut you lot to pieces, given half a chance!” With that final, less-than-encouraging piece of wisdom, Thorne backed carefully away to the rear of the Matilda while Davids began to pass on his information he’d been given to his commanders.

“Out of that bloody tree, Richard,” Thorne growled sharply as he approached the American’s position, Ritter in tow. ‘Things are going to get a bit bloody nasty right around here, and it might be a good idea to find somewhere a little less unsavoury!”

“I sure as hell don’t like the look of those tanks, buddy!” Kransky admitted, not at all unhappy to be leaving the area under those circumstances. He dropped from the tree’s lower branches, and all three began to make their way west toward the A20, away from the defensive lines. “Never seen anything like ‘em in France: your boys have been holdin’ out on us!” The last remark was directed at Ritter with a fair amount of chagrin.

“From me also…!” The pilot shot back, more than a little bemused. “I’m a pilot… not a grenadier… and I’ve been…” he gave a wry smile. “…‘out of the loop’, I think is the phrase…?”

“You want to watch those sayings!” Thorne advised with a thin smile, breathing heavier as they continued at a fair pace. “That’s the second time you’ve used one of the phrases you’ve heard around Hindsight, and the ‘jig’ will be up very quickly if the wrong people hear you say something like that!” Changing the subject, he nodded his head in the direction of Smeeth. “The town’s only about a klick away across the fields, and there was a church there that may be a good place to hole up and let the battle pass us by… might be worth having a closer look…” There was no chance to speak further, as guns right along the British line suddenly opened up in a shattering crescendo that had all three men instinctively diving to the ground.

“Ahh crap…!” Thorne snarled, rolling over and finding cover behind an oak before peering around from behind the thick base of the tree as the battle began in earnest. “There goes the fuckin’ neighbourhood! Come on… let’s find somewhere a bit less stressful!” He dragged himself to his feet and took off at a crouched run, the other two following on behind and racing to catch up.

Davids had been drawing a constant bead on one of the nearer light tanks as the guns around him fired, Grosvenor also opening her account in that moment as the P-1C they’d targeted almost disintegrated under the shattering impacts of at least half a dozen simultaneous shell hits. The tanks and infantry fighting vehicles caught in the middle of the open fields were cut to pieces, the new anti-tanks shells of the 3.7-inch AA guns proving to be quite capable of punching holes through the thick frontal and side armour of the Panther tanks. Ten-pounder AT guns and dug-in Matildas took on the lighter vehicles accompanying them, many of the crew and troopers killed inside their vehicles as they brewed up under the onslaught of solid shot and explosive, shaped-charge shells.

“Light tank… three hundred yards…!” Davids called out, sighting on another enemy target at the tree-line and designating it.”

“On target…!” Gawler confirmed a second later as the turning turret came to a halt.

“Fire…!”

The tank jumped in its pit as her main armament barked and a pointed, two-pound slug of hardened steel streaked away from Grosvenor’s muzzle in a very flat arc. It smashed through the Weisel’s turret front, the light steel and aluminium armour nowhere near thick enough to resist. Both of the turret hatches instantly blew open, followed by fire and smoke that poured skyward as the vehicle rolled quickly to a halt. No crew bailed out.

“Hit…!” Davids crowed, already seeking the next target. “Infantry carrier… two-fifty yards…!”

“On target…!”

“Fire…!”

The gun fired again, and another shell hurtled away down range, punching through the side of an infantry fighting vehicle and this time shattering its engine as it came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the open field. Infantry and crew instantly began to pour from the rear assault ramp, and Grosvenor opened up with her co-axial machine gun, adding its fire to the fusillades of bullets already filling the air across the fields as lines of British Infantry entrenched ahead of the tanks and guns engaged the exposed German grenadiers.

Panther-321 and the rest of the 2nd Platoon were at the edge of the tree-line, watching 3rd Platoon advance with supporting infantry across the open ground as the ambush broke out. The division had lost relatively few tanks throughout all their battles so far that day, and now they’d suddenly lost almost an entire platoon in just a few moments, several heavy panzers left burning furiously along with half a dozen shattered Marder infantry fighting vehicles and a number of smaller P-1Cs. Smoke from muzzle blasts and fire from light-weapons was rising right across the distant defensive line, and in the failing light it was almost impossible to pick out any specific targets in the shadows running along the base of those woods.

With Divisional and Battalion HQs and CO’s staff still back at Hythe, preparing to move forward, Schmidt was the ranking officer on the scene and he reacted immediately, deciding that with no clear targets for direct fire, it’d be necessary to make use of other means to soften up the defending British. Just a few thousand metres to the north-west, the town of Ashford was both strategically and tactically important and was a vital junction for both road and rail. If the Wehrmacht could bring it under control by night fall, it would do much to disrupt British supply lines in the immediate area and also throughout other the rest of Kent and Sussex.

“Fire mission… fire mission…!” The obersturmführer called over the radio, carefully checking his maps and providing the correct grid references. “Enemy armour, guns and infantry… well dug in… request heavy artillery on those coordinates.”

“Mission acknowledged…” the response came after just a moment’s pause. “Coordinates marked… allocating resources now… special assets assigned… recommend you seek cover… heavy incoming fire imminent…” Schmidt flashed a warning to all of the surrounding troops and vehicles to prepare for the coming barrage, dropping back into the turret of his own tank and locking down his hatches as the others sought cover within their own armoured vehicles.

The 3rd Shock Division was one of the Waffen-SS’ premier combat units, and as such had been provided the best equipment and weapons the Wehrmacht could offer. Of course, the quid pro quo was that in return for such favouritism, the unit was also expected to face and defeat the best the enemy could throw at them. Schmidt, Wisch and the rest of the men of the division were all hardened veterans and considered it an honour to be given such responsibility, and their Divisional HQ intended to provide them every possible assistance in the performance of their duties.

Most of the division’s self-propelled artillery had been heavily utilised throughout the day, and many units were either down for minor maintenance or awaiting resupply as cargo ships were being hastily unloaded at Folkestone and Dover. Normally, aircraft would’ve been assigned to provide support in their place; however the exceptionally low cloud cover and poor light made flying dangerous, and also made it difficult for pilots to distinguish between foe and friend below… something that potentially made things very dangerous for ground troops. As the advance on Ashford was considered something of a priority objective, the SS area command instead decided to activate some rather more esoteric and far more deadly assets.

Remaining ready to fire, as they had right through that first day of invasion, the giant guns of Special Battery 672(E) received their fire orders within seconds of Schmidt’s radio call and immediately turned their cavernous muzzles in the appropriate direction as firing coordinates were locked in. Base-bleed, long-range HE rounds were the only projectiles the battery could field possessed of enough range for the task, and at a distance of almost sixty kilometres, they’d still be reaching out to the very limit of their capabilities. As had come to be standard practice, Gustav fired the first ranging shell and their gunlayers waited for news of the fall of shot as the weapon’s crew began their five minute reloading cycle.

The shell landed in the middle of an open field, four hundred metres or so beyond the British lines and to the north of Grosvenor’s position. The conventionally-fused round was set for detonation upon impact and blasted a ten-metre-wide crater in the landscape, spraying tonnes of earth high into the air in all directions. A powerful shockwave spread out from the explosion with enough force to part the low cloud directly above, almost as if clearing a path for the thick pillar of black smoke that followed it into the sky.

“Revised fire coordinates,” Schmidt advised over the radio, his observations patched directly through to the control bunker at Sangatte as he watched the blast through his hatch episcopes. “Right one hundred… down three hundred… fire for effect!” The adjustments were instantly relayed to the gun crews, and appropriate alterations were made to the elevation and traverse of both weapons, Dora fired on those new coordinates a moment later as Gustav continued reloading its next shell.

Thorne, Kransky and Ritter were making their way through a small, wooded area behind the lines as that first shell landed to the north of their position, all three throwing themselves flat against the ground in response to the deafening, ‘tearing’ sound of the shell hurtling past overhead. It was somewhat fortunate they were all close to the ground in the following moments, as a huge blast wave tore through the trees around them, snapping thick branches like twigs and stripping them of foliage. All of them were stung by splintered wood and coated by a rain of earth and debris, and as they regained their feet once more they could clearly see the thick, black mushroom cloud through the trees as it rolled skyward.

“Okay… that’s just fuckin’ uncalled for…!” Thorne howled, fear and uncertainty suddenly showing clearly in his expression and tone as he stared up at the sight, no illusion in his mind as to the weapon tha’d just been used against them.

“We gonna just stand here and wait for the next one?” Kransky snarled angrily, shaking the man by the shoulder and bringing him back to his senses.

“Fuck that!” Thorne responded with a definite shake of his head, his ears still ringing from the blast. “If we don’t put some space between us and the target area right now, we’re going to be completely fucked…!” With that he was off and running again, the others in pursuit as they took off through the shattered wood, seeking safety in distance.

Davids and the crew of Grosvenor had been far enough away to be safe from the blast, but they’d been as terrified by it as the rest of the men in the lines nevertheless. A haze of smoke and dust hung like a grey-brown fog around the entire area and there’d been real concern that their firing pit would collapse and imprison their tank as the earth shook violently and the shockwave literally clanged off the Matilda’s armoured hide. Earth had showered down on them, along with some fairly large shell fragments, and none of the crew wanted to think about what it would’ve been like further along the lines, closer to the point of impact.

They didn’t have to wait long to find out. Dora’s first round landed further north, but this time just fifty metres long, and that was more than close enough to ensure anyone occupying the trenches in that area was killed outright by the blast overpressure, or buried alive as huge mounds of dirt and debris spread from the explosion in huge clouds of solid matter. Branches and tree trunks alike were pulverised and turned into lethal chunks of splintered wood that killed and severely maimed many outside of the immediate blast area, and Davids and his crew could only wait the barrage out in their locked down tank, knowing they were safe from shrapnel and debris inside the Matilda, but also well aware that there’d be nowhere to hide in the case of a direct hit or something similarly close.

Fire from the British lines ceased almost immediately as another 800mm shell landed some distance away, on the opposite side of Grosvenor’s pit, leaving a similar amount of death and devastation in its wake. Gustav was now targeting the southern sections of the defences, heading down toward the A20 and beyond, while Dora continued to walk its fire slowly northward. The excruciatingly long wait between each impact as the guns reloaded only served to increase the terror and tension, as the SS units on the far side of the field waited implacably for the bombardment to do its work.

It was a full thirty minutes before the barrage finally lifted, and the destruction it had wrought on the lines became more obvious as the thick clouds of black smoke and dust began to clear. Many of 7RTR’s Matildas to the north had been destroyed in their pits by the huge shells, blasted into oblivion or buried with their crews beneath tonnes of earth, and those few left in operable condition were confronted by the sight of a massed assault rumbling across the open field before them at high speed, two platoons of main battle tanks at its head as Schmidt and the rest of the 3rd SS wasted no time in calling the advance.

“Heavy tank… three hundred yards…!” Davids called instantly, picking out one of the leading Panthers.

“On target…!”

“Fire… hit… no damage!”

“Loaded…!”

“Fire… hit… no damage! Fuck…!” Both rounds had shattered uselessly on the advancing enemies’ glacis plate. As Thorne had already warned, their 2-pdr simply wasn’t powerful enough to have any effect, and Davids made his next decision in an instant. “Angus! Get us out of here! Full reverse… we’re heading for our fall back positions at Smeeth!” Grosvenor’s diesels were already idling, and plumes of exhaust billowed into the air as Connolly immediately threw the tank into reverse and powered backward out of the pit.

The Panther they’d fired on quickly picked out the sudden movement, and a huge cloud of flame burst from its muzzle as it fired on the retreating Matilda, the first shot missing by several metres and blowing a nearby tree to pieces at its base. Grosvenor’s crew were jarred savagely seconds later as the tank slammed its rear into another tree nearby and came to a sudden halt, Angus changed gears frantically and slewing the vehicle sideways as a second round also missed but nevertheless exploded much closer. Earth sprayed skyward from its tracks as Grosvenor turned on the spot, Angus finally finding some visibility in the right direction, and he picked out a clear path of retreat. The Matilda lurched forward once more after a moment’s pause, Davids taking the opportunity to fire one last shot of his own in their enemy’s direction before they were on the move again, lumbering off through the trees.

That last round again hit its target, this time low on one of the oncoming panzer’s tracks, and the two-pound slug of solid shot was easily powerful enough to at least shatter those tracks and damage the forward idler wheel on its left side. Already travelling at high speed, Panther-321’s driver had no time to react as the left track stripped from beneath its wheels and piled onto the grass behind. As the tank powered on, its bare road wheels bit into the earth and dragged the vehicle sharply the left, bringing it to a complete and sudden halt.

“Missed…!” Schmidt howled in adrenaline-laced anger as the unexpected movement threw out the aim of his third shot on the retreating Matilda. “Load wolfram…!”

“Wolfram loaded!” Loewe advised, his words accompanied by the reassuring rattle of the breech slamming home on a tungsten-cored, armour-piercing shell.

“Still tracking target…” Wisch reassured, also clearly annoyed by his own inability to hit the relatively slow-moving infantry tank. In deference to the Matilda’s superior frontal armour, they’d already wasted several of their precious, high-velocity tungsten rounds rather than the standard armour-piercing or HEAT rounds, but Panther-321 was now completely stationary, and that made targeting much easier. He could see the enemy tank clearly as it slowly threaded its way through the distant trees, and at a distance of just three hundred metres or so, he didn’t have to ‘lead’ it a great deal in his sights, as the flight time between the two vehicles would be just a fraction of a second.

“Fire…!” Schmidt snarled angrily, following the fleeing green tank through his own optics, and the immobilised Panther lurched as its 88mm gun fired again. “Hit…!” He crowed triumphantly a second later, and only then did Schmidt think to send a call through to one of their engineer recovery units at the rear of the advance. They continued to scan the battle area for more targets, providing covering fire as the rest of the advancing tanks and troops passed them by and eventually reached the shattered defensive line. Panther-321 could afford the luxury of waiting for help now, and with any luck, the damage to the panzer’s tracks would be minor and easily fixed to get them back into action.

In the years to come, Jimmy Davids would never be able to fully remember what had happened. His first recollection was of regaining consciousness after what must only have been seconds, vision blurred and blood streaming freely down the left side of his face from his head being slammed against the side of his own commander’s cupola. He struggled for a few moments, trying to stand upright before finally realising it wasn’t his balance that was the problem: instead, the whole tank was actually tilted and lying almost on its side

“Angus… Gerry…” he called out groggily, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. The tank was darker than it should’ve been, and he found that it was full of smoke, something that cleared his mind far more quickly and got him moving. He eventually managed to push his hatch open, the smoke clearing quickly into the open air, and although he was reassured there was no fire, the sight that met his eyes then made him wish he’d never opened them.

