Christopher G. Nuttall

THE INVASION OF 1950

A Novel of Alternate History

Introduction

For those of us who are part of the Alternate History Community (and I certainly consider myself a member) Operation Sea Lion — the planned German invasion of Britain in 1940 — seems to hold a promise of a radical shift in the balance of European power. Had Hitler invaded, had Britain fallen, the Nazis would seem to hold supreme power. Hitler would have been able to go east in 1941 without having to worry about his rear, while Japan and Italy would rapidly have snapped up the remains of the British Empire. It would be a total geopolitical disaster.

Fortunately, the Nazis would have faced formidable problems in carrying out the invasion, to the point where most members of the AH Community dismiss it as a pipe dream. In my opinion, Sea Lion had about a one-in-six chance of success; Hitler, still a calculative gambler in 1940, decided that it was too big a risk to take.

But what if the invasion had been launched later?

It wasn’t, of course. Hitler’s forces bogged down in Russia, Hitler declared war on the United States in a fit of absentmindedness and Germany was crushed between the combined forces of America, Britain and Soviet Russia. The war ended in 1945.

But what if Hitler had won in Russia? What if America hadn’t entered the war?

Would they plan to invade Britain again?

Author’s Note

This book was written several years ago and has been heavily edited (no less than three people looked at it.) However, it may not be up to the standards of my current projects. As always, comments and editing notes are welcome.

In addition, I have tried to keep the use of German phrases down to the bare minimum, as they tend to annoy me when I see them in other books.

CGN.

Prologue

England, 1943

“No,” Winston Churchill said.

“Winston, be reasonable,” Anthony Eden said. The Leader of the House of Commons stared down at the Prime Minister. “We have been fighting for four years. The country is tired of fighting with no prospect of victory.”

Churchill felt a hot flash of anger. “Anthony, Hitler and his madmen must be stopped,” he said, remembering bitter disappointments when the Japanese had headed north into the Soviet Union and the United States had drifted back into isolation. “We’re the only people holding the line!”

“The Germans captured Stalingrad a month ago,” Lord Halifax said. Churchill nodded slowly, unsurprised that his old competitor had joined the delegation. “It won’t be long before they start to press into Iran, and as you know, we have had a most imprudent communication from the Shah. He said that unless we evacuate his country — the Russian forces having gone to die in the defence of Stalingrad already — his forces will turn on ours with German support.”

Churchill’s eyes drifted to the map he’d placed the wall. German forces, having taken Moscow back in 1941, had concentrated on securing their flanks before advancing down towards Stalingrad and the oil wells to the south of the city — and Iran. The Soviet Union — the remains of the Soviet Union, under Beria — wasn’t able to stop them. The Foreign Ministry was privately predicting that the remains of the USSR would fall apart all too soon. Churchill had met Beria, he’d dealt with the man and he had no illusions about his ally’s capabilities. Stalin’s death had taken the heart out of the Russian resistance.

He’d hoped that Wavell would produce victories in the Western Desert, but even that had turned sour in his mouth as Hitler sent more and more resources into the desert and then Rommel had taken them to create a new puppet state in Egypt, for the Italians. The British held the line at the Suez Canal, but both sides knew that it would only be a matter of time before Rommel tried to cross the waterway, or the Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine rendered the British position untenable. They all knew, now, what fate Hitler had in mind for the Jews… and when the British position collapsed, the Jews would flee or try to fight.

“Beria has already declared his intention to attempt to reach a diplomatic solution with the Germans,” Halifax pressed. “If he settles for the status quo, he will surrender literally millions of souls, and unthinkable wealth in terms of land and resources. Hitler will be able to switch his forces back to the west, or he will be able to head into Iran and through Iran into Iraq or India.”

Churchill frowned at him. “The preservation of the Empire and the defeat of Adolph Hitler are my first priorities,” he said, coldly. “If Hitler wins in this war, the world will be plunged into barbarism.”

Clement Attlee, Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Prime Minister, coughed. “Winston, you have concentrated on winning, or at least fighting, the war, and we respect you for it,” he said. “However, our country is on the verge of internal collapse. The treasury is effectively bankrupt. The Empire is simply not supplying us with the resources we need to keep afloat. If it were not for the credit line the Americans have extended us, we would have been forced to seek terms before now.”

His voice darkened. “We sit here and talk about war on a global scale,” he continued. “Throughout England, the real victims of the war struggle to provide us with war materials and food, fearing only that their agonies will never end. As Germany brings the farmland in the Ukraine under their control, the German capability for continuing the war indefinitely will only expand, while our own ability to maintain even the current level of mobilisation will fall. I have heard of rumours of planned strikes, even riots, in protest at the recent cuts in rations. Frankly, Winston, Britain is on the verge of collapse.

“And even if we win, what have we gained? It will be a world without Hitler, but a world where we will have lost the Empire, a world where we cannot feed our children or even protect their interests,” he asked. “Can we, now, hope to defeat Germany on our own? The Soviet Union is a dead beast now and our armies are incapable of carrying the war to Germany. The war cannot be won. The best we can do is not lose.”

Churchill met his eyes. “When I became Prime Minister, there was no suggestion that we should seek a peace with that most untrustworthy little man,” he said, altering the facts slightly. There had been some secret discussions, which had come to nothing, between the Nazis and some of their British supporters. “If Hitler was a reasonable man, a man we could do business with, we could come to some arrangement. We cannot trust him to keep an agreement with us any longer than is convenient to him.”

“The war cannot be won,” Eden said flatly.

Churchill looked at him. “Is that the opinion of the House of Commons?”

“Yes,” Lord Halifax said.

“I will not seek a peace with Germany,” Churchill said. He allowed his voice to sharpen. This small delegation could only mean one thing. “Am I to assume that you intend to remove me if I refuse to seek a dishonourable peace?”

“The country is at stake,” Eden said, guilt written on his features. Churchill wasn’t surprised. Eden was a competent Foreign Secretary, but he had no spine. “There is no choice left but to seek a peace agreement with Hitler, at least to find out what he will let us keep.”

Churchill rose ponderously to his feet. “In that case, gentlemen, I will see the King immediately and offer my resignation,” he said. “In fact, as the great and the good of England have refused to allow me to continue my policy, I see no choice, but to insist on my immediate resignation from the post of Prime Minister.”

Oddly enough, for the first time in far too long, he felt free.

He smiled at their faces. “But mark my words, my friends,” he said. “We have not finished with Hitler, nor has he finished with us. This is not peace, but an armistice, to be broken when Herr Hitler decides that it is time to reopen the war.”

Chapter One

Near Felixstowe, England, 1950

“Here they come,” Captain Harry Jackson said, as the first noises could be heard down the road. He glanced once at his radio — noting the lack of a signal from the two men he’d deployed further down the road — and muttered a curse under his breath. The Germans had taken the two men out before they could get off a warning. “Prepare to engage the enemy.”

Jackson had deployed his company around the road, knowing that the enemy couldn’t get their tanks through the forest, but a smart enemy commander might try to slip infantry through the trees to catch Jackson’s unit before it could engage the target on their terms. The road leading down towards Felixstowe was wide enough to allow three tanks uninterrupted passage. Like many other roads in this part of the country, it had been renovated to allow for the swift passage of military vehicles. The Germans would prefer to take it, according to the briefing, in order to allow themselves time to get through the defenders. It was Jackson’s job to hold the road and slow the enemy as much as possible.

The tension rose as the sound of vehicles grew louder. The briefing had been clear. The enemy intended to push the better part of an armoured division through the area, and while Jackson didn’t have the firepower to stop it, he was expected to delay them for as long as possible. He’d deployed his antitank weapons — including, ironically, a direct copy of a German-made weapon — as best as he could, but he wasn’t expecting the position to hold for long. He’d already prepared a series of fall-back positions.

We’re only going to get one free shot, he thought coldly, as he glanced around the company’s hiding places. The weekend warriors of the Home Guard force had certain problems with discipline, but there was no doubting either their local knowledge or even their training. The original Home Guardsmen had been barely capable of resisting an unarmed bandit, but as training and equipment improved, the Home Guard had grown into a respectable fighting force.

He’d transferred from the regular army in order to share his experience with them, but stopping a German armoured division — a Panzer Division — was very different from counterinsurgency operations in India. The Indian insurgents had no tanks and rarely bothered to stand and fight.

He heard a whistle as the dark tank appeared at the end of the road, followed by two more, flanked by a group of motorcycles and patrolling infantry. Jackson bit down a curse as he took in their appearance and deployment; they were likely to trigger his mines before the main body of their force entered the range of his guns. He’d hoped to be able to hit their tanks while they were stalled, but… More tanks appeared, heading along the road at a respectable speed, and he forced himself to revise the plans quickly. If the Germans saw them, they would sweep his people from the road. They hadn’t been able to do much to block the road and prevent the Germans from using it. That hadn’t been in the briefing.

“Open fire as soon as the mines detonate,” he hissed. They’d been able to hide a small set of antitank mines down the road, at just the right location; the Germans would slow down at once and call for infantry to sweep the mines out the way. He’d prepared it — he hoped — so that the Germans would be caught in a trap, but German soldiers were trained to take the initiative as fast as they could; if they decided to gamble, they could still break through his position.

The explosion wasn’t very loud, but the puff of smoke under the tank was unmistakable. His men didn’t hesitate, or wait for orders; they fired as one, throwing a hail of antitank shells towards the enemy tank. Jackson winced as blinding white flashes of light covered the tanks, signalling that they were disabled or destroyed, and then cursed under his breath as a German truck appeared, infantry already spilling from the rear and advancing at the double. A German tank, attempting to get around the disabled tanks, ran into another mine and skidded to a halt, the crew cursing their misfortune as their part came to an end.

More shots rang out through the woods as the German infantry crashed into his men, with shouts and screams echoing out as the Germans attempted to dislodge the British from their position. Jackson lifted his own weapon as a German storm-trooper appeared, holding a grenade in one hand, and had the satisfaction of watching as the German fell to the ground, dead. He lifted his whistle to his lips and blew a single long blast, the signal for retreat. The remains of the company fled the battle, in seeming panic, right towards the next holding position. Jackson half-hoped that the Germans would pursue them directly — there was an infantry company dug in a short distance down the road — but they contented themselves with capturing the remains of the position and hunting for the mines.

“We caught them with their pants down,” Sergeant Henry Wilt said, as they reached the second position and stopped, puffing for breath. It was just in front of a bridge and that presented its own problems; the Germans might try to take the bridge, but at the same time, they would be expecting to meet an ambush there. It was the logical place to set a trap. “How many do you think we got?”

Jackson thought about it, replaying the engagement in his head. “At least four tanks,” he said, thoughtfully. They wouldn’t know how many German infantrymen they’d killed for hours yet. “What about our air support?”

“It’s been denied,” Wilt said. He was a short stocky man, every part of him devoted to muscle and determination, and he was old enough to remember serving in France and Egypt as a young soldier. Jackson privately admired him; Wilt’s impressive skills had kept him from making too many embarrassing mistakes during his first tour of duty with the Home Guard. “It’s something to do with a major air offensive…”

His voice cut off as three aircraft flew low overhead, the noise of their passage echoing over the trees and the small village just beyond the bridge. The population had already been evacuated, removing them from the path of the German advance, and the village had been converted into a strong-point The German aircraft attacked without mercy, targeting buildings with their bombs and scattering flammable oil over the village; the Germans had been known to use it in their own counterinsurgency campaigns in Russia to great success.

“So much for the village,” Wilt said, as the enemy aircraft retreated and the clamour of enemy tanks rose again. Jackson took up his binoculars as the German infantry advanced, heading towards the bridge, covered by their tanks. The antitank guns on the far side of the river opened fire, their shells falling wide of the targets, while the Germans returned fire with their own weapons. “Sir?”

“Destroy the bridge,” Jackson ordered sharply. The Germans had killed half of his company; he couldn’t hope to prevent them from taking the village, but if he could destroy the bridge, it would slow them down enough that the regulars, struggling to establish a defence line, could stop them dead in their tracks. The odds weren’t good; regular armies all around Europe had been trying to stop the Germans, and hadn’t even come close to succeeding. Jackson had been young when the German juggernaut had crashed into Poland, Norway, France, Russia… but even he remembered the dread days when everyone had known that a German invasion was imminent. Adolph hadn’t come to Britain, not then…

Wilt barked an order and a signalman pushed down hard on a plunger, just in time. The German infantry had reached the bridge. They would have tried to remove the explosive, but now, as the bridge blazed with white light, they knew that they had failed. Jackson had hoped that they would have tried to find another bridge, but instead, the lead German tank advanced slowly down to the river… and then into the water. Water splashed up all around it as it slowly ground across the river, before it came out of the river, firing it’s machine guns. Jackson shouted a command, calling forward the portable antitank gunners, before the tank’s weapons came right to point at him. He gave himself up to the inevitable and dropped down to the ground.

* * *

“Well, that was an interesting exercise,” Colonel Felton-Smith said an hour later. Jackson couldn’t really disagree; the ‘destroyed’ tanks and ‘killed’ men had been impressive, but the Germans — or, rather, the regular army units playing at being the Germans — had defeated the Home Guard and broken through the defence line. “Jackson, so you have any thoughts?”

Jackson, who would have preferred a hot bath and a good meal, closed his eyes to compose his thoughts. “We should have requested more portable antitank weapons,” he said, referring to the PIAT rocket launchers the Home Guard used against enemy tanks. “We moved up the field guns and used them as part of the ambush, but when we retreated, they forced us to abandon the weapons; they may even have used them against us.”

Colonel Felton-Smith shrugged. He was a career military officer, with a neatly trimmed moustache and a perfect uniform; Jackson privately wondered if he had ever actually seen any real combat in his life. The field guns had been equipped with flash-bang shells, rather than any real explosives; after all, the tanks and men advancing against them had been British. There had been some live-fire exercises, but no one sane would permit the soldiers to use real ammunition when they might kill their fellow soldiers. The fistfights were bad enough.

“A good thought,” Colonel Felton-Smith said, finally. “What about the mines?”

Jackson shook his head. “We need to block the roads properly,” he said, cursing the mixture of parsimony and efficiency that prevented the Home Guard from really sabotaging the enemy’s line of advance. They could have cut down a few trees and slowed the ‘Germans’ down for as long as it took them to clear the roads again; just think what they could have done with the confusion! He’d seen enough exercises to know that even a tiny delay could, under the right circumstances, mount up into a complete disaster as supply lines got snarled up and enemy commanders became confused. “It’s just not an accurate portrayal of real war.”

He tapped the location of the village on the map. “The aircraft bombed the village and destroyed it,” he continued, speaking with more firmness now. “Sir, that wouldn’t happen in real life; we could have continued to fight through the wreckage and held the Germans for a few hours, if they had been forced to clear the village step by step. We also would have shot back at the aircraft and maybe even forced them to keep their distance.”

Colonel Felton-Smith nodded. “That’s not something that we can reproduce in an exercise,” he said, shortly. “Captain, overall, how did your company perform?”

“They did much better than I think some expected,” Jackson said, pointedly. The regular army tended to look down on the Home Guard; Dad’s Army was one of the nicer nicknames for the service. “They don’t have the discipline of people who have served in the regulars for a few years, but they held the line here until well after I bit the dust.”

“True enough,” Colonel Felton-Smith said. He held out a sheet of paper. “You and your company are being ordered to return to Felixstowe, where I believe most of your men come from, and continue basic drills until this exercise is concluded. Once it ends, I anticipate that there will be more drills, but most of your unit will return to inactive service.”

Jackson nodded once; he had expected no less. The Home Guard, by its very nature, couldn’t be permanently deployed anywhere — particularly not outside the United Kingdom. The conscription program kept most of the young men trained, but the regulars could be deployed anywhere, and often were. If the Germans landed tomorrow — and that was the nightmare, with the Reich on the other side of the Channel — the main burden of the early fighting would fall on the Home Guard. They would fight and die to buy the regular army time to mobilise and be deployed.

He threw a neat salute. “Yes, sir,” he said, as he stood to attention. “I’ll see to it at once.”

* * *

Night was falling as Gregory Davall slipped closer and closer to the barbed wire. Clad in dark clothes, his face blacked out like the Golliwog, he was almost invisible in the gloom. The sentry, whose cigarette light could be seen in the darkness, certainly never saw him. Davall smiled to himself as he crawled closer, keeping his belly firmly on the ground, just before he reached the wire and pulled out a pair of cutters. The sentry didn’t react at all, pacing slightly as he tried to keep himself awake; Davall silently cut a hole through the wire and slipped into the airbase.

Idiot, he thought coldly, as he continued to crawl towards the aircraft hangers. The RAF had built the airbase to handle some of their long-range bombers. His task was to penetrate it, slip inside the base, and slip out again, all without being seen. The Grey Wolves would be depending on him to recover some information from the airbase, and if he were caught, he would be in very real trouble. On this exercise, he would probably get a clout from the sentry or whoever caught him. On an actual mission he would have been shot out of hand. The Grey Wolves, like every other stay-behind unit, would be considered illegal combatants and, as such, were not protected by the Geneva Convention.

He slipped closer to his destination, avoiding a pair of patrolling guards with ease, and entered the hanger through an unsecured door. The sheer absence of real security made him grind his teeth together with rage. He was meant to be training for penetrating German bases, not exposing holes in British security. It had been seven years since the war had ended, but with the Reich across the Channel, anyone with a brain in their head knew that the resumption of hostilities was inevitable, sooner or later. Davall, a skilled toolmaker in a reserve occupation, had been exempted from conscription, but he had been recruited into the Grey Wolves. Unfortunately, ten years later, the secret soldiers were still maintaining their preparations. When Hitler came for them, they would be ready.

The interior of the hanger was dimly lit. He closed his eyes to force them to adjust to the change before glancing over at the aircraft, an experimental jet-propelled aircraft that was supposed to be able to fly as far as America. Davall’s son had fallen in love with the RAF and had announced his intention to join as soon as he was old enough, but before then, he had collected dozens of aircraft models, including the ones designed to show off what the RAF could do. Davall had helped James to assemble the aircraft and knew their statistics off by heart; it made him wonder what James would have made of how easy it had been to slip into the base. If Davall had come on a sabotage mission, which he would have to do if the Germans ever came, he could have destroyed the aircraft before anyone could have stopped him.