Gerry Gawler lay beside him and was rather obviously dead, the mass of blood and flesh stuck to the side of the 2-pdr’s breech evidence enough of what he’d smashed his skull against. His eyes were wide and lifeless, and the back of his head a strange, moist shape. Hodges was gone too, his body almost cut in half below the level of the turret ring, and Davids wasn’t sorry he couldn’t see anything below the man’s waist. One of the Matilda’s AEC diesels wasn’t in the hull behind them where it should’ve been — instead it’d been rammed forward into the crew space and had smashed through the rear of the turret basket, taking his loader’s lower half with it and pinning the man fatally against the main gun and the forward part of the turret ring. Davids couldn’t see what had happened below in the forward hull, or whether or not Angus was still there or even alive, but he could still hear explosions and gunfire raging nearby, and he knew he couldn’t stay in that dark, steel coffin any longer.

Pain seared across the side of his face and in both of his legs as he struggled to drag himself out through the turret hatch, but everything seemed to work for all that, leaving him to assume whatever injuries he’d suffered probably weren’t permanent or immediately life-threatening. None of that was helped of course by him falling from the tank’s turret roof and landing heavily on the ground beside it, at the same time discovering why he’d felt off-balance. Grosvenor had obviously been hit by an enemy tank gun, and the impact had been powerful enough to literally push the Matilda sideways into a long slit trench beside the shattered bulk of an abandoned 3.7-inch AA gun. The width of the trench had been sufficient to jam the left side of its body and tracks in the opening, which at least provided Davids with some shelter from small arms fire as the fighting continued to the north, although it seemed to be drawing closer.

Drawing his revolver from a shoulder-holster, he took a few moments to examine his shattered tank and could see that she’d never be repaired or recovered… that was clear enough. From where he was hiding beneath the angled left side and turret, he could see where they’d been hit: most of the Matilda’s rear had completely disintegrated, almost as far forward as the back of the turret. The tank’s armour was hardened steel that by the standards of the time was considered quite thick, but it was now bent and twisted apart in shreds, and one of her diesel engines had been smashed forward into the crew space by the impact, while the other appeared to be missing completely. He looked quickly around and spotted what was left of it a good five metres away, on the other side of the ruined AA gun. Half of the six-cylinder engine was also blown into pieces, with part of a piston and the crankshaft poking forlornly from what remained.

He was surprised at that moment as a sobbing and incomprehensible Angus Connolly suddenly dragged himself into view from the front of the wreck, his own pistol clutched in one hand and soaked from waist to feet with blood.

“Come on, Angus… we’ve gotta get out of here, boyo! Can you walk at all?” But neither his questions nor physically shaking the man by the shoulders produced any coherent reaction. Connolly was raving and too stunned to be brought to his senses, and Davids gave up trying, instead spending a few seconds examining his driver but finding no obvious wounds or injuries. He could only assume the blood coating the man’s lower body had belonged to Steven Hodges. He took another look around the wrecked rear of the Matilda and discovered the proximity of advancing Germans was now such that they needed to get out of there immediately: he could no longer afford to wait for Angus to regain his senses.

Grasping the man by the back of his collar, Davids forcibly dragged him to his feet and they made off at a run, keeping low and darting through the ruined, burning woods as fast as they could manage, with bullets and larger shells howling overhead and around them all the way. As they neared the A20, it seemed defences on the southern side of the road were still managing to hold on desperately, although there was no way of knowing for how long. Even as they reached the Hythe Rd and darted across, the defenders were already starting to falter and fall back. With their left flank already completely lost, they were now also receiving reports of enemy units pushing up from the south-east, and they’d be running the risk of a complete encirclement if they did nothing. The 1st London defensive lines began to break completely.

The battle on the northern side of the A20 was already a total rout following the bombardment and subsequent storming of the British lines, and the centre and right of the German advance pressed on toward Smeeth and Brabourne Lees as the left turned and put pressure on the flank of the already failing defenders on the other side of the main road. Reinforcements were also coming through in the form of elements of the 1st Fallschirmjäger and the 7th Panzer Division, pushing up from Folkestone and from Dover to the north-east, with the parachute troops riding in on the tanks’ engine decks and on the hull tops of infantry fighting vehicles.

Von Rundstedt had allowed Rommel’s 7th Panzer and a number of other mechanised units to push forward the moment they’d broken through the British defences ringing Dover, forcing a spearhead with armoured units that had landed at the Dover ports within an hour of its capture and had advanced immediately into battle. Those units were still equipped with the older P-2 and P-3 tanks and half-tracks, rather than the newer infantry-fighting vehicles, but their training and experience were second to none and they threw themselves at the enemy with enthusiasm, supported around the Dover area by gunships from SHG1.

Reinforcements pouring into to the Ashford area to prop up the weakening lines were draining troops and resources from throughout Kent and Sussex, and the focal point of the entire invasion was quickly centring on that relatively small section of the A20 as advancing heavy SS units smashed all before them. Guderian, Rommel, Hoth, Pieper and the rest of the armoured commanders were blasting huge holes in the British lines and making such strong advances that Army Group HQs were allowing them free reign, while using conventional infantry divisions to secure the areas already taken and move forward in their wake. London was just seventy-five kilometres from Ashford, and the speed of the advance on that first day was great enough to make the OKW very optimistic about capturing the enemy capital within days rather than weeks.

Thorne had been rather rudely forced during that period following the bombardment and storming of the British lines to realise how great the gulf was between theoretical knowledge and being an actual combat commander… a gulf so large that it now threatened to swallow him whole. All three of them were swept along as they were absorbed into a mass of routed infantry, tank crews and gunners retreating westward ahead of the Wehrmacht advance. Self-propelled assault guns had also begin to drop high-explosives into the British rear, and the random shelling was taking a severe toll on the unprotected men.

The wave of shattered men was nearing the outskirts of Smeeth now, Thorne and the others running with them, but as they reached the tree line at the western end of the wood and prepared to venture out into the open, several cries of warning rose through the ranks. A pair of attack helicopters appeared out of the clouds seconds later and howled in toward the retreating men, spraying rockets from their wing pods and blasting away with the cannon and machine guns in their chin-mounted turrets.

“Need pictures of them too…?” Kransky inquired tersely, breathing heavily and operating on pure adrenaline as the trio took cover behind a low stone wall at the edge of the trees and the gunships roared overhead.

“Pictures my fucking arse…!” Thorne swore in hysterical frustration, raising the Kalashnikov in his hands and emptying the magazine at one of the retreating choppers. The burst caused absolutely no damage, but the helicopter pilot took note in any case and entered into a sharp, banking turn back around as rifle bullets whined off its armoured hide, the reaction causing a marked increase in Thorne’s swearing as his tone changed from anger to fear.

Kransky managed to retain a great deal more calm, although he nevertheless cast an exasperated glance sideways at his commander as he lifted his own rifle and dropped the magazine from beneath its receiver. Allowing it to fall to the ground, he thrust his free hand into one of his coat pockets and came out with a second large clip, which he slammed into the slot beneath the weapon’s breech. Snapping back the cocking handle, he rose to his feet and quickly raised the M107 rifle to his shoulder. The high magnification of the scope mounted above its receiver was no use against such a fast-moving target, but Kransky had practiced long and hard with the weapon during his time at Hindsight, and the aircraft was far too big for him to miss. The rifle bucked savagely against his shoulder as he fired round after round at the approaching helicopter, the glinting brass of spent cases spiralling into the air as the weapon ran through its semi-automatic cycle.

The SH-6C gunship was proof against normal smallarms fire, and the pilot had been confident in his own safety as the aircraft howled past above the retreating enemy infantry, generally ignoring the random fire than occasionally ricocheted from its tough fuselage. Those feelings of safety dissipated in an instant however as he came about and caught sight of the lone rifleman standing firm at the tree line before him, an impossibly-large rifle at his shoulder. The helicopter was suddenly shuddering under impact after impact, as fifty-calibre, tungsten-cored rounds capable of punching a hole through an engine block found no difficulty at all in penetrating the gunship’s armoured fuselage and windshield. The first slug smashed through the aircraft’s tail boom for little damage, but the second and third struck along the fuselage, smashing vital equipment and puncturing fuel tanks. The fourth shattered and starred the front plates of the cockpit canopy, literally exploding the gunner’s head inside his flight helmet before passing right on through and slamming into the belly of the pilot in the raised seat behind him.

Kransky was sensible enough to dive for the cover behind the wall once more as the out of control chopper reeled sideways and slid into the ground a few hundred metres away near a small pond, exploding in a massive fireball and spraying debris in every direction.

“Nice shootin’, Tex…!” Thorne complimented nervously, peering over the wall at the flaming wreckage with eyes widened by fear and tension but nevertheless a little calmer now he’d had a moment to think.

“Those armour-piercing slugs sure as hell work,” the American observed, deadpan but inwardly impressed all the same, while Ritter remained utterly speechless and regarded the sniper with a stare that was teetering between awe and abject fear.

“Good as they are, I think we’re gonna need something a bit bigger!” Thorne’s tone suddenly turned sour as he stared beyond the burning wreck and caught sight of four Panther tanks advancing across the fields from the east, followed by more armoured vehicles of various types. “We’ve got some company… come on!”

They rose to their feet once more, vaulting the wall and heading for the town, the nearest buildings less than two hundred metres away. Several of the tanks and Nashorn assault guns spotted the fleeing men still running past around them, and opened up with their main armament, landing 88mm and 150mm high explosive shells nearby and spraying the area with machine gun fire.

Two shells fell close as they ran on, forcing them to duck instinctively and swerve from their original path, and a few precious and important seconds passed before Thorne, almost at the cover of the nearest houses, glanced over his shoulder and realised Ritter was no longer following. He called a warning to Kransky, who was barely in the lead, and both men halted for a few seconds as they caught sight of the pilot rolling around on the ground a hundred metres back, obviously in some difficulty. Thorne realised he needed to make a decision, and he did so instantly.

“Keep going!” He shouted, turning back to Kransky. “Get out of here and find somewhere safe… I’ll take care of Carl!” He could see indecision in the American’s eyes as he hesitated for several seconds, and Thorne screamed “Go…!” The bellowed order finally broke the man from his stasis, and with a single, meaningful nod, Richard Kransky turned and continued running, quickly disappearing from sight as shells kept falling and smoke swept across the fields ahead of a light breeze.

“Not very bad, Max,” Carl Ritter hissed through clenched teeth as the Australian reached him and dropped to his knees in the middle of the field, “but I fear it’s bad enough.” He gasped in outright agony as Thorne examined the wound in his right thigh, the pants leg of the man’s flying suit soaked in blood.

“Looks like rifle calibre… machine gun probably,” the Hindsight CO ventured with a grimace, feeling his stomach lurch at the sight of his friend’s leg. “In one side and out the other at least…” The point of entry was little more than a tiny hole beneath the blood-stained material of Ritter’s pants, however the exit wound was large and ragged, and the man was losing a lot of blood. Thorne reached inside his coat and pulled out the white flag he’d been saving, tearing off a large section of it for use as a tourniquet. “Lucky it wasn’t a fifty-cal I guess… there’d be no bloody leg left then…”

“Very… reassuring… Mein Herr…” Ritter gasped, gripping at Thorne’s arm as the man started to wrap the fabric firmly around his leg above the wound. “This will be of much comfort for me when I’m regaling the new recruits with my exploits as a British spy!”

“I don’t know that things required quite so much sarcasm,” Thorne shot back, the attempt at humour as much to steel his own nerves as to relax Ritter.

“I should be happy to exchange places, if you think me so ‘fortunate’…” The pilot countered, managing a strained laugh despite the severity of the situation. “Scheisse…! I’d clearly forgotten how painful it is to be shot! I think I shan’t forget a second time!”

“You think you can move, mate?” Thorne queried darkly, glancing quickly around and realising they were now almost alone in that open field, and that the enemy was now much closer. The German shelling had swept past them at pace with the general retreat, and they were in a relatively ‘safe’ zone in the middle ground between the two groups, although shells and bullets were constantly howling overhead, almost exclusively in a westerly direction. Ritter made one attempt at rising and collapsed instantly, crying out in agony again.

“It seems the answer is ‘no’,” he managed, finally. “Perhaps not a bad thing in any case… I’m expected to get back to my own lines, after all. Leave me here, and they’ll pick me up as they advance.”

“They way things are right now, there’s a better than average chance they’ll just shoot you and roll on past…” Thorne shook his head emphatically. “There’s no way I’m going to leave you like this… no fucking way!”

“It’s much more important you get to safety!” Ritter argued in return, fumbling with the zip of his combat jacket before shrugging it awkwardly off and letting it fall, exposing his Luftwaffe flying suit and insignia. “Leave me that white flag and get out of here!”

“This isn’t bloody right,” the Australian said lamely, and Ritter could clearly see that stress was beginning to cloud Thorne’s reason and logic. “This is not bloody right!”

“Go… go now!” The pilot snarled angrily, in German this time, with the tone of an enraged commanding officer. “Get your arse out of here!” The strategy worked as he’d hoped: the attempt at ‘pulling rank’ was convincing enough in his native tongue to shake the man from his mental block and bring him back to reality.

“You take bloody care of yourself, Carl,” Thorne stated finally, stuffing the ragged, white material into the man’s left fist before reaching out with his own and grasping Ritter’s right hand firmly. “You be bloody careful! I was never that religious, mate,” he continued, and Ritter thought he almost saw tears in the man’s eyes, “but I hope God goes with you in this… if he is up there, you’ll need his help.”

“You also, Max Thorne… God be with you also!”

And with that the Australian was gone, once more keeping low and heading for the outskirts of the village and something resembling decent cover. Ritter dug his battered flying helmet from the folds of the discarded combat jacket, wincing in agony throughout, and jammed it tightly on his head. He lifted the flap of the holster at his belt, but didn’t draw the Luger… he didn’t wish to give a jumpy tank gunner or grenadier any excuse to shoot him before he’d identified himself. The nearest tanks were just a hundred metres away now, advancing at a steady pace with walking infantry on either side: it appeared the armoured push had slowed somewhat and had perhaps become a little overextended, although firing was still going on further south. He clutched the white rag Thorne had given him and prepared to wave it high and clear, getting his story straight in his head as the panzers rolled toward him.

Smeeth was a small parish that lay on the northern side of the Hythe Road, just eight kilometres south-east of Ashford. With a population of no more than a thousand, the village comprised less than two dozen actual homes and other buildings that were all congregated about the Church of St Mary the Virgin on the Church Road. A small, single-storey structure of grey flint, with two isles and two chancels, the church carried a high, pointed roof and a tower at one end. First built during Twelfth Century Norman times, sections including the chapel and porch had been added between the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and a restoration during the early 1880s had also seen the original, crumbling tower replaced.

Like the rest of the village, the church had been left deserted as the inhabitants had joined the westward civilian exodus out of Kent ahead of the invasion. The south door was locked securely, and although Thorne could probably have smashed it open, he ultimately decided against it. The building was quite small, with little likelihood of anywhere to hide or to make any kind of creditable stand, and the cannon of the approaching tanks and assault guns would reduce it to rubble with just a few shots anyway… he had no desire to leave himself trapped somewhere with no way of escape.