He scooped up a small set of papers from a desk, slipped them into his pocket, and withdrew the way he’d come. The sentry should have kept an eye on the wire, perhaps even patrolled it to find the gap, but Davall was able to retreat without any problems. It was only when he’d made it out and was walking back towards his operations base that he heard the outraged shouts behind him and pounding feet as guards were aroused to search for the intruder. It was too late, he knew, as he walked away through the forest; if they had wanted to catch him, they would have to improve the security. He’d take the papers to the coordinating officer tomorrow and hand them in, as well as making a report on the exact state of security on the base. If Davall had anything to say about it, heads would roll…

The forest was warm and welcoming, although someone who was unfamiliar with the forest would have found it creepy; Davall found his way to the operations base with ease. Major General Colin Gubbins had hammered security into their heads; the Grey Wolves were the only people who knew where the base actually was in the forest. Even their coordinating officer, who knew all of them by name, didn’t know. He also didn’t know that the Grey Wolves had orders to assassinate him if the Germans landed.

It was the work of a moment to clean himself, to change his dark clothes for something more fitting, and then to start the long walk back to his house. There was no longer any curfew over Suffolk, but he kept off the roads and streets anyway; tonight, the security forces would be out in force, hunting for the spy who’d broken into the airbase. He hoped, as he walked, that when the Germans came, it would be that easy to break into one of their compounds, but he knew, somehow, that it wouldn’t be anything like as easy. The Germans were very good soldiers and they had lots of experience in defeating stay-behind units. He knew his duty…

But, deep inside, he was scared for the future.

Chapter Two

Berlin, Germany

“Heil Hitler!” The cry burst out from a thousand throats. “Heil Hitler!”

Standing on the balcony, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler watched as thousands of black-clad soldiers marched past, their faces all perfectly blank and disciplined. The massive parade had been going on for nearly an hour, with overflights by the latest and greatest aircraft of the Reich, and Himmler was more than a little tired of it. It was also something that even he, the second-most powerful man in Germany, couldn’t escape; it was Victory Day. The holiday that Adolph Hitler himself had decreed sacred, the day that Moscow had fallen to a combined assault from German forces, the day that marked the triumph of the Greater German Reich… Victory Day would be celebrated by Hitler’s people, body and soul. They had placed their faith in the Fuhrer and the Fuhrer had delivered; Germany was master of Europe, ruler of an empire that stretched as far as the Urals and the Iranian border.

Himmler glanced over at the Fuhrer, careful not to move too much; Hitler didn’t seem to notice. His health had been growing poorer for years, ever since the British agent — or at least Himmler had accused him of being a British agent - Theodor Morell had began poisoning him with experimental medical treatments. Himmler, loyal to Hitler personally, had finally worked with Goring to have the quack removed and quietly assassinated, but the damage had been done. The Fuehrer’s condition had been degenerating for years.

A roar split the streets as the first Panzers appeared, advancing along the road and passing below the Führer’s balcony. The Panthers were the latest and greatest tanks created by Germany, each one built incorporating lessons from the war. Hitler truly believed that a division of Panthers could have defeated the entire Soviet Union without any further support. He might have been right, in a sense; the Panther was technically superior to anything the Soviets had deployed, but they had sheer numbers. If Moscow hadn’t fallen back in 1941… Himmler didn’t want to think about the possible outcome of the war.

He composed himself as best as he could, watching as the latest Luftwaffe aircraft flew overhead; Goring cheering in delight and pointing out the latest types to Hitler, as if he hadn’t been removed from his position as head of the Luftwaffe years ago. As director of the resettlement project in the east, Goring was harmless, but not smart enough to realise that he was harmless. Himmler knew that Goring didn’t rate as a threat these days and ignored him. Apart from Hitler himself, there were only three men of any importance in Germany.

As if the thought reminded him, he peered down and saw Field Marshal Albert Kesselring and Albert Speer standing and saluting as more Panzer units and infantry marched across the square. Speer — one of Hitler’s favourites — had become director of Germany’s industries… and even Himmler had to admit that he had worked wonders in preparing the Reich for war. His control over the economy was absolute, strong enough to bend all of Germany’s industrialists to his will, and his creation had given Germany the ability to finally reshape the continent to its will. Kesselring, growing older and perhaps stouter, was a more unusual candidate for high office, but as another of the Führer’s favourites, Kesselring had become the highest-ranking military officer in Germany… and, under Hitler, warlord. The old inter-service rivalries had been cut back, sharply under Kesselring. The only completely independent service was the Waffen-SS. The thought of what might happen if Kesselring decided to turn disloyal kept Himmler up at night…

He had wondered if Hitler would give a speech, but as the final lines of the parade died away, it became obvious that the Fuhrer was in no condition to speak; his orderly slowly helped him off the balcony and down towards the conference room. Speer had designed the rebuilt Reichstag himself, but instead of giving it back to elected delegates, it had become Hitler’s headquarters and the centre of control over Germany. Himmler watched as the Führer’s back receded into the distance, and then he stepped down himself, just slowly enough to remind everyone that no business in the Third Reich could be conducted without his presence. He knew what Hitler was going to announce; he also knew that Speer and Kesselring knew as well. Who else knew what was coming?

The conference room had been designed by Hitler personally, and it suited him. There was a single large chair, almost a throne, for Hitler himself and smaller chairs for his subordinates; their subordinates, in turn, would have to stand. One wall was completely covered by a map and Himmler paused long enough to take a look at it, reminding himself of just how far the Third Reich had come and just how far it had to go. Maps covering the pre-Hitler period were officially banned, but Himmler remembered a time when there had been many more states in Europe, before Hitler’s legions had wiped them all out of existence. In German classrooms, these days, students knew nothing about Poland, or Belgium, or Estonia; they had been wiped from history and wiped out on the ground. Himmler had overseen the population transfers personally.

“There is one final piece of business to take care of before the end of this meeting,” Hitler said, his voice weaker than Himmler remembered, back in the glory days. He wasn’t like Goring, who remembered the days of beer and fighting with the Communists as a paradise, but now… it was sometimes hard to remember what they’d been. “It has been years since I rose to the this position of destiny and created the living space in the east for the Reich and the Volk.”

He paused for breath. “We stand supreme everywhere, but only one country in Europe has defied us and held on to a refusal to recognise the mastery of the Volk,” he said, his voice growing louder. “When I offered the British peace on equal terms, they spurned me; they defied me and they defied the Volk! They betrayed their Aryan origins by siding with the Jewish-Bolshevik movement and sending them the weapons and equipment to continue the struggle! Even now, they refuse to bow their heads to Berlin and recognise that their destiny is to become part of the Reich and…”

The ranting grew louder as Hitler continued. At one point, Himmler was worried; Hitler had always been an opportunist, taking advantage of his opponent’s weaknesses rather than having a master plan of his own, but he had always possessed the ability to judge clearly. His only real error had been in failing to anticipate that the British and the French would actually declare war after his forces invaded Poland; even after that, all of his gambles had come off and he was now the undisputed master of the continent. In all of Europe, there were only a handful of countries with any real independence, and all of them knew that their internal autonomy depended on Hitler’s goodwill, rather than any ability to defend themselves from attack. A man who was perfectly capable of launching two hundred divisions at any target wasn’t a man to irritate.

“It is time to settle the account with Britain, once and for all,” Hitler thundered, and immediately sagged. “I have given orders to prepare for the launch of Operation Sunset at once, to be executed as soon as possible, with the goal of conquering Britain within a month. Once Britain has been defeated, we will be finally secure, ready to make preparations for the inevitable final struggle to determine the fate of the world.”

There was a long pause. Finally, Kesselring nodded to Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, who stood up and picked up a pointer, indicating positions on the map. Manstein was another of the Führer’s favourites, a man whose planning had brought down France, Greece and Russia, as well as one of the most skilled strategists in the Reich. Manstein’s position was unchallengeable, as long as he continued to deliver victories.

Manstein’s voice was both firmer and drier than the Führer’s voice. “The original plan for invading Britain was badly flawed,” he said, without particular irritation. Himmler remembered the days when Hitler had dithered over invading Britain and nodded; the plan had been improvised and almost certain to fail spectacularly. “The Wehrmacht and the other services have been working on a plan to invade Britain since 1943, but it wasn’t until recently that we had the fire-power and transport ability to carry it out with a reasonable chance of success. The plan, codenamed Operation Sunset, was first devised in 1947 and has been updated since then until today.”

His pointer indicated Britain. “The British have three elements to their defence; the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, and their own Army,” he said. “They have smaller specialised units, like we do, but their military value is questionable. In order to land a major assault force on the British island, we have to get it through the first two enemy forces and then defeat the third on their soil. That is not going to be easy, but it can be done; in particular, we can secure control of the seas for long enough to ship a major army group over to Britain.

“The British Navy, while larger than our own, has many more commitments than we have, including a major deployment into the Mediterranean and a second major deployment into the Far East watching our Japanese friends,” he continued. “That leaves them with their Home Fleet, deployed at Scapa Flow, and various smaller units scattered around the coast. The British battle fleet is composed of mainly older vessels, but if it came down to a direct battleship duel, they would have a serious advantage. We know that their plans call for immediately engaging the invasion convoys, so ours is to hit the Home Fleet first, from the air.”

He grinned. “The British themselves launched an attack on our friends the Italians from the air,” he said. “A handful of elderly aircraft hit the Italian fleet hard enough to make them reluctant to risk combat in the future — not that that’s hard, of course.” There were some chuckles; the Italians had proven themselves such bad fighters that Himmler had wanted to declare them all subhuman, and only Hitler’s fondness for Mussolini had prevented the invasion and subjection of Italy. “The Luftwaffe deploys many more aircraft and has been armed with the latest in anti-ship weapons, providing us with a unique chance to destroy or damage as many of their ships as possible. If necessary, our five carriers will add to the chaos by sending in their own torpedo-bombers, but I hope that we will have crushed most of the enemy fleet in the opening strike.”