He ignored the potential for sanctuary within and instead continued west, weaving his way between rows of graves marked with old headstones that were weathered with age and in some cases no longer standing completely upright. Thirty metres further on, a low, ivy-covered stone wall marked the boundary of the parish grounds. On the other side, Church Road rounded a bend to the south and terminated at the A20 (Hythe Rd) just 150 metres away, while in the opposite direction it passed right through Smeeth and continued on to Brabourne Lees, a kilometre or so to the north.

Thorne used every last ounce of strength he possessed to lift himself over the wall, collapsing to the ground on the other side in utter exhaustion. He could still hear the low rumble of panzers drawing inexorably closer, but as he laid his rifle on the ground beside him, he found he was quickly losing the energy to continue his retreat. Thorne felt as if the pressure of all the weeks they’d spent in 1940 was now crashing down on him in that moment as he leaned his back against the hard, stone wall and lifted his head back with eyes closed, struggling to regulate his laboured breathing. He couldn’t tell exactly how close the enemy were now, and they’d not overrun his position yet, but he had no doubt it was just a matter of time.

A flat, open field lay across the other side of the Church Road, bordered by The Ridgeway to the north and the A20 to the south. Darkness had well and truly coming now, and in the failing light he couldn’t clearly make out what was growing in the pastures across the road, but something low and leafy drifted and swayed there in the shadows as a faint and distinctly chilly breeze stirred the mist that was already rising. It was a small consolation that dusk had at least brought with it a cessation of the shelling and general gunfire, although the occasional shot still broke the growing silence here and there behind him.

Even so, Thorne didn’t like the chances of making an escape to anywhere remotely safe, and he inwardly cursed his own arrogance and foolhardiness in placing himself in that position to begin with. The Swordfish was somewhere off to the south-west, on the other side of the A20, and in any case didn’t have sufficient fuel for another flight all the way back to Scapa Flow. His mind was beginning to register the very likely possibility that he was now stranded in Southern England, and that the rest of Hindsight would be forced to leave him behind… a concept that was far from pleasant.

Another few moments and he felt he’d regained his breath sufficiently to return to a crouch, pick up his rifle once more and cautiously lift his head just enough to peer through a gap in the top of the wall where a lost section of stone had left a narrow ‘V’ in the ivy. He ducked instinctively as the crack of a bullet split the air in the distance, and as he lifted his head once more, a second, far nearer shot seemed to indicate someone had indeed aimed in his direction. As he watched carefully, he could now see the indistinct shapes of enemy infantry moving about in unit strength beyond the trees, on the eastern side of the church grounds.

Knowing it would be a pointless exercise, he nevertheless grasped at the shoulder-mounted microphone of his belt radio and made one last effort to contact a relay radio station at one of the nearby local HQs.

“Phoenix Leader calling Dryad Foxtrot… come in please… Phoenix Leader calling Dryad Foxtrot… come in please… sending on authority code ‘Artemis’… require urgent assistance… please respond… over…” There was a soft burst of static as he waited for a moment, but no reply was forthcoming. “Phoenix Leader calling Dryad Foxtrot… come in please… Phoenix Leader calling Dryad Foxtrot… come in please… transmitting on authority code ‘Artemis’… require urgent assistance… please respond… over…” He repeated the transmission a second time, again pausing for a response.

This time the crackle and hiss of interference did in fact make way for a human response, however his initial flash of relief quickly soured as he instantly realised that the cold and rather aggressive voice at the other end of the radio was speaking in a gruff, German accent.

“There is no fucking ‘Dryad Foxtrot’ here now, mein liebes… why don’t you keep talking, and we’ll drop in for a visit, eh?”

“Thanks all the same, fräulein,” Thorne snarled back softly with all the venom he could muster, “but I don’t think I’ll bother… your boyfriends might get jealous… maybe you can all go fuck yourselves instead!” He hissed those last few words with true vehemence before turning the radio off once more and resting his forehead against the wall, banging it gently as if that action might somehow jar loose a solution to the problem from his muddled mind.

Another moment, and he caught the unmistakeable sound of human voices nearby. Using the wall to bolster his tired body and steady the aim of the rifle, he dropped to one knee and sighted along the top of the weapon, keeping both eyes open and seeking out any likely target as the voices drew closer. A large tree stood not far beyond the eastern end of the church building, and a pair of SS troopers on point duty were moving slowly past it, heading in his direction through the grey half-light with weapons at the ready. Thorne waited, setting the fire selector on the Kalashnikov to semi-automatic and closing one eye as he aimed carefully. They were no more than sixty metres away, but he wanted to be sure of where he was aiming in such poor visibility conditions.

He let loose with two quick, aimed shots apiece that dropped both men instantly and left them crying out in agony, surrounded by the graves and ancient headstones as the gunfire immediately brought the rest of their squad running. A few shots came his way that randomly whined off the wall some distance away, none of them close enough to cause him any concern for the moment. Two more men fell in similar fashion before the rest of the patrol hit the ground and took cover. He kept the men at bay for a few more minutes, but Thorne knew his luck wasn’t going to hold much longer. More infantry would arrive and would try to flank his position — not difficult considering he was completely alone — and there were also tanks nearby that wouldn’t be bothered in the slightest by fire from his assault rifle.

He lifted the Kalashnikov and sent one final, short burst of automatic fire back over the top of the stone all before setting off at a run across the road, heading directly into the grassy field in the hope that darkness might conceal his retreat. Thorne heard the revving of diesels then as he ran on, and there were at least two or three different engines he could pick out. Perhaps two hundred metres or so west of Church Road, a pair of low trees stood in the middle of a grassed access track that curved right around from the A20 to The Ridgeway, on the northern side of the field. The pasture had been hit several times during the earlier shelling from assault guns and mobile artillery, and one had landed right between the trees, leaving them defoliated, blackened and smouldering at opposite sides of a large crater. Thorne took cover inside, crouching at the rim with rifle ready as he surveyed what was going on behind him.

There was little detail he could make out against the dark background of trees and church buildings, but the faint, slitted driving lights of three armoured vehicles were visible all the same, the faint light from the moon on the horizon coating their grey silhouettes in an almost ghostly sheen. One main battle tank, a light tank, and what appeared to be an assault gun rumbled out of the trees on either side of the church, not damaging the structure of the building itself but giving no thought to the graves and headstones around the parish grounds as they crushed them beneath their heavy, steel treads. Each smashed through the stone wall in turn, before coming to a halt in the middle of the Church Road, each positioned roughly fifty metres apart with the Weisel light tank in the centre. As the roaring of their diesels subsided, Thorne suddenly heard more engines to either side of him, and only then did he realise the tanks’ approach had masked the sound of a pair of Puma armoured cars that had moved up along either side of the field in a flanking manoeuvre, and were now making their way slowly through the pastures toward him from behind his position.

“You in the field…!” Spoken through a loudhailer of some description, the voice reached him from the direction of the armoured car approaching from the south. “Throw down your weapons and show yourself. You will not be harmed if you surrender now.”

He’d been caught easily in the end, and Thorne knew in that moment there was no longer any hope of escape. No doubt the German he’d spoken to and insulted earlier via radio had been an intelligence officer, and they’d been able to determine his approximate position through RDF. It was clear they’d recognised he was an important target and wanted to take him alive: they’d not shown the same level of care in their pursuit of the other retreating soldiers earlier.

Placing the rifle on the ground at his feet once more, he drew his pistol from the holster at his belt. The Heckler & Koch automatic, identical to those issued to US Special Forces in Realtime, was a powerful weapon firing a heavy .45 calibre bullet. He had no idea whether he’d actually have the courage to pull the trigger, but Thorne knew there was no way he could allow himself to be captured. He rolled over and lay back against the inside wall of the crater, cocking the pistol before slowly raising the muzzle to his temple.

It was only as he paused for a few seconds with hands shaking, the muzzle at his forehead as his finger curled around the trigger, that the unmistakable, deafening and utterly wonderful sound of a fighter jet streaking past through the clouds overhead drew him back from committing that last, final act of defiance. Quickly engaging the safety, he holstered the pistol once more and desperately fumbled for the controls of his belt radio.

“Phoenix Leader to Harbinger…! Phoenix Leader to Harbinger…!” The desperation in his voice was crystal clear as Thorne finally managed to get the radio tuned to the F-35’s direct cockpit frequency. “This is Max Thorne… you’ve just overflown my position, heading south… I’m surrounded by enemy forces and in urgent need of assistance… please respond… over…” The few seconds’ pause that followed seemed excruciating, but the speaker/mike at his shoulder finally burst into life.

“Harbinger calling Phoenix-Leader… Harbinger calling Phoenix-Leader… reading you loud and clear, Old Chap…” Alec Trumbull’s voice was possibly the sweetest thing Max Thorne had ever heard at that moment. “Executing a hard turn and returning to your position… visibility is nil at my altitude, but I have thermal systems operating… what is your situation… please mark your position if you’re able…”

“My ‘situation’ is surrounded by fucking Krauts, Harbinger…!” He snarled back testily, holding the mike button in one hand as he searched about the pockets of his combat jacket with the other. “Position is inside a crater, two hundred yards west of Smeeth and about one-fifty north of the A20… just look for the bloody circle of German tanks in a bloody field, and I’ll be the silly bastard stuck in a fuckin’ hole in the middle…!” He finally found what he was searching for, and drew a small signal flare from an inside pocket. “Setting flare now… colour will be red… I’ll be directly to the east — repeat east — of its position, so whatever you’re about to do, try to avoid shooting my arse off in the process!” Igniting it, he instantly hauled back with his right hand and hurled the hissing ball of red/orange fire as far away as he possibly could before immediately diving back inside the crater, well aware of what reaction he was likely to get from the Germans approaching on all sides.

Tracer indeed converged on the flare’s position from several of the armoured vehicles’ coaxial machine guns, but as the long streaks of pink and yellow sizzled past above him, Thorne realised their aim was slightly ‘off’. None of the firing was actually hitting the ground, and was instead streaking away into the distance, ricocheting from the ground 800 metres away at the far end of the fields and bouncing high into the air before disappearing from sight. It didn’t take a fool to recognise they were using the fire to keep his head down, and he could tell from the flickering glow of headlights on either side that both of the armoured cars were now much closer.

“Overhead now, Phoenix-Leader,” Trumbull advised over the radio a moment later. The sound of the jet’s engine was barely audible, and still sounded as if it were off somewhere to the south, but Thorne knew that meant the F-35E was travelling quite fast as it passed by above him. “Suggest you cover your ears, Old Chap… Fox-Two! Fox-Two…!”

“‘Fox-Two’…?” Thorne was barely able to mutter in confusion as he did exactly that, clapping both palms securely against the sides of his head. ‘Fox-Two’ was the standard NATO brevity codeword for release of a heat-seeking air-to-air missile, and he could only assume from the little training Trumbull had received on the simulators, that he’d tried to advise of something else and chosen the wrong term.

He was proven wrong a second or two later as something small, bright and incredibly fast streaked downward out of the clouds at the head of a smoky exhaust trail and slammed into the turret of the southern P-7A. It vanished in an explosion of flame and smoke that lit up the darkness for miles around as debris rained down all about and coated Thorne with earth. All that was left of the armoured car and its crew as the smoke cleared was now a shattered, burning hulk as a black cloud rolled high into the sky above it.

Inside the cockpit of the Lightning, Alec had watched on his main display screen as his electro-optical targeting systems had easily picked out the P-7A Puma on the ground far below, thermal imaging cutting through the cloud cover as if it didn’t exist and clearly showing the substantial heat surrounding each of the armoured vehicles’ powerful engines. He’d located the cluster of tanks the moment he’d banked back to the north, levelling out at around three thousand metres as the low growling tone that rose in his headset indicated the infrared tracking sensors slaved to his air-to-air missiles had detected a target.

As he lowered the port wing slightly and looked out that side of the cockpit, his helmet-mounted sight instantly ‘enclosed’ each of the invisible enemy vehicles below in a small green box, the one surrounding the nearest of the Pumas — the southernmost armoured car — also overlapped by a bright red diamond that clearly indicated Trumbull had a ‘lock-on’. The fact that he personally couldn’t see a thing was largely irrelevant: all that mattered was that his thermal systems were ‘seeing’ things perfectly.

He cycled through each of the targets once in turn, reassuring himself that his systems were working correctly before settling on his first target and releasing one of the AIM-9X missiles inside his weapons bays. A second later, he’d switched to the next target and fired the second Sidewinder, immediately switching to a third target and turning onto an intercept course.

Thorne was about to uncover his ears after that first explosion as he caught sight of the second missile in his peripheral vision and decided against removing his hands. The second Sidewinder hurtled down out of the sky trailing a similar line of grey smoke, and hammered into the Puma approaching from the north a second or two later, the shockwave not quite so powerful where he lay, as the vehicle was not so close.

“Tally ho!” Trumbull’s call rose from Thorne’s speaker/mike, and the sky lit up to the east as a hailstorm of red tracer poured down onto the Church Road from the dark clouds above. With all three remaining armoured vehicles positioned evenly along the lane, it hadn’t been particularly difficult for the squadron leader to line up on the P-9B Nashorn assault gun and open up with the 25mm rotary cannon beneath his belly. Loaded with a combination of high explosive and armour-piercing rounds, the torrent of fire from the four-barrelled GAU-22/A was more than sufficient to punch through the thinner top armour of the Panther and Nashorn, and tear the thin steel skin of the Weisel light tank to pieces. All three vehicles exploded instantly into flames, the heavy tank ‘brewing up’ dramatically as its hatches burst open and fire spewed meters into the air, while at least a dozen infantry standing in the vicinity were also killed instantly. The Lightning appeared a moment later as it levelled out of a shallow dive at high speed, executing a precise victory roll before howling skyward once more and disappearing into the low clouds again trailing the deafening roar of its engine.

“Landing on the A20, Phoenix-Leader,” Trumbull advised over the radio. “Covering fire would be greatly appreciated.”

Thorne didn’t need any further urging, and immediately burst from the crater with rifle in hand, running due south toward the Hythe Road at full speed. At the time he’d left the future in late 2010, the record for the world’s fastest 200 metre sprint stood at 19.19 seconds, held by Jamaican runner Usain Bolt. Fully loaded and carrying the Kalashnikov, Thorne managed to cover a similar distance between that crater and the A20 in perhaps twice that amount of time, although he’d have been the first to admit he was almost at the point of collapse and fearing a heart attack as he reached the road. All the same, he forced his body to remain active and took up a position near where the track through the field joined the Hythe Road, holding the rifle to his shoulder and crouching by a low line of bushes along the roadside as he prepared to fire on any potential threat.

The F-35E reappeared thirty seconds later, this time coming down low over the A20 in a westerly direction with lights came on as its landing gear lowered beneath the fuselage. With lift fan and thrust vectoring in operation, the aircraft was able to carry out a steady descent that wasn’t completely vertical but was nevertheless far slower than would’ve been possible in a conventional landing. It touched down a few dozen metres beyond his position, the cockpit canopy already rising as the wheels struck the hard asphalt. This time it was Thorne’s turn to protect Trumbull as a small squad of troopers charged toward them up the A20 from the east, appearing suddenly out of the smoke and fire still rising from the direction of Smeeth and firing their rifles wildly. They were no better than dark silhouettes against the glowing background, but that was more than enough for him to pick them out as targets, and a few well-aimed shots from the rifle in semi-auto mode was more than enough to drop all four men in turn. No further threats appeared, and after five more seconds or so, Thorne finally dropped the rifle and turned back toward the Lightning, somehow finding enough remaining energy to run once more as that same rope ladder he’d thrown to Alec so many weeks before appeared over the side of the cockpit.

The jet was rolling again before he could even strap himself properly into his seat, his stomach lurching badly with the sudden acceleration as Trumbull slammed the throttle hard forward and the F-35E launched itself skyward once more. By the time he’d snugged the rear cockpit’s flight helmet over his head and could hear Trumbull over the intercom, the Lightning has reached the relative safety of the thick, low-lying cloud cover and was turning back to the north. Trumbull continued to climb until they finally broke through the other side and were flying in clear skies once more, the moon and stars shining brightly as he checked his air search radar and made sure they kept well away from any Luftwaffe night fighters.

“You nutter…!” Thorne crowed in joyous disbelief, chest heaving and adrenalin coursing through his system as he unloaded and safed his pistol before returning it to its holster. “You dyed-in-the-wool, crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat, absolute and complete fucking legend of a nutter…!”

“You’re completely welcome, Max,” Trumbull replied, smile beaming beneath his oxygen mask in recognition that an outburst of that nature from Max Thorne was high praise indeed.

“‘Tally ho’…!” Thorne continued, unabated “He yells out ‘tally ho’ like he’s out on a fuckin’ fox hunt and toasts a load of Kraut armour to save the bloody day!”

“Perhaps you’d prefer I’d said ‘Okay kid, let’s blow this thing so we can all go home…’…?” There was a very pregnant pause, after which Thorne burst into outright laughter, Trumbull eventually joining the man in his own, more subdued fashion. The squadron leader’s own adrenaline levels and spirits were also high, and Thorne’s manic mood was quite infectious.

“Oh, this bloke’s good…” the Australian observed out loud for Trumbull’s benefit. “Officer and a gentleman, shit-hot pilot and smartarse!” He shook his head slowly, unable to wipe the smile from his face. “I knew I was gonna be sorry I let you watch Star Wars!”

“There’s a ‘disturbance’ in the force…!”

“Don’t make me hurt you!” Thorne continued to laugh, reaching forward in his seat and tapping his friend lightly on the back of his flight helmet before another thought occurred to him. “Would I be correct in assuming this little jaunt wasn’t authorised by everyone’s favourite RN commander?”

“It became necessary to turn the radio off in the end, Max,” Trumbull explained, trying to sound a little disapproving but also unable to stop smirking. “It really is a shame about the language to which that good lady sometimes feels the need to resort…”

“Oh, I’d really keep out of her way when we get back, if I were you, matey!” Thorne almost giggled, knowing exactly how annoyed Eileen would be as a commanding officer that Trumbull had disobeyed her, even if it mightn’t last long in the face his successful rescue. “If she gets hold of you, there’ll be a ‘disturbance’ in the force all right: the disturbance of her foot being forced right up your arse!” A few silent moments followed as Thorne caught some more of his breath, and the mood began to grow calm and more sombre.

“It’s that bad down there?” Alec finally asked as the Lightning flew on high above the solid cloud cover, the last final glow of the preceding day barely visible now against the western horizon beneath the dark, star filled sky.

“Yeah,” Thorne replied in the end, his mood sobering as he considered the question. “Yeah, it’s bad, Alec… less than twenty-four hours, and its already gone to shit.” He shook his head in frustration and disappointment. “They’re fighting hard, and giving the Krauts a few bloody noses here and there, but there aren’t enough with the experience to stand against battle-hardened shock troops and armour, backed up by shitloads of air support and artillery. Has there been any news from the other fronts?”

“The last reports we had before I left were that we’d smashed the beachhead in Hampshire, mostly thanks to the new equipment,” Trumbull offered, receiving a grunt of approval from his passenger, “but the landings in Sussex have been as successful as they’ve been in Kent. If they can reinforce and re-equip overnight, they’re hoping to hit the flanks of the Sussex beachhead in the morning with the Fiftieth and the Twenty-first Tank, coming over from Hampshire, but with the lines falling so quickly in the South-East, they may be called back to dig in around London itself.”

“Well, they’ve pushed up maybe six miles where you picked me up, and probably just as far around Dover, I’d warrant… once they reach Margate and the North Foreland, they’ll be able to secure the entire peninsula and then push past The Swale, right on up to the southern mouth of the Thames. The heavier guns can take their new panzers, but our tanks don’t have a hope — slugs from the two-pounders just bounce off, or shatter against the heavies, and even with the new main guns, they’ll have to get suicidally close to make a dent on their frontal armour.”

“I took a small detour on the way down here, which was why I’m a bit late… apologies for that, Old Chap,” Trumbull continued. “Ran across the aftermath of an engagement between the Home Fleet and the Kriegsmarine off The Dogger Bank and did a quick recce.”

“Would it be optimistic to ask if it went well?”

“Somewhat,” Trumbull answered sadly. “The fleet gave good account of itself all the same, but it wasn’t enough…”

“Never could’ve gone any other way,” Thorne stated sourly. “Reuters was never gonna let the Home Fleet get in the way…”

“What was left of the German fleet held the field of battle, but they were given a savaging for it, judging by what I saw… cloud cover was only three or four hundred metres in places, but I managed to get down low enough to get quite a bit of good footage on the EOTS.” The F-35E’s Electro-Optical Targeting System had low-light and thermal imaging capability, and could record anything viewed through its cameras for analysis at a later date.

“You’re really on top of flying this baby now, Alec,” Thorne complimented with more than a little vicarious pride, noting how comfortable Trumbull had become with the aircraft.

“But of course, sir… jolly easy when you get used to it…”…and for emphasis, he executed another victory roll that left the unexpected Thorne a little dazed and out of breath.

“Whoa… take it easy there, mate… I don’t have a bloody flight suit on!”

“Sorry about that,” Trumbull shot back, genuinely apologetic but nevertheless beaming with pride at such praise from a man he respected. “Got a bit carried away there…”

“I guess we’d better get onto Alternate and let ‘em know I’m okay,” Thorne observed, making a grimace behind his oxygen mask. “Might be better if I make the call, all things considered… you’re not going to be too popular for a little while with certain people.” As Trumbull nodded fervently, he opened the radio channels to the appropriate frequency and began transmitting.

“Phoenix-Leader to Alternate… Phoenix-Leader calling Alternate… come in please… over…”

“Alternate reading you loud and clear, Phoenix-Leader,” the reply came after just a moment or two, the unexpected voice instantly recognisable as belonging to Evan Lloyd. “Glad to hear you’re okay, sir…”

“Not half as glad as I am, Evan,” Thorne grinned. “They’ve got you holding the fort, have they? All the officers off bludging, as usual…?”

“The CO at Lyness has called a special briefing for all officer ranks regarding the situation down south — they’ve all headed over there to attend,” the amusement at Thorne’s remark was clear in the young man’s voice.

“All the better,” Thorne decided, thinking quickly. “I wanted to get everyone together myself, to go over what I’ve seen… I’m sure the rear-admiral will want the rest of Lyness in on it.” He paused, then continued. “Evan, can you please get onto communications over at Proserpine, and perhaps ask the duty NCO at the OR’s mess if we can use it for an impromptu meeting? We’re gonna need somewhere pretty big to fit everyone in, and we could all probably do with a drink or two afterward.” He grinned. “Maybe you and the rest of the boys you’ve been practising with can give us a few songs afterward, by way of saying ‘farewell’?”

“Only if you’ll agree to sit in, sir: our vocalist and our other guitarist both shipped out on Warspite this morning, and we’re two down as a result.” Both successfully managed to bypass the implication that the men were now probably dead.

“You drive a hard bargain, Corporal, but I suppose I could help out.” Thorne paused once more as another thought occurred to him. “I’ve a better idea regarding vocals though… while you’re in the Galaxy there, Evan, could you also have a quick look in Commander Donelson’s personal locker for me… there should be a folder full of sheet music in there that I’d like you to bring along.” This time there was a longer pause, the young man obviously considering the ramifications of the request.

“Is this going to get me into trouble, sir…?” Lloyd’s tone was distinctly dubious.

“‘You’… probably not,” Thorne grinned as he replied, not really answering the question. “Just keep it to yourself, there’s a good lad… combination should be five-five-nine-six… run along now… we should be back at Lyness in about an hour, so if you could have everyone else there at Alternate on their way over by then, it’d be a big help… Phoenix-Leader over and out…”

“Just what are you up to…?” Trumbull demanded with a smile of his own, the mischievous tone in Thorne’s voice instantly recognisable.

“Never you bloody mind,” Thorne chuckled in return “You’re in enough trouble with Eileen as it is… best you don’t know…”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Trumbull countered with a grimace, trying not to laugh. “I somehow doubt that fine distinction will be taken into consideration.”

“Hey…!” Thorne said suddenly, changing the subject as something else occurred to him. “You gave me a measurement in metres a minute ago!”

“What…?” Trumbull blustered, immediately horrified by the suggestion he’d used the metric system. “Impossible… the stuff’s pure gibberish to me…!”

“Earlier, you said the cloud cover was at three to four hundred metres… metres!”

“You’re obviously a little tired, there, Max,” the RAF pilot replied evasively. “I must’ve said ‘nine to twelve hundred feet’, and you’ve simply converted it in your mind…” But there was little real conviction in the explanation.

“‘Nine to twelve hundred feet’, eh…?” Thorne mused, a sly expression sliding across his face. “You converted that quickly enough for someone who finds the metric system ‘pure gibberish’.”

“Now look here…!” Trumbull began with a warning tone that masked more than a little mirth, and the mild disagreement that ensued would provide both of them with some light amusement during the trip north, although the discussion would of course end in a stalemate.

At about the same time the Lightning was cruising back to Scapa Flow, Carl Ritter was being delivered by helicopter to a field hospital set up in what had once been a Folkestone primary school. An initial dressing station near the front line had seen to his wound, but the doctor there had decided it better if the poor officer were transferred somewhere a little more comfortable. The man’s tale was one of incredible courage and endurance, and apart from the leg wound, Oberstleutnant Ritter was quite weak and emaciated from a lack of decent food over the preceding weeks: better care was needed for a decorated officer of the Luftwaffe than a simple dressing station could provide.

Ritter was entitled to some privacy in accordance with his rank, but he protested against it, claiming he wanted to be with others, and that much was true. For the time being, he needed to forget exactly why he’d returned to his own side, for there’d be many questions he’d have to answer convincingly in the next few weeks. Right at that moment, Ritter wanted simply to be around his own men rather than in isolation… he thought he might go mad if he were left alone.

It turned out he was in for a surprise, and as they wheeled him into a clean ward containing eleven other beds, he was astonished to see familiar faces sitting up on their mattresses at the far end of the room.

“Is this possible…?” He called out cheerfully, extremely pleased. “My God, gentlemen… you’re all right?” It was Rottenführer Wisch, one side of his head swathed in white bandages, who recognised the pilot first.

“You, too, sir…? Yes, we’re fine, really. This nasty scar on the side of my head will have some stitches for a while, but otherwise I’m quite sound. The second-lieutenant here was kind enough to take most of the blast for me.”

“They give us tanks impervious to the enemy,” Berndt Schmidt growled, nodding his greeting at the Luftwaffe officer rather than making any effort to salute, “but from our own gunships? Obviously not… trigger-happy idiots…!” Schmidt was bare to the waist and heavily bandaging around the ribs and head, above the eye line.

“We’d been immobilised and were waiting for a bergepanzer to come and tow us back for repairs,” Wisch explained further. “It seems your colleagues in the helicopter wings have trouble identifying our own vehicles…”

“It also seems that we’re are even then, gentlemen.” Ritter replied, honestly laughing as the orderlies wheeled his bed in beside theirs. “I was shot down some time ago and avoided capture for weeks, waiting for you fellows to come and get me, and I end up with a German bullet through my leg as I try to slip through our own lines!” The remark obtained an ironic laugh, even from Schmidt, and Ritter was surprised how easily the truth could conceal the greater lie. “I do believe I saw one of our gunships shot down close to Smeeth just before I was hit.”

“Serves the blind bastard right if it was him,” Schmidt growled unsympathetically. “If he can’t even see a bloody great swastika painted across a panzer’s rear decking, he shouldn’t be flying in the first place!”

“It’s good to see some familiar faces here, gentlemen,” Ritter said softly, the sincerity flowing through. “I’m very glad to see you both.”

“Good to see you too, sir,” Schmidt returned before Wisch could say the same, and to their own great surprise, both meant it equally.

21. Last Rites

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

‘S-Day’:

Wednesday,

September 11, 1940

It was a dark, cold night as Thorne stood among the headstones of the Lyness Naval Cemetery, a clean change of warm clothes and a thick, Arctic-style black parka going some way to protecting him against the chill and the misting rain that continued to fall softly right across the British Isles. He’d been awaiting the arrival of a fast corvette carrying the rest of the Hindsight group across from Eday, and the Lyness CO and the men of the OR’s mess had been kind enough to allow it to be used as an auditorium for Thorne’s impromptu briefing. There was to be a function of sorts held afterward for all ranks who wished to attend, and although that had been organised partially due to his own instructions, he suspected the only mood that could possibly be that night was one of morbid depression. Thorne had prepared for it anyway, clinging to a faint shred of optimism that something good might come of it; as they were due to leave the next morning, it’d be the last time chance they’d have to farewell the colleagues and friends they’d come to know over the past months.

Of course, there were some Hindsight personnel who’d never leave the cold waters of Scapa Flow… those who’d died in the air raid of August 17th. Thorne stood before Nick Alpert’s grave –although it was impossible to read the inscriptions on the crosses in the distant lighting of the main base, he knew which one it was well enough. He’d brought along a torch in any case, but as he stood there among the final resting places of the fallen, the idea of turning its beam across the rows of headstones and crosses, new or old, seemed somewhat sacrilegious.

“We’re off tomorrow, mate,” he murmured reverently, standing almost in an ‘at ease’ position, as if addressing a fellow officer, which he was. “Would’ve liked you to have seen Australia… I know I went on about it enough.” He gave a thin smile and came to attention momentarily, presenting a crisp salute to all of the new graves there. “Gentlemen…” he added softly, then executed an ‘about face’ and marched away.

Jack Davies found Thorne as he made his way through the main base a few minutes later, heading for the briefing at the officer’s mess.

“There y’are, boy,” the Texan called out with a characteristic, toothy smile as he drew near. “The whole goddamn base is looking out for you!”