“A point,” Generaladmiral Erich Raeder said, his voice darkening. He had birthed the Kriegsmarine and knew full well the odds it would face in a pitched battle. “How can you determine that the British will not detect the attacking bombers on their way?”

“The flight will be flying low for most of the journey,” Manstein said. “We anticipate that they will have some warning, but by our most pessimistic estimate, they will only have enough time to get the antiaircraft defences manned and ready, rather than getting the fleet out of the port and out onto the open sea. Building steam takes time, after all. We will also have deployed a large force of submarines to the area; when the command is given, those submarines will engage every British ship they can find. The bombers will also be heavily escorted, although we anticipate that the RAF will have more pressing concerns.

“At the same time, we will launch major air strikes against every British RAF base and radar station,” Manstein continued. “The British will have to get into the air as quickly as they can, just to drive our aircraft away, while in the meantime we will be hitting their bases as hard as we can. That particular wave of attacks will have a secondary objective; dummy parachutes will be unloaded over the Dover region, ensuring that the British will be wasting their time looking for the parachutists. In the confusion, we will launch the first part of the invasion plan itself.”

He nodded over to Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, the military intelligence department. Himmler detested Canaris, whose loyalty to Hitler was suspect, but there was no denying the fact that he knew his job very well. Canaris was charged with gathering intelligence from Britain, particularly on British military deployments, but Himmler knew how hard that could be… unless, of course, there was an ace in the hole. His particular ace, something he had even concealed from Hitler, gave him a private, but very advantageous, look into British politics. It was an advantage he had used ruthlessly.

“The British have been preparing for an invasion ever since the first rumours of war,” Canaris said. He’d been in his post for over ten years; Himmler had watched him almost as long. “They spent most of 1940 scrambling to prepare a basic defence, and then they just kept preparing, with the net result that the Dover region is the most heavily defended area in Britain. As the obvious place for us to land, they have fortified the area beyond reason, backed up by ten divisions of their army and heavy armoured units. We were able to get a look at their latest tank during the insurgency in Iraq” — Himmler smiled; the Shah of Iran had supplied that insurgency, with a little push from his German friends — “and while we believe that it’s a good design, they have massed most of them in the Dover region. If we were to attack Dover, the invasion would fail.”

He paused. “So, naturally, we’re not going to attack Dover.”

Manstein nodded. “The British defences there would make an attack far too costly for us to sustain,” he said. “Accordingly, we intend to target the assault on Felixstowe, a British port that has actually been taking some ships from the continent over the last few years. Felixstowe has been built up recently by the British, moving from a small base for motor torpedo boats to housing a small group of destroyers and also some civilian ships. It’s not the largest harbour in the world, or even in Britain, but it’s one that we believe we can take intact. Once we have secured it, the first of the main invasion transports will land and start unloading before we form the units up and advance towards London.”

He drew a line on the map. “The British will have to destroy our forces on the ground,” he said. “We anticipate that they will be able to move the equivalent of one armoured division and five infantry divisions into the area within a few days, although we will be hammering their rail and road communications as much as we can. Once that force is ready, they will advance to attack us — they will have no choice. If they allow us to continue to reinforce at will, eventually we will be able to defeat them on the ground. The destruction of that force, will allow us a chance to expand our grip and advance towards London, burning the heart out of Britain as we move.”

Himmler coughed. “What do you think the British will do with their other fleet units?”

Manstein tapped the map. “I expect that they will concentrate their forces and advance towards us, attempting to cut the sea lanes,” he said. “If they succeed too soon, they will defeat the invasion force, but once we have enough supplies in place, we will still have a chance at victory. The Italians and Japanese may take advantage of their absence to strike; the only problem remains the reaction of the Americans.”

Hitler erupted. “The Americans couldn’t prevent us from doing anything,” he barked sharply. “They have their own problems with their mongrel races and won’t be concerned with our actions!”

Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Reich’s Foreign Minister, looked nervous. The man was believed to be a fool by everyone, including Hitler. “The American President has been focused on internal problems and the Japanese threat,” he said. “I do not feel that the Americans would get involved unless we offered them some huge provocation.”

Himmler smiled. The power play was obvious now; if Kesselring and Speer won the invasion of Britain between them, they would have a chance to oust him from the centre of power in the Reich. It was what he would have done; indeed, he had done it to Goring, among others. When Hitler died, and that wouldn’t be long now, the next Fuhrer would be one of the three most prominent Nazis…

“There is a way of preventing the British from asking for help,” he said, and outlined it. The idea was simple and he even had a unit on hand that could handle it. “The British might not even be able to issue orders for a while if the plan succeeds.”

Hitler loved it. “A splendid idea,” he said, his face growing flushed. “See that it is carried out perfectly.”

“Of course, Mein Fuhrer,” Himmler said.

“I want to have Britain as part of the Reich within two months from today,” Hitler said. His sight faded for a long moment. “Go now… and bring Britain into the Reich.”

The assembled senior commanders and cabinet members left quickly, but Himmler lingered just long enough to meet Hitler’s eyes. His body was shaking slightly, breaking apart, and failing him; it wouldn’t be long before he died. Hitler knew that he had, at best, only a few more years to live. The longer he lasted, the more his body would degrade and humiliate him still further. Himmler couldn’t bear it any longer and fled the room…

Trapped in a dying shell, Adolph Hitler was in hell.

Chapter Three

Wewelsburg Castle, Germany

“Heil Hitler!”

Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler returned the salute as he clambered out of his car, looking up at the towering heights of Wewelsburg Castle, a building that he had purchased and developed for the exclusive use of the SS. His elaborate plans had been impeded by the demands of war, but he resumed construction once the Soviet Union had collapsed and no serious enemies remained to threaten the Reich. Himmler had personally organised the establishment of Niederhagen concentration camp, near the Castle, and the thousands of slaves from the east had been used ruthlessly to build Himmler’s dream. Seven years later, it had become one of the most impressive sites in Germany, a fitting tribute to the New Order.

He shook his head as he proceeded up towards his private office. The existence of the Castle, as well as the secrets and rituals at the heart of the SS, had been kept from the remainder of the German people, many of whom would never approve what was being done in their name. Himmler remembered with a flush of embarrassment the German women who had demanded the return of their Jewish husbands; ever since then, he had become determined to keep many secrets to himself, safe from the interfering gaze of many Germans who didn’t want to know what was being done in their name. The Church was a particular problem for Himmler; his program to establish massive SS families and legitimise bastard children faced massive opposition, even though the Pope had been pressured into providing reluctant support. The final battle between Church and State hadn’t been fought yet, Himmler knew; one day, the Waffen-SS would march into the Vatican and put the Pope and his Cardinals to the sword. One day… and, if Himmler became Fuhrer, that day would be very soon.

“Herr Reichsfuhrer,” one of his secretaries called. “I have the latest figures on the use of Untermensch workers for your perusal.”

“Please hold them for the moment,” Himmler said. He made a point to be polite to all of his subordinates, knowing that if they were scared of him, they would start lying to him, rather than face his displeasure. “I will study them later.”

He walked into his private office and smiled to himself. There were literally millions of Untermensch — sub-humans — within the vast territories that the Reich had occupied, and they were all at the disposal of their German masters. The SS had spent the last seven years registering the Untermensch and using them for whatever purpose suited them, from slave labour to working on massive concentrated farms to feed the German people. The East was dotted by plantations now, each one run by the SS to grow food; in time, the serfs would all die, to be replaced by men of good German stock and tractors of good German manufacture.

The East was also rife with insurgency, but as the SS systematically restricted the movements of the population, even the insurgency was dying down. It would be years before it was all gone — Himmler suspected that Beria was supplying them despite the terms of the treaty — but there was no way that the insurgents could defeat the Reich.

There was a single knock on the door and Himmler barked a command, without looking up, until Skorzeny had reported. “Heil Hitler,” he said, and saluted. It made him envious, in a way; no matter how many blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryans he surrounded himself with, it wouldn’t change his own appearance one iota. Himmler wasn’t a perfect SS man and never would be, but the man facing him lived up to the legends.

“Heil Hitler,” Gruppenfuhrer Otto Skorzeny said. “You wanted to see me, Herr Reichsfuhrer?”

Himmler took a moment to study Skorzeny. At forty-two years old, the famous commando, who had been involved in raids and attacks on the Soviet Union and the insurgents that had replaced them, still looked like a young man. He had planned and executed a daring raid on the Soviets just before the end of the war, and Hitler had been impressed enough to order Skorzeny promoted and given his own unique unit of soldiers. Skorzeny hadn’t wasted his time, either; the unit of commandos had proven themselves in covert operations against a dozen sensitive targets.

“I need a readiness report on your unit,” Himmler said, allowing Skorzeny to draw his own conclusions. The Reichsfuhrer wouldn’t have summoned him for a report unless there had been a failing so great as to justify him being thrown out of the SS — or if there was a prospect of action. “How ready are you for immediate deployment?”