“I’m sure it’s not the whole base,” Thorne countered wryly, “but I take it from your presence that the rest of Hindsight have arrived?” He shrugged, turning his head momentarily back over his shoulder. “I was up at the cemetery,” he explained. “Just wanted to say goodbye and all…”

“I gather Lloyd and Walters are playing with the band at the OR’s mess after the briefing,” Davies changed the subject to more pleasant matters, nodding respectfully in response to what Thorne had said. “Rumour has it you’re sitting in with ‘em tonight too…”

“Yeah… Evan conned me into it… two of the band members shipped out on Warspite…” There was little else to be said about that as Davies grimaced at the news. “So they needed a guitarist and a vocalist. Happy to help out anyway: from what I’ve heard, the boys have made a bit of an impact with the rest of the mess there. Evan’s a bloody good guitarist himself, and I believe Walters can play a mean piano too.”

“Shame about the vocalist… apparently the guy was so damn good he almost made trad jazz worth listening to!”

“Philistine,” Thorne snapped back, ignoring the fact that he was no great fan of traditional jazz either.

“Does this mean you’re gonna be singing as well?” There was a dubious tone in the Texan’s voice that made Thorne feel faintly defensive, as had been the mischievous intention.

“I may not be Placido Domingo, mate, but I can hold a bloody tune if I have to, I’ll have you know,” he shot back indignantly as Davies grinned broadly, “however, in this case I thought it might be better for someone else to take on that job…” Thorne gave his own evil smile as he continued. “I got Evan to sneak into Eileen’s locker and bring across her sheet music…”

“You are one dirty son-of-a-bitch…!” Davies grinned, catching on.

“Hey, if we’re gonna have a show, we might as well have the best, and her singing pisses all over anything I could do,” Thorne replied honestly. “Now run along and tell ‘em I’m on my way… and don’t let her find out what we’re up to either…!”

“No chance of that, buddy! I’m stayin’ right outta this one: Eileen’s still pissed at me for letting Trumbull take off in the Lightning…”

“Well, by the time I’m finished tonight, the heat should well and truly be off you lot and right back on me anyway, so I shouldn’t worry too much about it!” He gave Davies a conspiratorial pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be down shortly…” and with that, the Texan nodded and headed off ahead as Thorne slowly continued his silent walk of solitude back toward the main base area.

The briefing at the OR’s mess wasn’t overly long, but the information it provided had gained everyone’s attention. A movie screen had been set up on a metal stand against the far wall, between the bar and the small stage, and a projection unit connected to a laptop PC sat on a small table several metres away. The whole of the Hindsight unit were gathered there in groups around the nearest tables, all watching expectantly as their CO prepared to speak while holding an infra-red remote unit in one hand to control the images on the presentation.

“Some of what we’re about to go over here will already be known to some of you, but we’re going to go over everything anyway. These images have been picked up from a variety of intelligence sources all over Britain, including footage taken by myself, and by Squadron Leader Trumbull… including the following pictures…” He keyed the remote, and the first of the photographs he’d taken flashed up onto the screen.

“As you can all see,” he continued, noting the expected ripple of recognition through most of those present, “the enemy has been hard at work in this era. These P-1 Weisel tanks are clearly almost direct copies of the British FV107 Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle, including the thirty millimetre calibre of the main gun… although we believe the Weisel is armed with a variant of the powerful, fast-firing MK-101 aircraft gun, rather than a hand-loaded weapon similar to the Scimitar’s RARDEN cannon. Like the Scimitar, the Weisel is lightly armoured with aluminium alloy, which isn’t much chop against anything better than small arms fire or maybe standard fifty-cal rounds, but that does also mean it’s bloody light — less than ten tonnes — and that makes it air-droppable… something the Krauts have made bloody good use of in securing airfields and forward supply points in the first hours of the invasion this morning. The MK-101 cannon also packs a powerful punch, and with tungsten-cored ammo it can punch through around three inches of armour… enough to take care of most of its likely opposition on a good day.” He changed images to that of another pair of armoured vehicles: the larger P-2D Luchs and P-3C Fuchs tanks.

“The ‘Lynx’ light tank here — what they call a ‘P-2’ — is nothing like the Panzer Two we knew in Realtime, and also appears to be a very close copy of another design, this time the American M24 Chaffee. The seventy-five millimetre cannon it’s armed with is a medium-velocity weapon that we believe to be identical to the Chaffee’s lightweight M6 gun, and although it’s nowhere near the power of the German’s ‘eighty-eight’, it’s certainly proven to be a huge improvement in hitting power over the thirty-seven mil weapons or ‘short’ seventy-fives their Realtime medium tanks carried. The Fuchs P-3C in the same picture is the first evidence of developmental originality we became aware of, and appears to be an enlarged version of the P-2 rather than a copy of another design. Both have already proven their effectiveness in Poland and France, and have also been making their presence felt during the invasion…” he paused, before adding “…although, they’ve been somewhat upstaged by a new ‘kid on the block’ that made its combat debut today… something we’ve previously been completely unaware of…” He changed to the next image.

“This shot is of an unidentified model of main battle tank.” A ripple of recognition again made its way through the group. “Unidentified to the allies, that is, however we at Hindsight recognise it as a close copy of the Realtime Soviet T-55 medium tank. The only major variance on the copied design appears to be the mounting of a Flak-36 eighty-eight millimetre main gun, rather than the larger calibre weapon one would’ve expected fitted to a T-55…” He allowed himself a wry smile. “It would appear our interception of that last transport carrying their heavy armaments research and data had an impact after all, now we’ve seen what those 105mm main guns were intended for.” There was some faint laughter as he changed pictures once more. The next view was a montage of three pictures — one each of vehicles the Wehrmacht classified as a P-6A Marder infantry fighting vehicle, a P-9B Nashorn self-propelled assault gun, and a P-11A Wirbelwind mobile flak.

“The mobile flak vehicle is also fairly self-explanatory, and the Russian influence in the design is again quite clear. The Soviet’s ZSU-23-4 ‘Shilka’ self-propelled anti-air vehicle proved to be incredibly effective against low-flying aircraft throughout the Arab-Israeli wars and in the later conflicts between Iran and Iraq, and this Wehrmacht replica — which appears to mount four cannon identical to the Shilka’s twenty-three millimetre guns — has proven to be absolutely lethal against any allied aircraft that flies within range of its guns… an effective slant range that we estimate to be approximately four thousand metres.

“Following that, we have some further evidence of original designs in the development of the Wehrmacht’s new range of vehicles.” Using the laser-pointer included in the remote control, he pointed out each picture in turn. “This IFV, assault gun and SP flak are all obviously developed from the original T-54/55 hull platform, as they clearly have the same layout of five road wheels with rear drive sprocket, front idler and no return rollers… although that’s about where the similarities end. The IFV appears to have been inspired by the Realtime Marder infantry fighting vehicle, although being based on an MBT hull would suggest the armour is somewhat heavier, and it mounts a small, two-man turret armed with one of the same 23mm cannon as the Shilka, along with at least three firing ports on either side, judging by the pictures we’ve been able to obtain. Carrying capacity appears to be standard, with a crew of three and space for seven or eight grenadiers.

“The assault gun has taken the Realtime Soviet ISU as a starting point, and the similarity is there for anyone to see: it has a long, low crew compartment forward, with a heavy, hull-mounted gun of limited traverse and elevation. The weapon is big — substantially larger than the eighty-eight mil of the MBT — and Commander Donelson and I concur that the most likely armament is the SIG33 150mm infantry gun. The vehicles aren’t common, and seem to be attached in twos or threes at battalion level to provide support for advancing infantry in neutralising strongpoints, as were their assault guns in Realtime.” Thorne paused as he took a long breath.

“There are also reports of other vehicles we’ve not yet been able to obtain pictures of, and their strategy seems to be to use their new, powerful equipment to punch holes in the front lines and push forward while more conventional forces fill those gaps and solidify the gains.” He paused again.

“One thing I’ve also been able to piece together is that it appears the Wehrmacht has given the Waffen-SS a greatly expanded offensive role in this era than was the case in Realtime. All of the vehicles I have pictures of here display the unit insignia of the 3rd SS ‘Totenkopf’ Division, and the manner of their employment as shock troops in the initial phases of the invasion so far suggests the Waffen-SS is being used in a manner similar to that of the modern US Marine Corps… on a side note, I’ve also noticed it’s fairly easy to identify Schutzstaffeln armoured units, as standard Wehrmacht tank unit numbers are being displayed in red while the SS units are displayed in yellow.

“The upshot of all this information is that without control of the air, which the RAF has lost completely, there’s little chance of halting armoured advances using these new vehicles. The T-55 in standard form would be invulnerable to the British army’s two-pounder gun from the front and flanks, and while the heavier three-point-sevens have been able to penetrate their armour, and the new ten-pounders at least partially-effective from the flanks, there aren’t enough of either of those weapons to make anything more than localised dents in the enemy’s advances. Although we were obviously able to prevent Reuters from getting heavier armaments into the tanks, the tried and true eighty-eight millimetre they already have is more that powerful enough to defeat any known British tank without difficulty.” He took another breath before moving on to other areas.

“With regard to something much closer to home here at Scapa Flow, the British Home Fleet sortied early this morning, as we all know, with the intention of interdicting invasion forces crossing The Channel. While we know the attempt was unsuccessful, we do have information that the fleet was able to inflict serious damage on a large enemy surface force off the Dogger Bank this afternoon.” The next still images to appear were of a damaged and burning warship — a large one.

“Squadron Leader Trumbull wasn’t able to get much footage, as the engagement was mostly over by the time he overflew it, but several things did become apparent.” He took another breath before continuing. “This vessel is an enemy aircraft carrier — something which in itself is a substantial departure from Realtime events. The fact that it appears to also be far larger than anything we’d have expected of the Kriegsmarine is also unsettling, although in this case, aircraft from Ark Royal were able to catch its planes on deck and inflict very serious damage indeed. We’re unlikely to know what the fate of this vessel is, but the images here are enough to suggest that at the very least it’ll be out of action for some time — with any luck it may prove to be unsalvageable.” He changed the pictures again, this time to display the damaged but triumphant Bismarck.

“We believe the carrier is based on the same hull form as this vessel, which some of you may recognise as a Yamato class superbattleship, with approximate displacement of sixty to seventy thousand tonnes and a main armament of nine 460mm rifled guns in three triple turrets. This is what we know in this era as the battleship Bismarck, and as you can all see, there’s evidence of damage inflicted upon her aft, but she was the remaining capital ship holding the area of battle at the end of the engagement earlier today. With armour as thick as forty to sixty centimetres in places, there’s every chance the shells of the Home Fleet simply bounced off or shattered on impact rather than managing any effective penetration.” Another picture change… “This vessel was the only other capital ship of either side to survive the main engagement.” The image was of a severely damaged Gneisenau, decks awash and burning heavily in three places, but nevertheless able to gain control of the beating inflicted upon her by Queen Elizabeth. “What you’re all looking at is a Scharnhorst class battlecruiser, however close examination of the main armament indicates she’s not carrying the Realtime complement of nine eleven-inch guns, and instead appears to be mounting three twin turrets of some type. In light of a never-realised Realtime plan to rearm this ship class in just such a fashion, we can only assume she’s instead carrying three twin turrets of fifteen-inch guns, of the type that would’ve originally been mounted aboard the Realtime Bismarck.” He shut down the projector altogether and took a few steps forward toward his unit, all eyes following him closely.

“We all have a general understanding of what happened out off The Dogger Bank today: the Home Fleet was all but annihilated, with just Ark Royal and a damaged Malaya managed to make it clear of the battle area, both ships expected back at Scapa Flow sometime early tomorrow morning. There hasn’t been time to get much more detail on what’s happening, but the one glaringly significant point to come out of all this is that, as we feared, Reuters and his unit have been operating in this era for many years aiding Hitler and the Nazis… possibly even before the NSDAP originally took power in 1933. The massive increase in shipbuilding the Kriegsmarine has been able to pull off here over the original, Realtime Z-plan isn’t something that could’ve been accomplished overnight: this kind of increase in naval capability could only have been made possible if the entire infrastructure of German shipbuilding and industry in general had been reorganised, upgraded and massively expanded, and that’s something that would take years to complete.” He took another deep, slow breath as he prepared to finish up.

“That’s all we’ve got at the moment other than what you all already know — a more detailed report will be provided once we’ve had time to disseminate more information.” He nodded toward the mess entrance where a lone guard waited patiently. “Right now however, I believe the rest of the enlisted men of Lyness are waiting to come in and have a few drinks, and the mess staff have been kind enough to invite all of us — officers included — to stay with them and spend an hour or two trying to take our minds off what’s been going on elsewhere, if that’s at all possible. I, for one, think it’s an excellent idea.” He turned his attention toward the man at the door. “Seaman: would you be so kind as to allow the rest of your fellows in… we’re finished here.”

HQ Army Group A

Dover Castle, Kent

Standing atop the heights that towered over East Cliff and Marine Parade, Dover Castle rose above the city to the east of its centre, keeping watch over The Channel and Dover’s eastern docks. A Norman fortification constructed during the 12th century, Dover castle stood on the site of an earlier stronghold that had been set to the torch during the invasion of 1066, only to be rebuilt by William the Conqueror himself following its surrender. The existing structure however had begun to take shape under Henry II, and had been improved several times over the intervening years, particularly during the reign of Henry VIII. This was followed by another huge reconstruction and rebuilding program at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, at which time a complex series of tunnels were dug beneath the castle and cliff tops to provide room for a two-thousand man garrison. After the cessation of hostilities, the tunnels were used against smugglers for a short period by the Coastal Blockade Service, the network then falling into disrepair and left abandoned for over a century.

The outbreak of the Second World War changed all of that, with the tunnels being reopened and refurbished, initially for use as air raid shelters, and then converted soon after into a field hospital and a military command centre. There were five levels to the tunnel system, and each had been given a codename beginning with letters running in sequence from ‘A’ to ‘E’: Annexe, Bastion, Casemate, DUMPY and Esplanade (‘DUMPY’ was taken from an acronym that translated into ‘Deep Underground Military Position Yellow’).

SS Fliegertruppen had been landed directly onto the castle grounds by helicopter during the initial phases of the invasion, and with complete surprise on their side, they’d made short work of rounding up the British HQ and the small garrison of troops within. Their work had been made substantially easier by detailed, accurate plans of the entire tunnel complex, provided by Reichsmarschall Reuters himself. Most assumed the information had been acquired through spies of fifth columnist traitors, although that was of no interest to the troopers themselves: they were content with taking the installation with negligible losses on either side, and had no interest in asking academic questions for which there was no likelihood of an honest answer.