Skorzeny’s eyes gleamed at the prospect of action. “The unit is in peak condition at the moment,” he said. Himmler had given him a thousand men back at the start; now, with reserves, new recruits, and even hundreds of SS men clamouring to join, Skorzeny could have tens of thousands of men under him. Instead, he had his core group and several thousand reserve soldiers, just in case they were needed. “The men are ready as they’ll ever be to launch an operation against any enemy.”

He stopped and waited. “Within a month, perhaps less, we will launch an attack against Britain,” Himmler said, calmly. Skorzeny looked delighted. “Your unit has a vital role to play in the assault.”

Skorzeny considered it. “The Tommy is a good soldier, but often unprepared for surprise,” he said, after a moment. “There is no one better at holding a piece of ground, but they don’t always react well when they are hit really hard. The best of their commanding officers match our own, but they don’t often have the same grasp of tactics that we do.” His grin grew wider. “And they have a unit to match ours; this should be fun.”

Himmler stood up and paced over to the map. It didn’t show unit positions; instead, it showed SS locations and personnel throughout Europe. He also knew that there was plenty it didn’t show, such as the fatality rates from Skorzeny’s unit; the parachute-testing program had claimed over a hundred lives since Skorzeny had demanded that a new parachute design be put into production. It also didn’t show the exact details of their target…

He turned back to face Skorzeny. Skorzeny was Hitler’s man, through and through; he didn’t have much time for the mystique that Himmler was trying to create around the SS, his Knights of the Black Cross. Where Himmler was fussy and precise, Skorzeny was impetuous and random. Skorzeny might be an excellent soldier — he was an excellent soldier — but he wouldn’t fit into the Order of the SS, or at least as Himmler envisioned it.

“You launched an attack on General Zhukov’s headquarters,” Himmler said, remembering that incident with some private amusement. The USSR had never really recovered from the loss of Moscow; by the time Beria had succeeded in bringing the Red Army back into a fighting force, their long-term advantages had been reduced sharply and, whatever else he was, Beria was no Stalin. He had no choice but to trust Zhukov to hold together the Red Army and the defence line… and, one day, Skorzeny and a hundred of his men had landed in a Red Army aircraft, slaughtered the General’s defenders, and kidnapped the General himself. It had been the turning point in the 1942 campaign against the remaining body of the Red Army and Stalingrad itself.

Skorzeny smiled lazily. “I remember,” he said. “Do we know where the commanding officer of the British Army is currently based?”

“Your target is a little higher up the scale than that,” Himmler said. “Your orders are to land in London, seize or kill the Prime Minister of Britain and his Cabinet - and then escape.”

Skorzeny shook his head. “London isn’t an isolated airbase in the middle of nowhere,” he said, remembering his mission against Zhukov. “It’s a colossal city. Unless there is a gaping hole in the British defences, we won’t be able to land aircraft and hold the area long enough to snatch the targets and escape. The minute there’s a threat, they’ll bring up reinforcements and trap us.”

Himmler frowned. “What does that mean for your mission?”

“We can’t take them alive,” Skorzeny said, with as much dispassion as if he were ordering dinner. “They will have to be killed, and then we will have to extract ourselves from the scene as quickly as possible.” He paused. “What sort of information do you have on the British defences?”

“Not as much as I would like,” Himmler admitted, wondering if he should let Skorzeny in on the secret. “I have been working to collect information, but there are… limits to what my source can gather and transmit to us without giving away his existence, and the minute the British suspect that they have a leak, they will start tearing their departments apart to find it.”

He watched as Skorzeny went through the information that one of his secretaries had prepared. The big man’s face twitched and twisted as he studied line after line, peering down at the map of London and mentally comparing it to the maps that he had studied, back in 1940. Skorzeny had been one of the finest soldiers in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler back then, and he would have seen plans of Britain, but the information that Himmler had gathered was updated to 1950.

He looked up finally. “What sort of assets do we have on the ground?”

“A handful of agents, several of whom may be under surveillance,” Himmler said. “They still have Sillitoe in command of their counter-espionage service and he’d a determined man, always pushing the limits of what he can do with his people. We have some links with the British fascists, but they’re definitely being watched and have almost no military capability…”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking about,” Skorzeny said. “They have three barracks in London, four counting the one for the Palace Guards; that gives them, at most, several thousand soldiers who could react to us landing. They’re going to react, which means…”

He broke off. “I have been training people for possible operations against Britain,” he said. “If we had some support from the air, we might be able to hit the barracks first, just enough to confuse them and let us land, launch the attack, and then beat it before the British catch us.”

Himmler nodded. “So it can be done?”

“The cost will be very heavy,” Skorzeny said, flatly. He didn’t flinch, but Himmler did; he rarely visited the camps where the slaves were held, just because he hated the sight of blood. “We can get around five hundred commandos into the area, but the British will still have time to react and counter-attack; I estimate that we will have twenty minutes before they start organising a response. Once we have completed the mission, we can fall back and escape, but it won’t be easy.”

Himmler looked at him. “Could your people go to ground until our soldiers get there?”

“Possibility,” Skorzeny said. “We would need some contacts on the far side and… we’ll need British uniforms. The British would shoot us at once if they caught us like that, but it might just allow us a chance to escape in the confusion. Once that’s completed, we will have a chance to escape, particularly in the wake of an invasion. They’re going to be moving units around like crazy and we’ll just blend in with the crowd.”

Himmler nodded. “I take it that I can trust you to handle the mission and brief a commander?”

“I’m going myself,” Skorzeny said, shortly. Himmler lifted an eyebrow. “I said I wouldn’t send anyone on a mission I refused to do myself, so I have to go, and I have the best training and grasp of the situation. The information will have to be shared around the team — if my aircraft gets shot down, Hans or Johan will have to take over — but I think they can be trusted to keep it to themselves.”

He paused. “What is the source of this information?”

Himmler’s lips wanted to twitch into a smile. “Classified,” he said, flatly. “The information is, however, totally reliable.”

Skorzeny held his gaze. “I need to know how to verify it,” he said. “Who is supplying us with information?”

Himmler answered, reluctantly. “A very strange Englishman,” he said, wishing that he could tell Skorzeny the full story. They’d only stumbled upon the connection by accident and — as far as the SS knew — their target knew nothing of who was reading his reports. He thought that he was still filing reports to Beria and his agents. “His name is Philby, Kim Philby.”

* * *

SS Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl marched into the room, snapped a perfect Hitler salute, and waited for the Reichsführer-SS to give him leave to relax — slightly. Stahl had been surprised by the urgent summons back to the Castle from his previous post as SS Commander in what remained of Norway but he expected that the Reichsführer-SS had a task for him personally. He had committed no major blunders and, indeed, had been commended for his work in Norway, separating out the Aryans from the undesirables that had infested the ancient homeland. His command was charged with hunting down resistance fighters in the mountains, although, as he ruefully acknowledged, it was likely to take years to kill them all.

“Herr Reichsfuhrer,” he barked, as Himmler acknowledged him finally. “SS Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl, reporting as ordered!”

“Heil Hitler,” Himmler said, shortly. “Your successes in Norway have been noted.”

Stahl allowed himself a slight smile. His force had worked hard to ensure that Aryan Norwegians were brought up to believe in their own supremacy over everyone else, which meant — naturally — separating them from their inferiors. The large number of German servicemen stationed in Norway had actually resulted in hundreds of marriages, which would strengthen the quality of blood in the area and ensure that Norway would be permanently bound to the Reich. He’d also used thousands of slave labourers to build new ports, roads, and facilities in the country; the Reich intended to use the country as a permanent naval base.

“Thank you, Herr Reichsfuhrer,” he said. “I believe that my men, also, deserve some credit.”

Himmler nodded. “We have a new task for you,” he said, simply. “The Fuhrer has commanded that Great Britain be brought into the Reich, which represents a new opportunity for us and particularly for you. We have four priorities; we must secure the country, prevent any insurgency, eliminate all the undesirables from the country, and bring the British into the Reich as Aryans.”

Stahl nodded. The Reich regarded France and Italy as degenerate and their inhabitants as subhumans, but Norway, Denmark and other ‘Aryans’ were regarded as potential equals. The Führer’s ruling would mean that the British wouldn’t be enslaved as a nation, unlike the Slavs, but they would have to be broken to the concept of being part of a greater Aryan community. Their independence would come to an end, they would be expected to inter-marry with the Germans who would settle in their land and they would be expected to fight for the Fuhrer. First, however, they would have to be cleared of Jews; Stahl remembered hunting down Jews in Norway and felt nothing but loathing for them.

“The day-to-day occupation of the country will be in your hands,” Himmler said, and Stahl felt a moment of pure excitement. “The Fuhrer will select a Governor-General, but under the right circumstances, you will be able to act without referring to him, all towards the overall aim of winning the peace and ensuring that Britain becomes part of the Greater German Reich. Your men — an experienced unit from Denmark or France is being prepared for you — will have the task of carrying out your orders.”

Stahl nodded. The Reich had created the world’s largest and most precise bureaucracy to ensure that the Führer’s orders were carried out, one that included a list of everyone within the Reich, from the youngest child to the oldest and most useless slave worker. The citizens of Britain would all be registered as well, the first part of a well practised scheme that would bring them all into the Reich as obedient servants, and eventually willing allies for the long-term task of controlling the world. The English had an Empire; that Empire, too, would become part of the Reich.

“I will not fail you, Herr Reichsfuhrer,” he said, standing up in salute.

“I trust that you won’t,” Himmler said, in his maddeningly calm voice. Stahl remembered some of the acts that Himmler had ordered carried out, including the near-complete destruction of several Soviet cities to prevent them from being used to foster the insurgency, and shuddered inside. Himmler had offered him a chance to prove himself on a much larger scale, something that would catapult him to higher rank, but if he failed… the blame would be his and his alone. “The British have had ample opportunity to create a stay-behind movement, so remember; rooting that force out and destroying it, will be the first priority.”

“Yes, Herr Reichsfuhrer,” Stahl said. He had had experience in hunting down the handful of insurgency-supporting networks in Norway; without those networks, the insurgents might as well be bandits, robbing their own people as much as they raided German outpost. “They won’t last long enough to be a problem.”

“Good,” Himmler said. His eyes narrowed slightly in warning. “Remember, you represent the SS and we will all be judged by your performance. Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler,” Stahl echoed.

He snapped to attention and marched out of the room.

Chapter Four

Near Bergen, Occupied Norway

Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt, Jagdgeschwader 2 Richthofen, stood to attention with the remainder of the senior officers as General Adolf Galland entered the room. Galland had been one of the heroes of the service, flying against England and Russia before being promoted and given command of Luftwaffe 2, one of the Luftwaffe’s main air groups. Luftwaffe 2 had been deployed to the massive base in Norway, built through slave labour, weeks ago; now, it seemed that the senior officers were about to find out why they had been exiled to Norway. The Norwegians weren’t very friendly, and while there were brothels and some girlfriends, the main body of the air group had been confined to the base.

Schmidt watched as Galland waved them to their seats. His assistant had hung a map on the wall, but had covered it up; with a smooth motion, Galland pulled the cover away, to reveal a set of islands and harbours. Schmidt recognised it from his basic briefings; the British naval base at Scapa Flow, due west of Norway. It was perfectly positioned for intercepting any sortie from the Baltic Sea and larger than the massive bases the Kriegsmarine had been building in Norway. It had been discussed as a possible target for years now.

“The British have been causing us problems recently,” Galland said, giving what every man there knew was the official line. Schmidt knew, as did the other pilots and commanders, that asking questions at the wrong time could be fatal to their careers, if not their health. He knew, unlike many civilians, the true cost of German expansion. “The Fuhrer has decided that it is time to settle accounts with them permanently, before they launch an invasion of Europe and attempt to overthrow the regime.”

He paused, expecting no comments. Schmidt said nothing; the idea of the British overthrowing the Fuhrer and his government on their own was ridiculous. They might have been able to do it if they had developed their empire like the Reich had developed and exploited its empire, but, instead, they were on the verge of granting independence to chunks of the empire, even the jewel in the crown itself. They weren’t a threat to the Reich; they even couldn’t get at the Reich.

“This unit has been marked down for the most important part of Operation Sunset,” Galland continued, his voice calm and firmly in control. “The British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow has to be destroyed, or at the very least severely crippled, and that task has fallen on your heads. Failure to take out the fleet will almost certainly result in a disaster for the invasion force, so we must take out the fleet… we will take out the fleet.”

Schmidt ran through it in his head. The force was a mixed one, consisting of the latest aircraft in the German Luftwaffe; it prided itself on being the most powerful unit in the world. The British had nothing to match it in the air, but attacking a stationary target like a harbour was very different from fighting it out in the air with British jets.

Schmidt had seen enough of the Gloster Meteor to know that it might not be as good as the German aircraft, but in the hands of a skilled pilot, that wouldn’t matter so much. It could come down to being an even fight…

He had only seen limited service during the war itself, but he’d seen the briefings and assimilated as much as his older fellows could teach him, particularly what had happened during the last air campaign against Britain. The Luftwaffe hadn’t been properly prepared for the war, with the result that they hadn’t been able to force the British to surrender. Richthofen — the unit had been named for the pilot from the Great War — had been training under the belief that they would go to war with Britain again, maybe against the Americans as well. The Americans were a huge question mark as far as the Reich was concerned. Although the official line was that Americans were a mongrel race of mixed blood, Schmidt didn’t have much time for the SS’s version of eugenics.

“The entire unit will be used in the assault, deploying a mass wave of the newer weapons,” Galland continued. Schmidt thought about some of the weapons that had been tested over the past two years and felt his teeth moving into a grimace; the British would never know what had hit them. “When the Fuhrer issues the order, the unit will go into lock-down and prepare for immediate launch; when the second order is issued, Richthofen will take off and proceed with the attack, regardless of what else happens. The wing will engage the British ships while the fighters keep the British fighters off their backs; once the bombs are launched, we will fall back and leave the British to clean up the mess.”

There were some chuckles from the pilots. The bombers — the crews of the Junkers Ju 290 jet bomber — looked relieved. They would know that while an old British fighter couldn’t touch them, one of the British jets would have no problems engaging them and bringing them down. Fighter escort always made the bomber crews happy. Very few of them had any faith in the weapons mounted on the bomber’s hull.

“We may have to launch a second strike once we have refuelled and rearmed the aircraft,” Galland said. The surviving aircraft, Schmidt reminded himself; Richthofen was going to get hurt badly in the strike. “It is hoped that we will have inflicted enough damage to ensure that we don’t have to return there, and in that case we will be assigned to supporting the assault against Britain itself, but we know better than to always hope for success.”

He paused. “We have a small team of agents near Scapa Flow itself,” he said. “The British Home Fleet currently consists of nine battleships, six carriers and forty smaller ships; the main targets are the battleships and the carriers. To add to our problems, there are actually three older carriers that date back to the last war as well as the three modern carriers; they have to be sunk as well. The British are currently going through an exercise of their own, so we will strike once they have returned to port and are digesting the results of their exercise and thinking about what it means for the future.”

Schmidt nodded again. Luftwaffe exercises tended to work out the same way; there would be a period of frenetic activity, then a second period of rest as exhausted crewmen staggered to their beds and sleep. Meanwhile, equally tired senior officers struggled to work out the lessons of the exercise and decide how to present them to their men. His pilots had as much training and exercises as anyone else in the Luftwaffe, but even they got tired after a few weeks of all-out effort. The old hands from the war swore blind that wartime was worse, but the younger pilots found it hard to grasp; they had never flown against a serious enemy that wanted to kill them.

“The British have three squadrons of Meteors and several other aircraft on the island itself and can probably request support from RAF bases in Scotland if they have to call for help,” Galland continued. “We will fly low towards the target, but we don’t expect actual surprise, so we will have to be prepared to sweep enemy fighters out of the sky. Accordingly, the first wave of fighters will be leading the way, followed by the bombers and the remaining fighters; the first wave will have to scatter the British and keep them scattered.”

Schmidt felt a flicker of pure excitement. His Messerschmitt Me 270 jet fighter was the hottest plane in the air, and he wanted to finally test himself against a real enemy. The British pilots were spoken of with respect by the older hands, unlike the Russians, who were regarded with scorn and hatred. The Russian pilots might have been brave men, but during the later years of the war, they had been more dangerous to their own men than to their Nazi opponents. Untrained, flying inferior aircraft, they had been flung into the fray… and butchered.

“I expect that each and every one of you will give his all to get Richthofen in perfect condition before the operation begins,” Galland concluded. “I have organised a massive series of training runs and operations, to be conducted by everything from smaller sections of Richthofen to mass exercises consisting of every aircraft in the force. This is going to put a strain on us, but I believe that we can handle it… and I will personally break anyone who slacks off, even slightly.”

His gaze passed around the room. Schmidt straightened up under his eyes. “We’re the best unit in the Luftwaffe and now it’s time to prove it,” Galland said. “Your training schedules will be posted on the main board; the first exercise will begin in one hour. Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler,” the pilots echoed.

It was a dismissal. Schmidt stood up with the other senior officers and headed back to the workroom, intending to check the main board before too long. His unit was a fighter unit and he hoped — prayed — that they would have the point in the coming attack. They hadn’t really proven themselves, even though Richthofen had a long and distinguished history, and now was their chance. They would do or die.

* * *

Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck lifted an eyebrow as he saw an older man ahead of him, clearly heading towards the same office; the older man saw him at the same time and blinked at him. Baeck wasn’t fooled; he saw real intelligence and a certain wry sense of humour in the older man’s eyes, and wondered what he made of him. The older Germans certainly were keen on the army, but Baeck’s uniform was very rare; there were only a handful of amphibious units in the Wehrmacht.

“Kapitän zur See Christian Wulff,” the older man introduced himself. His uniform was that of a Kriegsmarine reservist, rather than a serving officer; he looked as if he hadn’t worn the uniform for a long time. “You were called here along with me?”

Baeck nodded as they reached a door, tapped on it, and waited for the barked command. When it came, he opened the door and allowed Wulff to precede him, before following him into the room and straightening to attention as he recognised the man sitting on the other side of the desk. He was tall, almost unnaturally thin, with sharp penetrating eyes and a haze of brown hair on his head. Baeck would have come to attention for any senior officer, but he knew this one by reputation and meant the salute from the heart; Field Marshal Erwin Rommel himself.

“Heil Hitler,” he said, almost overcome with awe. His orders had said that he would meet a senior officer, but not Rommel himself. He would have sooner expected the Fuhrer than a man the lower ranks of the Wehrmacht idolised. “Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck of the Hans Bader reporting as ordered, Herr Feldmarschall.”