Generalfeldmarschall Gerd Von Rundstedt had moved his staff into those same tunnels by the evening of that first day. The castle’s capture had been completed so efficiently and quickly that there’d been no time for the incumbent British troops to do much by way of sabotage to the facilities, and as such, the place now seemed a perfect choice for Army Group A’s forward HQ. Generalleutnant Albert Schiller’s helicopter had landed in the castle grounds just before sunset, and he’d disembarked escorted by a trio of armed guards. Kurt Reuters was still recovering in the field hospital at Amiens but remained in constant contact, and it was an indication of the confidence Reuters displayed in his aide that he’d sent the man as his personal proxy at the front line. It was under those circumstances that Albert Schiller found himself walking upon English soil as part of the first successful conquering force since William, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066AD.

The ‘Casemate’ network had been the original barracks tunnel system built during the Napoleonic Wars, and opened out onto a narrow but quite wide balcony perhaps two-thirds of the way up the cliffs, below the castle itself. With no easy access to the cliff tops or the ground below, there was little need for guards, but a pair of privates attached to the observation corps stood duty there anyway, more as a cursory attempt to keep an eye on the sea traffic pouring into the port below than any real attempt at keeping lookout for enemy activity that was never likely to eventuate. They went about their duties in the same spirit with which they’d been assigned, and had secured some chairs from somewhere inside so the pair could sit, talk and smoke as they waited out their time on watch.

Standing a few metres away at the iron railings of that same balcony, Albert Schiller had made his way down through the tunnel complex in search of somewhere out in the open that was relatively private, where he and his entourage of escorts could have a quiet cigarette. Of course, there was no need to go outside for a smoke, but the activity’s indoor prohibition was so heavily ingrained in Schiller’s psyche after so many Realtime years in a non-smoking environment, that he’d found that he couldn’t comfortably enjoy a cigarette unless he was out in the open air. The irony of that fact wasn’t lost on him, particularly when one considered he’d actually only developed the habit since his arrival in the thirties, but the conditioning of his youth died hard, and in any case he also found being outdoors far more conducive to deeper thought… far more so than smoking indoors.

Schiller sighed deeply as he took a long drag on the cigarette and blew the smoke back out into the chilly air a moment later, the whole time standing silent as he stared out over The Channel and the brightly lit docks below. From that balcony, one could look out over the entire Port of Dover and take in the constant and frenetic activity below as dozens of transports and supply ships were being simultaneously unloaded all around, with still more standing off outside the breakwater, waiting for clearance to come in as soon as a free berth became available. Schiller was normally a friendly and talkative man when taking a break, but the men had been assigned to him long enough to read the signs and recognise that he was troubled by something, and all three knew him well enough to understand that at such times, the generalleutnant was best left to his own devices.

Schiller knew he should be filled with feelings of satisfaction, optimism or even something as simple as smug confidence… filled with the sort of emotions that naturally followed the resounding success of such an important operation. Taking into account the years of planning he and Kurt and all the others had put in, both before and after their return to that era, it should’ve been outright elation coursing through him as he stood there in that moment. Instead, the reality was that pleasant sensations of that nature were in fact the furthest things from his mind. Instead, he was feeling almost the exact opposite: sensations of despondency and dread that he couldn’t dispel, that each further notification of continued success served only to increase rather than dissipate.

He finished the Lucky Strike and flicked the still-glowing butt away over the balcony railing before drawing the half-empty soft-pack from inside his thick, army greatcoat and picking out another cigarette. Schiller offered the pack around, two of the escorts taking one also, and the third man quickly produced a Zippo lighter which he used to light all of them as the others leaned forward in turn, hands cupped about their faces to protect against the chilly evening breeze.

Drawing in another deep breath, Schiller released the resulting plume of smoke into the air in a long, desultory sigh. He could remember how excited he’d openly acted during the earlier campaigns, and that and mostly been the truth, but that confidence, drive and vision he’d shared with his friend and long-time commanding officer was failing him now as he stood there in the midst of what had become the Wehrmacht’s finest victory.

If Albert Schiller wanted to really dig at the roots of the problem, he understood the reasons well enough. Unlike him, Kurt Reuters was a truly driven man, whose extra years meant he’d grown up through the absolute worst of the terror and privation that had plagued Germany following the end of the Second World War. The Kurt Reuters that Schiller had known in Realtime was a man of strong opinions, high morals and a powerful sense of honour, but the Reichsmarschall had allowed all of that to be sublimated by his overpowering need to exact revenge on a world that had destroyed his life before he’d even been born: a world that had brought about the execution of his father and the death of his mother through depression and suicide.

Schiller, on the other hand, had been born an entire generation later and although Europe of the ‘Seventies and ‘Eighties had remained in the grip of a Cold War and the fear of nuclear holocaust, the West German economy had been far stronger. Schiller’s own family life as a child had itself been pleasant and uneventful, and as a young officer, straight out of the academy, he’d been inspired by Reuters’ intensity from the moment they’d met while serving with the Bundeswehr. They’d also become great friends over the years, as their military careers had grown together, but as the 1990s arrived, bringing Glasnost and Perestroika with it, the end of the Cold War suddenly and unexpectedly arrived.

Finally, the worldwide ‘peace’ the entire planet had dreamed of had come to pass, yet the subsequent downsizing of military forces on both sides, right around the globe eventually left many ‘casualties’, Schiller and his CO included. Reuters was forced into retirement almost immediately, entirely against his will, and Schiller was lucky to retain his career in a new and reunified Germany that struggled for many years after to recover economically from the absorption of the shattered and moribund DDR back into the nation.

By the first years of the 21st Century, the German economy had recovered well enough, but the new world of ‘Post-9/11’ no longer had so much need for a large and powerful standing army, and Oberst Albert Schiller of the Deutsche Bundeswehr also found himself staring directly down the barrel of forced redundancy and the loss of a professional life that was all he’d ever known.

He’d still kept in touch with his old friend and former CO however, and it was as his military career was winding down that Reuters had come to him with the wild and crazy proposal to change history itself. At first he’d gone along purely out of curiosity, never believing anything would seriously come from such a ridiculous idea, and by the time they’d come to realise the project might produce results, Schiller was far too deeply involved to back out. Although none of the businessmen financing the operation admitted it openly, both he and Reuters had known or at least suspected that Zeigler, Strauss and the others were Neo-Nazis. It was easy to ignore the truth however, when one was being well paid to carry out what was, in theory at least, an incredibly interesting and challenging research project: how to bring 1930s Germany out of the Great Depression and within a decade turn it into a true world power capable of conquering Europe and Great Britain.

Schiller would be lying to himself if he’d said there were no feelings of guilt over what they were doing, but they’d fooled themselves into believing the new Grossdeutschland they’d be helping to build would be truly great rather than just in name only. The ‘reality’ behind the ideals had of course never come to fruition, however the beliefs themselves had at least served to provide cold comfort and a casus belli for their actions as Reuters, Schiller and the others had set about changing the course of history.

The moral issues hadn’t truly become a problem for him until the very last weeks before their departure. It’d been relatively easy to rationalise about the Holocaust, and about the death and destruction they were planning, while they lived in a future that was seventy years and an entirely different world away. It had proven far more difficult during the brutality and insanity of the nascent Nazi regime of the thirties. The dark multiplicity of alliances and dealings they’d been forced to become party to had taken a savage toll on all their consciences, and it’d been difficult indeed, although none of them would ever call themselves poor as a result.

Schiller himself owned several very lucrative industrial concerns in Switzerland, and a great deal of land in Spain. He’d holidayed there several times in the last years before the outbreak of war, the fine weather and sweeping landscapes surrounding his country estate almost able to divert his mind from what he’d become involved in that’d ultimately provided the wealth that had made everything possible. Most of the time, if he kept himself busy and maintained his façade of irreverent sarcasm, he could forget about the fact that they’d sold their souls in return for their successes.

He’d forget about Rachael too, eventually… or, at least, he’d mostly convinced himself that he would. It was only at night, alone in his quarters, that he couldn’t push away the memories of the girl he’d met and fallen in love with just months before their ‘great’ mission was realised. Rachael Weinberg… her parents and grandparents would no doubt be rounded up by the Gestapo in the next few years, if they hadn’t been already… and Schiller knew they’d die, along with millions of others, as part of the plan for the ‘Final Solution’. The Führer was already developing the project in secret, although he’d never openly revealed to Reuters or the rest of the Wehrmacht… save for explicit orders to allow the Einsatzgruppen free reign in their conquered territories. Realtime studies of historical patterns suggested the persecution and eventual extermination of the Jews should have been less of a priority while the Nazis were provided with continuing successes, but somehow the New Eagles’ presence and effect on the world had instead accelerated it to the point that thousands across German-occupied Europe were already being collected, registered and shipped eastward to the camps.

‘What else could we do?’ Schiller thought darkly, staring out at the black waters beneath a dark, cloudy sky. The Wehrmacht and the Reichstag and the rest of them had asked that same question over and over as the Nazi Party rode roughshod all of them, and over the rest of the world as well. He knew all the history; he’d read all the books, and discussed all the reasons and the ramifications and the ‘what ifs’… and he remembered the guilt. Is there a single German of my time who’s never felt guilt? Year after year… our fault… declared time and again in schools, and in the media, and in the eyes of the rest of the world… and we were never allowed to forget… or to be forgiven by some, he admitted silently, his features hardening slightly as the thoughts entered his mind. Yet they were right all the same: our fault indeed, as much for what we didn’t do, or could’ve prevented, as anything we blindly went along with as a nation. How much clearer that is, now I’ve lived through it all and seen it for myself.

But Kurt can’t see it…won’t see it. Schiller had come to realise that too, in the years since their return. We stuck to the ‘plan’… we developed industry and production… we improved and we advanced… but make Germany great? Is that really what we’ve done… or have we placed our nation so far beyond redemption there’s no hope for us now whatsoever? He snorted angrily over the concepts as he considered the same terrible truths that had filled his thoughts many times since their arrival in the past. We had the entire world at our feet… ours to command. We had enough technology and equipment to do anything we wanted, and be rich beyond our dreams into the bargain… we didn’t need the Nazis… we didn’t need Hitler or the Nazis or any of it. We could’ve been the true saviours of Germany, rather than one more tool of fascism — one more tool of murder and oppression. We could’ve shattered the NSDAP and instead created a truly great Germany of our own, more benevolent devising. And instead we did nothing… and through our own inaction, we’ve become are far worse, and carry far more blame than the Officer Corps or the weak, vacillating politicians of Weimar… for we knew what was coming… knew exactly what the Nazis would do… and we went along with it all the same…!

As he exorcised his lifelong nightmares, Kurt Reuters could rationalise all the horrors they knew were being committed… rationalise it all for the erasure of those decades of personal humiliation and hardship. And loyal, obedient Albert Schiller had supported his friend and CO with good humour as he went about his business, simply because it was his duty: Reuters had been his commanding officer for so long now, he’d really known no other life than working in that great man’s service. It was ultimately that military conditioning as an officer that proved most useful in justifying what they’d done… the so-called ‘honour’ of the Officer Corps, and the visceral need to follow orders.

What was that old joke? He wondered suddenly as the memory came to him. ‘What do you call a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean… a good start…’ He almost managed a genuine smile as he remembered, but the grin turned quite dark and malevolent a moment later. What do you call the assassination of Hess, Bormann, Göring and Zeigler…? I suspect the punchline would be something similar. He felt no guilt or remorse whatsoever over the killings in that stable at Amiens, three days before, although there was still the underlying fear that he’d be found out… something that worried him as much for what it’d do to Reuters’ position as Reichsmarschall as for how it might affect his own fate. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Reuters what had happened… couldn’t bring himself to lay that extra burden at the man’s feet… and so he carried what he’d done in cold silence.

All those years of rationalising what I’ve done in the name of Grossdeutschland… about time those ‘skills’ were put to good use, he reasoned, knowing there was at least some truth behind his justifications. If I can sublimate guilt over complicity in the deaths of millions of innocent Jews, why should I feel guilty about the extermination of four true blights upon the face of humanity? As he thought about all of this, Albert Schiller found it the greatest irony of all that what he’d done three days ago was something they should’ve done upon their arrival in 1933: had they simply rounded up all the high-ranking Nazi figureheads and shot them all out of hand, Hitler included, could there be any doubt now that the world would’ve been a far better place?

Unlike Carl Ritter, Schiller kept no diary… no journal… no repository for his private thoughts with the potential for incriminating evidence that an enemy might use against him. He smiled thinly — mirthlessly — as he recognised that the only enemy who could — and did — use his thoughts against him was the one enemy he could never avoid nor defeat: himself. There’d been no one he’d ever loved in his life before Rachael, and there’d certainly been no one after, and there was therefore no one else he could confide anything in, had he trusted anyone from that era sufficiently anyway, which he did not. Schiller’s own, personal demons were exactly that… personal… and he would deal with them alone, as he’d always done.

He’d visited England several times in his youth, both on holiday and as part of his military service with the Bundeswehr. He’d visited Dover and walked about the castle and the fortifications there of what at the time had then been a distant past… a bygone era when Churchill and ‘his’ Island had stood alone across forty kilometres of English Channel against the greatest power the world had ever seen. No one had cared that he was German in those days, or that he was a member of the military. West Germany was by that stage been a solid NATO ally, and a bulwark against communism and the danger of the Soviet Union. The British, American and French forces they’d served beside in Western Europe had regarded their German colleagues with pride, and shown respect for their Bundeswehr training and professionalism — they’d not felt fear at the sight of German troops, tanks and aircraft.

Will there ever be a time now when anyone looks on a German without fear? That thought stung him more than he’d have liked to admit. He gave another faint snort, this time in mild disgust. Will there ever be a time when I’ll walk down a European street without these feelings of guilt as my constant companions? Albert Schiller smoked his cigarette and stared down at the busy docks below, searching for resolve, and for answers that would never come.

Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine

Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

As many had been feared, the night began in subdued fashion, what little conversation there was sparse and somewhat hollow between people stunned and left gutted by what was happening in the south. Some had relatives, or knew friends living in the areas now under German control, although of course there was always the hope that most had joined the streams of evacuees moving west. In any case, most present in the mess that night were in no mood to do more than sit and drink in sullen silence, barely aware of the music playing softly in the background.

US Marine Sergeant Lyle Abraham Walters, a thirty-eight year old African-American from New Orleans, had been serving overseas in Iraq when he lost his entire family to Hurricane Katrina on the 29th of August, 2005. Only the support of his commanders and his fellow marines had gotten him through the terrible grief that had naturally followed, along with the man’s own inherent resilience and inner strength. He’d served under Michael Kowalski in Iraq during the First Gulf War, and again following the September 11 attacks of 2001, and as a twenty-year veteran with a wealth of military experience, Kowalski had personally selected the man as a prime candidate to be offered a place with the Hindsight Team.

While his parents had both worked their day jobs to make a better life for their only son, Walters had spent a great deal of his youth in the care of his paternal grandfather. A war veteran himself, Abraham Jeremiah Walters had served on the Western Front with the 761st Tank Battalion, under Patton’s 3rd Army, during the last year of the Second World War. The old man had spent hours recounting tales of his war service, much to the delight of his young grandson, and it was the memory of those stories that’d made it a natural choice for Lyle Walters to join the Marines straight after graduation. It’d also been the treasured memory of those times spent with his grandfather that had made his decision to accept Kowalski’s offer to join Hindsight an easy one.