Rommel nodded. “You have been selected for a dangerous mission,” he said, and ran through the background to Operation Sunset quickly. “Your unit… how is the training level at the moment?”

“Excellent,” Baeck said, silently thanking God that he kept all of the records in his own head. He could have given Rommel a man-by-man description if he had had to, but instead, Rommel just wanted an overview. “The unit has been training hard and is at the peak of perfection.”

“Good,” Rommel said. “Kapitän zur See Wulff, how about your ship?”

Wulff hesitated. “The ship is in fine condition,” he said, puzzled. Baeck was equally puzzled; he could see how his unit might be involved with the Kriegsmarine, but he didn’t understand how it all fitted together, not yet. “We just returned from the Felixstowe run and unloaded the British goods; we’re not due to make the run again for three weeks.”

“Yes,” Rommel agreed. He stood up and unfolded a map. “This map was created by an intelligence officer who sailed with your ship, and examined the port and its surrounding environs carefully. The British have been building up the port over the last few years, allowing greater and greater trade with the Reich…”

Baeck spoke before realising that he had opened his mouth. “The British trade with us?”

“They send us some raw materials we cannot get for ourselves, we send them some machine tools and manufactured goods,” Rommel said, dryly. “It is not something that is widely discussed, but it forms a small, but important part of the Reich’s long term plan for dominance. This time, the Hans Bader will not be carrying machine tools, but an entire unit of German infantry, trained for operations in a port.”

“My unit,” Baeck said, understanding. He glanced over at Wulff. “How many of my men could I fit into your ship?”

“If they don’t mind being uncomfortable for a few hours, we could fit in several thousand,” Wulff said after a moment’s thought. Baeck silently took that down a few hundred; they’d have to bring in equipment and weapons as well as just the men. “The question will be when the British would want to inspect the ship.”

Baeck frowned. “When do they inspect the ship normally?”

“They normally send in a team of inspectors as soon as the ship docks,” Wulff said. His finger pointed to a docking slip on the map. “We’re a heavy ship, so we dock here for quick access and unloading, before being moved to another slip, where we are loaded up again. Once we dock here, the ship is inspected before anyone is allowed to leave, but once the ship is inspected and unloading is under way, some of the crew are allowed a brief period of shore leave.”

“It won’t matter,” Baeck said, thinking carefully. “We’ll have to move as soon as we dock and take the docks before anyone can react. What about defences?”

Wulff skimmed through the briefing notes. “They have a Home Guard barracks nearby, perhaps with at least a small regular army detachment as well, and a regular set of barracks outside the city,” he said, after a moment. “What about reinforcements Sir?”

“They’ll be on their way,” Rommel said, shortly. “At most, you’ll have to hold the port for two hours before the reinforcements arrive and start to unload.”

Baeck’s father had served with Rommel and had spoken highly of him in the past. If Rommel said that something could be done, then it could be done, but Baeck knew that it was going to be tricky; street fighting was dreaded by all soldiers just because it could cut down the advantages of training and weaponry to the bare minimum. The British Home Guard wasn’t regarded highly by German observers, but if they counter-attacked swiftly enough to keep most of his force penned up in the ship, they would be defeated rapidly enough to ensure that the British would meet the reinforcements from a position of strength. If that happened, then the invasion would almost certainly fail.

“We’re going to have to run drills,” he said, thoughtfully. “We’ll need a second ship like the Hans Bader, one with the same design, but maybe altered inside to allow for quick unloading under fire, and then run more drills on it. It’s going to be tricky, but it can be done…”

He paused. “Are you going to be coming on the mission?”

“The British will expect to see me,” Kapitän zur See Wulff said, and Baeck saw the naval officer he had once been in his stance. Hell, technically, he was still a naval officer; how long had the invasion plans been maturing? “If there was someone else in command of the ship, they might want to go through more careful checks, just in case. They know me and I bring them some smuggled goods from the continent.”

Baeck lifted an eyebrow. “French wines, mostly,” Wulff admitted. “They sell for a great deal of money in Britain and the customs inspectors have a little business going on the side.”

“Which lets you get into their confidence,” Baeck agreed, smiling. Humans, British or German, were all the same; they were always watching out for the main chance to better themselves. “Are there any other issues that we should be aware of before we start planning?”

“The timing issue,” Rommel said, shortly. “There are other operations being planned, some of them much more drastic, and if you’re not in position by the correct time, the British may refuse to allow you to dock. If that happens, the first part of the invasion plan will fall apart and we’ll have to make a landing onto a beach instead.”

Baeck shuddered. He’d taken part in a drill on several Baltic islands and discovered that landing a large force without a port was very difficult, much harder than anyone had made it seem before they had actually tried it. The results of the first drill had been disastrous, with seventeen fatal accidents in the test, even without live ammunition being issued. The idea of a forced landing under enemy fire chilled his blood; if the British had a unit dug in on the beach, they’d tear his force to ribbons.

“I understand,” Baeck said, seriously. He glanced over at Wulff; they were going to have to work together just to ensure that they got across the Channel without arousing the slightest amount of suspicion. They might have to tear the Hans Bader apart to ensure that the soldiers could disembark quickly and efficiently, but if that weren’t done perfectly, the ship would never sail again. “We won’t fail you, Herr Feldmarschall.”

Chapter Five

London, England

Alex DeRiemer found himself distracted the moment he walked into Ten Downing Street, recognising at once that he was standing in a monument to British history. Ten Downing Street wasn’t as impressive as some of the world’s governing centres, not the White House, or the Reichstag, or the Kremlin before Hitler’s bulldozers had moved in and ground it to dust. However it was still the centre of an empire upon which the sun was supposed never to set.

But that sun was setting, DeRiemer knew. The men he was supposed to be briefing were the men who were presiding over the dissolution of the British Empire.

The pressure of having the Reich on the other side of the Channel and the growing independence movement in India had had their effects on the Prime Minister. India, in particular, would be independent in five years, maybe less.

“It strikes everyone that way,” Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies said, as they walked up the stairs and into the Cabinet Room. Menzies had asked DeRiemer to come in person to brief the Cabinet, but DeRiemer suspected that they weren’t going to listen to him; he was too junior for any of them to take seriously. “This building has never been replaced by anything else, not even abandoned for a few weeks after a bombing attack; this place is history.”

“Good luck,” he said, as the door opened, revealing the Cabinet and a handful of other advisors. DeRiemer felt his heart beating faster as he entered the room and took up position near one end of the table. The man at the other end of the table gave him a reassuring smile. The Prime Minister was surprisingly popular with the rank and file, but not always popular with his own people; he presided over a coalition government with the Conservatives, who held nearly half the important seats on the Cabinet. Neither side had been able to win a decisive victory in the recent election, and Atlee had decided to continue with the coalition rather than accept a lame duck government or, worse, a permanent stalemate.

His gaze flickered around the room, seeing some familiar faces and others who were hardly known outside the government. Anthony Eden, Leader of the Conservative Party and Deputy Prime Minister. Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Halifax, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs — he’d never win an election, not without a more popular patron and everyone else in the race dying. His betrayal of Churchill meant that without Atlee, he was nothing. No one really trusted him. James Chuter Ede, the Home Secretary, Stafford Cripps, Secretary of State for India and Burma; he was the man who had worked out the agreement that would make India independent…

And, finally, Sir Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill looked older now, but his eyes were as bright as ever. Those eyes met DeRiemer’s own long enough to judge him, nod in approval, and turn away to watch Atlee like a hooded snake waiting to strike. The tension in the room was a malignant presence. DeRiemer had been warned several times to stay out of the power struggle at the heart of the British government. Churchill had never forgiven his own party for conspiring against him back in 1943 when they’d forced through a peace with Germany, a peace that DeRiemer suspected was about to shatter.

“This meeting of the Cabinet is called to order,” Atlee said, shortly. He nodded over at a secretary who would record the minutes. “Sir Stewart, I believe that you insisted on holding this meeting.”

Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies stood up. “Yes, Prime Minister,” he said. He nodded to DeRiemer. “This young man was charged with collecting information regarding the various German units that were displayed at their recent Victory Day parade in Germany and the smaller parades that took place in various other cities in the Reich including Paris and Moscow. He has uncovered an interesting amount of information.”

Atlee’s gaze swung around to meet DeRiemer’s eyes. “Very well,” he said, sounding tired. The Cabinet was forever divided on the subject of Nazi Germany with Churchill calling for increased preparations for a war he saw as inevitable and Lord Halifax calling for peace at any price. “You may begin.”

DeRiemer tapped the map on the wall. “My department was charged with monitoring the development, growth, and operations of the Germany military machine,” he said, carefully. “We suspected from the end of the war that Hitler would eventually decide to turn his attention back to Britain and attempt an invasion. With this in mind, we created an intelligence web running through the Reich and the Reich’s allies to monitor the German preparations.”

He paused. “At the end of the war in Russia, Hitler continued to expand his army, but with an increased focus on counterinsurgency,” he continued. “Although Beria’s forces were defeated and he was forced into submission to the Reich — with his government effectively a caretaker government until the Reich took over — the Russian partisans refused to give up the fight and continued to fight the Germans. They, in return, deployed upwards of one hundred and fifty infantry divisions into the area and hunted the partisans down through brute force and developing their own intelligence networks.”