Walters sat at the upright piano at the rear of the stage that evening, playing along to a selection of jazz and blues instrumental numbers as Evan Lloyd stood up front with his acoustic guitar, accompanied by a pair of Royal Navy junior NCOs on drums and a large double bass. Both of the Hindsight men’s musical skills were well developed, and although both had found themselves a little rusty at first, regular playing with the band during their time at Lyness had quickly returned their skills to a high standard that even they’d been surprised by. They’d learned quite a few popular songs of the time they’d never before encountered, and both Lloyd and Walters had also taken the opportunity to teach their 1940s band mates a few of the songs they’d know from their time, most quite different to the current styles of music to which the others were more accustomed.

“I think someone’s supposed to say something like ‘So… this is it…’” Davies observed softly, his humour strained as the others remained silent. The Hindsight officers sat at one large table… a table that felt bare and incomplete, now that the group lacked the presence of Richard Kransky and Carl Ritter.

“So… this is it,” Bob Green stated in a deadpan voice a moment later, not the slightest hint of emotion in either his expression or tone. “Just about time to ‘Get the hell outta Dodge’…”

“At least we’re able to leave with everyone,” Kowalski stated with feeling, raising a glass of beer to Thorne and then Trumbull, sitting two seats away and opposite Eileen Donelson. “Well done, Alec…”

“Aye, things worked out all right in the end,” Eileen agreed grudgingly, “but don’t for a moment think you’re off the hook, mister… God knows the shit we’d have been in if we’d lost the pair of ye down there, not to mention the bloody aircraft…!” She directed her words at Trumbull, fixing him with an icy glare, and failed to notice as Thorne looked across toward the stage at the same time and threw Lloyd a conspiratorial wink. She also failed to notice, until it was far too late, that the music had stopped as Thorne rose from the table and walked up to stand beside Evan and the other musicians.

Thorne’s own Maton Messiah appeared from behind the bar, and as he lifted the strap over his head and hung the guitar in front of him, he stepped forward to speak into the large microphone that rose upon a tall stand at the front of the stage.

“Good evening, everyone,” he began after briefly clearing his throat, an unexpected nervousness in his voice as he addressed the entire crowd. “For those of you who don’t know who I am, my name’s Air Vice Marshall Max Thorne, Commanding Officer of Hindsight Group. Corporal Lloyd here, who I’m sure you all know for his fantastic guitar work and evil sense of humour…” A faint ripple of laughter washed through the crowd as Lloyd grinned, nodding behind him. “…Has asked me to sit in with the band tonight and help out with some guitar work of my own, although I’ve no doubt you’re all about to discover exactly how lousy I am.” He paused a moment to take a breath, and only the men around him on stage were close enough to see that Max Thorne was actually shaking with tension, a thin film of perspiration breaking out across his brow. “Evan’s asked me to help out tonight because two of the band’s regular members gave their lives this afternoon, defending their country on HMS Warspite… lest we forget…” he closed his eyes and momentarily lowered his head out of respect for all the men of the Home Fleet lost that day, accompanied by several subdued cheers and a few calls of ‘hear, hear…!’ as the huge majority of those present in the room breathed the words ‘lest we forget…’ softly in unison a moment later.

“The men lost today,” Thorne continued quickly, a waver in his voice as his nerves showed through, “were Seaman Hubert Haversham and Petty Officer James Melville. I doubt there’s any chance of matching Seaman Haversham’s accomplishments on guitar with my own meagre abilities, however I’m willing to do what I can.” He paused again, this time for effect as he purposefully avoided staring directly at a completely unsuspecting Eileen. “With regard to vocals however, PO Melville was by all accounts an excellent vocalist, and I wouldn’t dare insult the man’s memory by attempting to fill those shoes.” He took another breath, managing a characteristically broad grin despite the mounting fear he always experienced when about to play in front of crowds. “Instead, I think the singing tonight should be left to someone I know will do us proud…” He half-turned toward Evan, hand outstretched, and was instantly handed a thick folder of clear plastic that was filled with printed sheet music. It was only as he held the folder up for all to see that he fixed Eileen Donelson with an expectant stare, and a look of abject horror spread across her face as she recognised what he was holding.

“Commander Donelson,” Lloyd continued quickly, lifting his guitar microphone from its own, shorter stand and raising it to his lips as he laid a hand momentarily on Thorne’s arm, signalling that he was prepared to take over. He could clearly see his CO was suffering from a severe bout of nerves, and was beginning to worry that if the man to became any more stressed, he’d be no use at all to the band when it came time to play again. “I have it on good authority you were a fine singer back… where we came from…” he finished finally, deciding on ending the sentence in a purposefully non-specific fashion.

“Ah… well… aye, I guess I did sing a little,” she blustered, raising her voice as much as she dared as her face turned the unmistakeably bright pink of embarrassment. She was under no misconception as to where that information had probably come from, and instantly fired a filthy glare at Thorne powerful enough to kill a field mouse at fifty metres. “Just a little…”

“Oh, I’ve heard it was much more than ‘just a little’… we’d all be honoured if you’d give us a song or two! I think we could all do with a little cheering up!”

“Och, Ah dunno if that’s such a good idea… it’s been a long time between drinks…!”

“Come on, Eileen…!” Davies goaded kindly, making her flinch as he mimicked the chorus of the Dexys Midnight Runners song of the same name from 1982, completely unaware that Donelson had suffered through years of teasing during her childhood because of that very song. “Why’d you bring the music with you, if you weren’t gonna sing some of it now and then?”

“Give it a go, Ma’am,” Lloyd continued. “It’s a great idea! We’re already making fools of ourselves up here…what have you got to lose…?”

“Whaddya say, everyone…?” Thorne called out to the audience, knowing what he was doing would either make or break the situation. “Who’d like to hear some great songs from a beautiful lady tonight?” The cheers and applause that rose throughout the mess was the first display of anything resembling enjoyment anyone had experienced so far that night, and although the reaction served to turn Eileen’s face even redder — if that was actually possible –she also couldn’t help but recognise the positive effect it was having on what’d otherwise been a sour and almost painful experience.

“You’re gonna be great and you know it,” Thorne added softly off-mike, barely audible from that distance. “I know it…!” He shrugged and gave her a genuinely caring smile. “Like Evan says: what’ve you got to lose…?”

“All right… all right!” The mounting pressure from all sides finally became too much for the blushing commander and she capitulated, rising to her feet as she waved both hands broadly for everyone around her to settle down and give her some quiet. “For God’s sake, anyone would think it’s a bloody karaoke night!” She paused for a moment to gather her courage before striding purposefully up to the stage to stand beside Thorne and snatch the folder of music from his hands.

“You’ll be great…!” He assured sincerely, resting an arm lightly around her waist as she leaned in, her face near his.

“As soon as we’re out of here tonight, Max,” she hissed acidly, consciously raising a hand to push his microphone away and keep her words private, “you are completely and utterly fucked!” The façade of a sweet smile never left her face as she spoke.

“This really is my lucky day, then…!” He countered softly, a grin never leaving his face as he patted her lightly on the backside and handed her the microphone. “Let’s not keep the audience waiting any longer, eh?”

He took a few paces back and took up a position behind another short mike stand, set perfectly for his own guitar. Smiling now in spite of herself, Eileen returned the mike she held to its stand and tapped it a few times, testing its operation through force of habit rather than any real need for confirmation of what she already knew. A positively expectant hush fell over the crowd, every pair of eyes in the audience now staring directly at the beautiful woman on stage. She was dressed in her preferred designer jeans and figure-hugging ‘Howard Green’ army jumper, her dark hair loose and framing her oval face in a way that accentuated her fine features and stunning blue eyes. It was entirely likely that there wasn’t a man present that night outside the Hindsight Group who’d ever seen a woman dressed so attractively in such casual clothes, and it was fair to say that not one of them would ever forget the experience yet to come.

“Good evening, everyone,” Eileen began falteringly, her own nerves showing now as she addressed the crowd. “I’m Commander Eileen Donelson… Royal Navy…” The last part had been spoken with an intentional delay and emphasis, and it produced the desired result. Cheers and applause again rose from the audience, stronger this time than before, and although the sound almost froze her for a moment, the part of her that lived for music and singing also revelled in it. “I’ll do my best to entertain y’ all for a while tonight,” she continued as she raised her hands again for silence and the noise abated. “If you’ll all just bear with me for a moment or two, I’ll get some music ready and we’ll play some songs for you.” With a single nod of thanks at the continued calm, she immediately turned back toward the band.

“What do you like, ma’am?” Leading Rating Simon Barnett asked from his position at the double-bass as he handed Eileen a selection of their music and she rifled through it with a discerning frown. Barnett had been the group’s unofficial bandleader for some time, and carried the best musical repertoire of all of them.

“Aye, this’ll do,” she muttered, pulling one free. “And this one… and this… they’ll do for starters…” She handed the selection of music over for Barnett to consider.

“I’ve Got You Under My Skin…?” He nodded approvingly over her first choice. “Good old Cole Porter tune, ma’am… should go down nicely. You want us fast or slow…?”

“Reasonably quick… nice and bright,” she said without hesitation. “You fellas set the pace; I’ll keep with you well enough.” She scanned through the verses, reassuring herself needlessly that her faultless memory had recalled the words and music correctly. “We’ll run through it once, take an instrumental break, then back over the last verse and finish. Anyone have any trouble going up to ‘C’ instead of ‘E-flat’…?”

“No problem at all, ma’am,” he grinned, and as she turned back to the microphone, Barnett passed an approving glance around the rest of the group, impressed that the attractive officer seemed to know her stuff. “Hear that, boys…? ‘Under My Skin’ in ‘C’…”

All four men nodded in agreement, and the crowd remained in a silent thrall as they readied themselves and Eileen prepared to sing.

There was a near audible release of held breath about the entire room as the song began and her rich, lustrous voice reached out through the microphone in almost perfect pitch. Although she could tell her voice was slightly out due to a lack of warm up, no one else could hear it, and once again, Eileen’s memory was a major part in her abilities. She could quite literally ‘hear’ songs in her head after just one playing, something that matched beautifully with a fine voice and perfect pitch to produce an excellent vocalist. Although not having had a chance to sing regularly for some years made her feel a little rusty, it was almost impossible for her not to sing well under the circumstances, and she found herself quickly getting back into the swing of it.

Playing along behind her, Thorne watched her with a genuinely caring expression. Some in the crowd might’ve been dubious of her talents prior to Eileen singing that first verse, but he’d never doubted her abilities for a moment. During the relatively short time he and the commander had been a couple, many years before, she’d regularly been involved in amateur singing, and watching her perform while he’d played guitar had been a constant source of enjoyment. Their relationship hadn’t worked out for a variety of reasons, but they’d never stopped being great friends, and Max Thorne had never forgotten how much he loved hearing Eileen Donelson sing, or the warmth the sound of her voice generated.

Years later, he and Anna had also sometimes had the opportunity to hear her sing, and those times were the only moments Thorne had ever felt any guilt whatsoever over his feelings for a woman other than his wife. Although the intensity of feeling between he and Donelson had waned and diluted into friendship many years before, he was always reminded of it by the sound of her voice. If Thorne had forgotten what it was once like to be in love — to be in love with Eileen Donelson at least, if he ever really had been — then something of that feeling always came back to him whenever he heard her sing.

Eileen warmed up quickly, and received a huge reaction from the entire mess as she finished the song. Buoyed by the long-forgotten rush she always felt when receiving applause from an ecstatic crowd, she was absolutely glowing by the time she’d launched into five more of the band’s standards that included two Gershwin tunes and an Irving Berlin number, seamlessly mixing bright and lively compositions with strong, powerful torch songs. The applause had become outright cheers and whistles by the time she had finished the set, and she took a moment to again talk to the band, this time taking some sheet music from her own folder and passing it around.

“You’ve all been very kind tonight,” she said humbly, returning to the mike once more and trying to remain calm as the applause finally died down. “We’ve done some of the band’s favourites for you…” She cast a glance at the rest of her Hindsight colleagues, seated close to the stage and applauding as strongly as the rest. “…And if you’ll do me the honour of listening just a little longer, I’d like to do one of my favourites.” Clapping and whistles once more rose up in encouragement, again forcing her to raise a hand to bring the volume down. “This is a song from where I come from,” Eileen continued, and Thorne and the other Hindsight officers instinctively knew she really meant ‘when’. “I hope you all like it… it was a favourite of a good friend of mine.” She paused as she turned for just a moment to cast an emotional glance at Max Thorne, and he could clearly see the faint hint of tears welling in her eyes. “The song’s called ‘Imagine’… this song is for Nick Alpert…”

There was no way Lyle Walters couldn’t have known the song on the sheet music she’d handed around, and he was right on time and tempo as she counted him in on the opening chords… chords as unmistakeable to each member of Hindsight as the sound of their own names, or their mother’s voices. Simple and unforgettable, those first bars sent a distinct chill through every person of the Hindsight Group. To the others who didn’t recognise the music — men born in a time when that song hadn’t even been written, nor would be for another thirty years — the sound of those deep, rich chords was no less captivating.

John Lennon’s powerful lyrics fell over the crowd like a spell, Eileen’s strong, alto voice clear and crisp as she worked through the first verse. Lloyd and Thorne coached the rest of the band with when to come in, and the bass and drums joined at the end of that first verse, joining the melody with a basic rhythm that somehow worked perfectly.

Thorne caught sight of Eileen’s face once more as she turned to one side of the audience, and as she started the third verse, he could clearly see the tears streaming down her cheeks. John Lennon and the Beatles had been Nick Alpert’s one great musical passion, and among the prized possessions he’d brought with him from the future had been the entire collection of the music of Lennon and McCartney. None of those who’d known the man could’ve imagined a better tribute to Nick's memory than the signature song of a slain musical genius whose life had also been cut prematurely short.

Although still crying as the song came to an end, she was also smiling as the old feelings of joy for the music and lyrics of her own life and childhood flooded through her. There was the sensation of weight lifting from Eileen’s shoulders, and Thorne and the others could all see that radiance shine around her — a radiance that eclipsed mere physical beauty. Lloyd and Walters played the last few chords to a close, and a stunned silence reigned for a moment over the room full of military men. Still nervous, but now also exhilarated, she could see how completely she’d captured the audience, and as always that feeling was better than any drug. Cheers and wild applause erupted as she sheepishly gave a single bow and stepped back from the microphone once more, collecting her music and returning it to the folder before leaving the stage and heading for the relative safety of her table. It was only as she sat down that she realised Thorne had been right behind her, and was again sitting at her side.

“There y’are,” he beamed, as pleased for her as he was with the reasonable performance he’d also managed. “I knew you’d be a big hit!”

“Don’t think for a minute that all that applause has gotten you off the hook, mister!” She laughed loudly, the unconvincing threat more for show than anything else. “I’m far from finished with you!” But Thorne caught the look in her eyes as she spoke, and he knew he was a long way from being in any trouble.

“A toast, gentlemen…!” Trumbull burst out, raising his glass of beer as they all turned their eyes in his direction. “This is the last drink we’re ever likely to have here, and I think some kind of toast is definitely in order.”

“Why not, indeed,” Thorne nodded, although he cast a lightning-quick, almost guilty glance at Eileen before assuming a serious expression and accepting an offered glass of whisky. He then realised that everyone at the table was looking to him expectantly to conduct the toast itself. “Oh… okay then, let’s see…” He continued, thinking deeply, and the appropriate subjects came easily as he raised his glass.

“To Brigadier Nicholas Thomas Alpert… his intelligence, presence and friendship will be too greatly missed to ever replace…” To which there were nods of agreement all round. “…To Oberstleutnant Carl Werner Ritter… may luck stay with him on his mission to save us all…” Nods again, and he smiled brightly as he continued. “…To Alec Trumbull… may he one day come to terms with our ‘new-fangled’ technology and learn to fly that bloody jet properly…” They all laughed softly at that, Trumbull included. “…And to Richard Kransky, and those others who remain here to fight on… however long that may be…”

“Aye…!” Donelson added softly as Thorne took a short breath.

“Most of all,” he continued with renewed solemnity, rising to his feet as he spoke and projecting his words to the whole mess, gaining everyone’s attention as he raised his glass high. “Here’s to those who’ve already given their lives for their country and for freedom. Here’s to Sir John Tovey… to the Home Fleet… and to Henry Harwood, the men of the Nelson, and all the others! Like them, may we all do our duty, regardless of the cost…!” He raised his glass higher still with a final cry of: “To victory…!”

“To victory…!” The depth and volume of that returned toast included the voices of every person in the room, and was accompanied by the sound of chairs moving back in unison as all present stood as one, holding their own glasses aloft as the toast was made.

‘S-day’ + 1

Thursday,

September 12, 1940

The Hindsight Unit stayed in billets at HMS Proserpine that night, happy for the opportunity for one last good sleep in comfortable beds. They were awoken before dawn that next morning, and boarded the destroyer HMS Esk as a group soon after. They were all provided with breakfast and shower facilities during their return to Eday, and all were in relatively good spirits as they made the final journey back to the Alternate airstrip in the rear of several Bedford trucks. Thorne, who’d landed the F-35E at Lyness the night before, had flown the aircraft back to Alternate directly, using the extra time following his arrival to allow two large, external fuel tanks to be fitted beneath the wings, along with the reattachment of the 25mm gun pod and the loading of a single pair of AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. He was waiting at the southern end of the runway as the trucks arrived with the rest of his unit.

“You’re sure you don’t mind flying the Lightning?” Thorne asked Davies as the Texan dismounted the first truck and the pair walked together toward the parked aircraft.

“Nahh…” Davies shook his head dismissively. “Hell, I’ve got more hours in that thing than you’ve had hot dinners.” He shrugged. “I’m a fighter jock anyway: who the hell’d wanna be cooped up in one of those Goddamn barges for two damn days?” He changed the subject as they walked on. “Good to hear Trumbull’s family got away…”

“Yeah,” Thorne agreed with a nod. “Both his parents and the younger brother headed out last night with the Royal Family aboard King George V. They’ll meet up with Force H off Gibraltar, and head on into the Mediterranean and through the Suez Canal from there. They won’t reach Australia as quickly as we will, but they’re on their way. Alec was over the moon when he found out.”

“The King’s staying though… for the moment at least…?”

“For as long as he can,” Thorne shrugged, not sure whether the idea was good or bad. “It’ll mean a lot for morale, knowing he’s still in England, but whether they’ll be able to get him out as things get worse will be difficult to call. We all know his brother can take over if he has to, but I’d much rather Edward be gotten away to safety too, all things considered.”

“And Sir Winston…?”

“Well…” Thorne gave a thin smile. “…From what I can gather, he’s also staying put for the moment. I got the distinct feeling he’s of the opinion a martyr is worth more than a Prime Minister in exile.”

“The man’s got moxie, I’ll give him that!”

“‘Moxie’…?” Thorne was more than a little amused at Davies unexpected use of 1940s vernacular. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…! We really gotta get you ‘back to the future’…!”

“One of those Deloreans would be a nice start!”

“You wish…!” Thorne laughed in return.

Out on the tarmac thirty minutes later, flight crew were warming the howling engines of the KC-10A Extender and C-5M Galaxy as the sun lit the horizon over the southern reaches of Sanday, four kilometres east across the Bay of London. The F-35E was also winding up for take off nearby as Davies strapped himself in, the pair of tanks hanging from the inboard pylons beneath his wings refilled with fuel. He was glad of the gun pod and the missiles, but he doubted he’d need them: although they’d all be flying through some potentially hostile airspace during the initial leg of their journey, they’d be travelling too fast and too high for any interception to be possible.

With clearance from the transports, Davies took the Lightning into a short, rolling take off and leapt skyward on a trail of exhaust, climbing quickly and circling while he awaited his slower colleagues. The tanker began to rumble along the tarmac seconds later, its speed increasing quickly as throttles were pushed forward. The aircraft finally clawed its way desperately skyward, its three turbofan engines howling as if in defiance of the skewed world it was leaving behind as it banked to port and its undercarriage folded upward. The Galaxy began its own take-off run soon after, it too powering along the concrete strip with a rate of acceleration that seemed impossibly fast for such a behemoth. Within moments, it was struggling into the air after the others, its main banks of landing wheels neatly stowed in the bulges along its fuselage sides. As the transports continued to climb through a light, patchy cloud cover, the F-35E fell in behind and above them, active systems scanning for any threat, and the flight turned south for the run down the length of the British Isles: the first leg of a far longer journey to come.

Church of St. Michael and All Angels

Kingsnorth, Kent

Historically an area of marshes and densely woodland, there was evidence to suggest that the village of Kingsnorth, just a few kilometres south of Ashford, had been settled as long ago as 28,000 years. There’d certainly been discoveries of flint tools from the Mesolithic Period in the area (approximately 9,000 BC), and there’d also been later settlements during the Iron and Bronze Ages, and through Early Roman times. The Church of St. Michael and All Angels itself dated from the 13th Century, and boasted a fine example of stained glass of the period in a depiction of St. Michael slaying the dragon, while its sanctuary also held the marble tomb of Baronet Sir Humphrey Clarke. Constructed of Kentish Ragstone, as were many of the churches, castles and other historic buildings throughout Southern England, it was a small building with a high roof and a tall, stone belltower that stood a dozen metres or more above Church Lane to the west.

Like much of the surrounding area, Kingsnorth had been evacuated, and the place was now no better than an empty ghost town. Remnants of the 1st London Division had been reinforced overnight, and a second defensive line had been set up a thousand metres or so to the south-east, running along the Marshlink Rail Line and parallel to the B2070 between Ashford and Bromley Green to the south. The hastily-constructed diggings turned east above Kingsnorth, passed through the southern outskirts of Sevington, and eventually crossed the Hythe Road near Willesborough Lees before continuing on to the north-east through Hinxhill and beyond to Brook. For the most part, the lines were probably no more than five thousand metres north-west of Wehrmacht advanced units in that area, and the point where the defences crossed the A20 were perhaps four kilometres down the Hythe Road from where Trumbull had landed the F-35E the night before to pick up Max Thorne.

Richard Kransky could see the line of troops and guns through his powerful scope sight as he looked out across the roof of the church, from a small arched window near the top of the tall belltower. They were only a kilometre away from his position at their nearest point, and from his vantage point he could see much further across the seemingly endless run of hedgerows, fields and woods that covered the eastern horizon. He’d moved quickly the evening before, once he’d left Thorne and Ritter, and had managed to make it as far as that abandoned church before deciding to rest for the night.

St. Michaels made for an excellent observation or shooting position. Church towers and spires were often the tallest structures to be found in most villages, and as such they generally stood high above the surrounding buildings and trees, and provided clear views of the surrounding area for many miles. Any enemy advance would therefore be visible at quite a distance, and Kransky was in possession of several boxes of powerful armour-piercing rounds for the M82A1 Barrett's rifle with which he could penetrate the top armour of any vehicle the Wehrmacht used, save for the P-4A Panther tank. Even if he couldn’t damage the Panther itself, a well-aimed shot could still break a track, which would be enough to cause significant delays.

With an effective range of up to a mile or more against vehicle-sized targets, the Barrett allowed him to reach perhaps five hundred metres beyond the British defenders at their closest — enough range to cause any assaulting troops some real difficulty. He suspected it would be only be a matter of time until the lines collapsed once more, but any delay they could provide allowed more time for the establishment of far better defences and fortifications closer to London, and Kransky was prepared to make every effort he could to assist the men in the newly-dug trenches before him. All the same, the abandoned Triumph Tiger T100 motorcycle he’d found in a nearby shed was now waiting for him outside the church when the time came to leave. For all his determination, Kransky wasn’t feeling the slightest bit suicidal, and he intended to keep a viable escape route available.

He stared out once more across the fields beyond the defences, raising the rifle and squinting through the telescopic sight. There was still no sign of enemy troops or armoured vehicles, but it was only a matter of time before the advance began again in earnest. Dawn had broken a few minutes ago, and the sun was already bright and streaming through broken cloud spread across the eastern horizon… in truth, Kransky as surprised an attack hadn’t come already, although he was more than happy for the unexpected period of grace to continue.

In the tense silence of that first morning light, as an entire world waited for the terrible roar of battle to commence once more, Richard Kransky heard a soft rumbling that reached his ears from somewhere far overhead. It took a moment or two for him to work out what direction the sound was coming from, and after realising it came from the west, he placed his rifle on the floor of the belltower and moved quickly across to the window on the opposite side. With some difficulty, he managed to crane his head out through the opening and scan the cloudy skies above.

Fooled by the direction of the noise, he spent some time searching in the wrong area before finally discovering the source. He knew what he was looking at the moment he’d spotted it: three thin streaks of silver tracking south across the reddened morning sky that could only be the contrails of high-flying aircraft. It was the unmistakeable sound of jet engines that made Kransky certain he wasn’t just staring at conventional heavy bombers, and with a sigh of released breath, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile for the first time since he’d left the others the evening before.

He’d heard the F-35E overhead as he’d run on that night, and had caught sight of its afterburner from a distance as the Lightning had launched skyward from the A20 soon after, carrying Thorne out of harm’s way… the sight of those three jets overhead now was incontrovertible proof that his new and very dear friends were finally headed somewhere safe where they’d be able to carry on the fight, albeit from a far greater distance. He allowed himself a moment of sentimentality as he pulled his head back inside the belltower, and as he glanced up and beyond the wooden beams of the roof toward that particular patch of sky, he silently blew a kiss to one of the passengers on that flight as it continued its journey, already far away to the south. Another moment, and Kransky had cleared any remaining pleasant thoughts from his mind. He picked up the rifle once more and settled down before the eastern window, returning his full attention to the front lines, and the war that was about to continue around him.

Hindsight Phoenix Flight

Bay of Biscay, North Atlantic

Ten thousand metres above the Bay of Biscay, the three jets flew on unseen and unchallenged. There was a quiet, calm acceptance among the Hindsight crew as a whole: while the current journey was physically longer, it could certainly be no greater than the one they’d already made months before, and they all knew that their mission was a long way from being over… in real terms, it hadn’t yet even begun. On the passenger deck of the Galaxy, Michael Kowalski and Bob Green chatted animatedly about some ridiculously academic historical point, while Evan Lloyd listened to a small Walkman through headphones, and Trumbull sat alone, silent and completely immersed in a well-thumbed Tom Clancy novel Green had given him. Hal Markowicz snoozed in his own chair, oblivious to everything around him, and many of the Marines, Rangers and SAS troopers took the professor’s lead regarding catching up on their sleep: in armed forces the world over, spare time for sleep was always at a premium, and was never taken for granted.

Thorne stared out through one of the windows on the Galaxy’s flight deck, Eileen seated beside him as they cruised on above the scattered cloud cover, the rising sun off their port wing.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she asked softly, and he turned his head to look at her.

“I’d be ripping you off,” he replied with a shrug, smiling in return. “I was just thinking it’s a little ironic that the first time I’ll be back in Australia in more than ten years will be fifty years before I’ve even left! Of all the times I thought of ‘going home’, this certainly wasn’t how I’d imagined it.”

“Never been to Australia,” Eileen mused thoughtfully, knowing Thorne was already well aware of that fact. “Heard you and others go on about how great it was so many times, but I never got the chance to see for myself.”

“It’s a great place, all right,” Thorne said with feeling. “Always has been.” He shook his head slowly, almost seeming sad for a moment. “It’s hard to understand why I stayed away so long, now I’m on my way back… although I’m not really sure what I’m coming back to…” He fell silent for a moment, the anticipation clear in his tone and expression as he turned his eyes back to the window. He chuckled softly as a thought occurred to him.

“What is it…?”

“I was just thinking; it’ll be nice to be back in an Australia where cricket is still more popular than basketball!”

“Stupid bloody game, if you ask me!” Eileen grinned at his return to an old joke between them. “There’s not a Scot born who can understand it, or wants to!”

“Blasphemer…!” Thorne chuckled, knowing she was referring to the game of cricket and watching the clouds below the plane as he made a grand show of ‘crossing himself’.

“I’m glad you’re still here with us,” Eileen added with honest feeling a moment later, her hand resting gently over his and giving it a light squeeze. “…Here with me…”

“Me too,” he replied with an equally genuine smile, staring into her eyes and realising that he meant the words for reasons other than those that were simple and obvious.

Two hundred metres off to port, Davies cruised slowly past in the Lightning, waggling his wings slightly and giving a wave, before disappearing once more as he banked away to carry out another radar sweep, happy to be in his element as a fighter pilot.

‘England expects every man will do his duty’… Not for the first time, Thorne considered what Eileen had told him of the naval battle the day before… of the broadcast Henry Harwood had made as he’d taken Nelson in to the fray for her last hurrah. Thorne smiled thinly as he thought of Ritter, of Richard Kransky, and of the eager young RAF squadron leader they were bringing with them to the ‘New World’.

Not only England expects… He thought to himself as he laid his head back in his seat and stared for a moment at the ceiling overhead. Thorne closed his eyes, happy to be going home.

Copyright

Empires Lost

Charles S. Jackson

Copyright 2011 Charles Jackson

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Content

Charles S. Jackson
ENGLAND EXPECTS

1. Darkening Skies

2. A Gathering of Eagles

3. Seeds of Doubt

4. Food for Thought

5. Revelations

6. Opening Moves

7. Preparations & Developments

8. Reality Checks

9. Taking Care of Business

10. Down Time

11. A Not So Phoney War

12. Ultima Ratio Regum

13. Lay Down Misere

14. Post Mortems

15. A Few Good Men

16. Once More Unto the Breach

17. Slings and Broken Arrows

18. Too Many, Too Much and Too Few…

19. England Expects

20. Prodigal Sons

21. Last Rites

Copyright