He wondered how he could explain it to them. The forced relocations, the enslavement of entire cities and villages, the use of forced labour everywhere across the Reich. The massive autobahns the Reich was so proud of, stretching all the way to Iran, or Japanese-held territory in the Far East, had been built with slave labour and millions of deaths. The average German family had more than enough to eat, but much of that food came from plantations in the east, each one working its slaves to death to grow the food. It made him wonder, late at night; did the Germans know what was being done in their name?

“The remaining fifty divisions — Hitler was determined on two hundred divisions as a permanent force — remained as armoured and motorized infantry, with a handful of specialist units,” DeRiemer continued. “The Germans shook their fists at Switzerland a few times, and threatened Turkey when the Turks started providing sanctuary to Jews and other refugees from the German war machine, but the main area of concern for those units was the remains of Russia. Hitler didn’t trust Beria and… well, he wanted to take over the remaining Russian landscape once he had finished absorbing the territory he took in the last war. This ensured that the Nazis would be supreme on the continent and would maintain a viable fighting force if we ever tried a landing in France.

“But, now, the Germans are making a series of odd military moves,” he said. “They have moved four entire Luftwaffe wings from the east to Norway and France. Units that they don’t seem to have any need for in France. They always maintained ten divisions in France itself, but now they have reinforced them with another ten divisions, four of them armoured with their latest tanks and other equipment.

“Overall, there seems to be a massive attempt to bring the German military machine back up to standard as quickly as possible; this effort seems to be spreading everywhere. There are units on counterinsurgency operations in Russia that have been ordered to prepare themselves for action and report on their readiness.”

He tapped the map for a moment. “This puzzled me, and so I dug deeper into the intelligence that we were receiving and found much more,” he continued. “The Germans have been carrying out a vastly increased series of drills in the Baltic Sea, each of them involving their warships… and landing craft. The Luftwaffe has also been running drills, including parachute drills and at least some precision bombing drills. They were recently rearmed with newer aircraft and now they’re drilling endlessly.”

He met Atlee’s eyes, hoping to convince him through sheer force of personality. “There seems to be no need for a mobilisation, sir, and that is what we’re seeing; a covert mobilisation. The Germans don’t need so many units to advance east and finish off the Russians. I don’t believe that they would want to do that at the moment, not with the counterinsurgency operations they’re still running. Even an operation against any of the other continental powers wouldn’t require so much fire-power or a joint services operation; there has to be another reason for the operation.”

His finger traced out the German positions on the map. “I believe that they intend to attack Britain,” he said. “That is the only explanation that fits the facts.”

There was a long pause. “An interesting idea,” Lord Halifax said finally. His voice was clipped, an upper-class accent, but DeRiemer could hear a trace of bitterness underlying his words. Lord Halifax would never be a great man in his own right. “Do we have any reason to believe that it’s not an exercise?”

DeRiemer nodded. “The Germans last conducted a major exercise in 1948,” he said. “At that time, the Germans provided us with a month’s warning of the planned exercise and we raised our own readiness to compensate, just in case. The exercise went off without a hitch — we learned a great deal from watching them — and the Germans declared it a success. This time, they haven’t sent us any warning, and they don’t seem to have told their own people much about the exercise either.”

He paused. “The Germans, like us, run exercises on a regular basis for individual units,” he continued. “As far as we have been able to determine, they have never run more than three exercises for army units simultaneously, let alone all four of their services, apart from the big one in 1948. It’s a weird coincidence, if indeed it is a coincidence. I think the Germans are trying to prepare for an invasion of Britain.”

There was a brief babble of conversation. “We have several trade deals going with the Germans at the moment,” Lord Halifax said, finally. “Why would they want to break up those deals by starting a war?”

“We had trade deals with them back in 1938,” Churchill rumbled, his bass voice silencing everyone else. “How long do you think we have?”

“It’s impossible to estimate,” DeRiemer admitted. “They could start bombing us at once and then attempt to drive the Royal Navy out of the Channel. Or they could be making sure that they have everything in readiness before they start the offensive.”

Churchill looked over at Atlee. “Clement, you will remember the days when the Germans bombed us before they considered an invasion,” he said, grimly. “We cannot let them have another chance.”

“That’s true enough,” Atlee agreed. “If we were to launch a low-level preparation campaign of our own…”

“The deals we have with Germany are vitally important,” Lord Halifax snapped. “We cannot risk losing their goodwill by implying that we don’t trust them!”

Churchill’s eyes flickered with anger. “Are you prepared to risk the safety of this country on your trade deals?”

“Winston, please,” the Home Secretary said. “You know that we are still in a precarious position because of the expenditures from the last war.” DeRiemer noted that he carefully did not point out that that had been Churchill’s war. “We have a major debt to our American cousins that we need to service, we have endless problems with extracting anything from the empire these days, and we have a very shaky manufacturing sector. We must, if you will pardon the expression, cut our coat to suit our cloth… and we have very poor cloth indeed.”

He paused, dramatically. “In effect, we have a constantly declining economy…”

“I am aware of the details,” Churchill interrupted. “I ask you if you are aware of the kind of man Herr Hitler actually is?”

“No,” Eden said. “I have never met him. What I have met are tables and charts and industrial statistics that prove that Britain is on the verge of collapse. We require everything we can get in the way of hard cash and we have very few sources. We cannot export much to America because… frankly, the Americans make it better than we do. We can only export some items to the empire and as those bonds fray, so do the rest of the economy. If we didn’t have the bargains with Germany, we would be in a much worse state.”

Churchill looked over at Atlee. “I fail to see any reasonable grounds for refusing to ensure that we get our own forces ready, maybe even conduct a few exercises of our own,” he said. “If Hitler does intend us ill, we could be ready for him when he comes and catch his forces before they catch us on the ground. If he doesn’t intend to strike us and his forces stand down and return to their normal levels, then we can claim that it was all a drill as well and say nothing more.”

Eden leaned forward. “Winston, I believe that you are running an exercise with Home Fleet at the moment?”

Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, nodded. “Admiral Fraser is running an exercise and the Germans have taken a surprising amount of interest in it,” he said. “The exercise was intended, at least in part, to see how quickly Home Fleet could react if the Germans did send their fleet out into the North Sea, as they did years ago with the Bismarck. That is not, however, a complete exercise; we should, at least, ensure that all of our units are warned that there might be a state of hostilities between us and the Reich.”

Lord Halifax coughed. “Would we not have ample warning if the Germans launched an attack against us?”

It took DeRiemer a moment to realise that the question was aimed at him. “We have fairly good radar coverage over Britain and even over parts of France,” he said, carefully. “The Germans now have much faster aircraft than they did during the last war, so we would have a correspondingly shorter time to react and get our own aircraft into the air. If we failed to get the aircraft into the air in time to meet them, the Germans would have ample time to hurt us before we could react.”

He paused. “The Germans also have vastly more aircraft than we have,” he admitted. “We concentrated on fighters, rather than bombers, but they have built at least seven hundred jet bombers and well over two thousand fighters. Not all of them are up to current standards, but they have no shortage of aircraft to deploy against us. It may also give them a chance to hurt Home Fleet before it comes into contact with the German Navy.”

Atlee exchanged looks with Churchill, and then tapped once on the table. “It is true,” he said, nodding to Lord Halifax, “that our relationship with Germany is of vital importance and we should not jeopardise it lightly. We need German supplies to remain a functioning nation, particularly now given the fact we do not have such access to American markets. We also have to worry about the past performance of Hitler’s regime when it comes to attacking nations without warning. Are there any signs of increased German forces in Egypt?”

“Yes, Prime Minister,” DeRiemer confirmed. “The Italians formally hold Egypt, but the Germans maintain very large forces within the nation, despite the opinion of the natives. That force could be attacking the Suez Canal Zone and punch its way into Palestine and Iraq within a day if Hitler gave the orders. They reinforced it quite heavily over the last couple of weeks.”

“And if they go into Palestine, there’ll be a bloodbath,” Atlee said. A fundamentally decent man at heart, he had been shocked when the first reports of the fate of European Jews had begun to sink into his mind. He had even given asylum, despite German protests, to a Jewish family that had somehow escaped the Netherlands and reached Britain. “I want to ensure that every unit gets a warning that there might be some trouble coming and readiness is to be increased accordingly.”

“It’s not strong enough,” Churchill said. “We should be flying regular combat air patrols over Britain and preparing the defences.”

“It’s all we can do,” Atlee said, tiredly. “Winston, I understand your concern, but there are other issues involved here.”

He looked over at DeRiemer. “Thank you for your report,” he said. “Please remain available outside the room for the remainder of the meeting.”

DeRiemer nodded once and withdrew back into the waiting room. He hadn’t realised just how much poison there was between the senior members of the government, not until he’d seen them at first-hand and realised what was going on. Eden wanted to be Prime Minister, Lord Halifax wanted to be a man of influence… but the former knew that his position was weak and the latter knew that no one trusted him since he had betrayed Churchill. Atlee’s own position was weak because of the weakening economy; Churchill’s position was weak because he was associated with the last government, which he’d headed. He, at least, had taken the warnings seriously…

But he wasn’t heeded. DeRiemer remembered Churchill’s speech in Parliament about an Iron Curtain descending over Europe and knew that far too few people believed him. DeRiemer believed him, knowing what he did about the fate of people under German rule, but who else believed him? Most people preferred not to think about the monster crouching on the other side of the Channel, preparing to pounce on Britain…

DeRiemer hoped and prayed that he was wrong.

Chapter Six

Felixstowe, England

“You’ll be pleased to know that heads are rolling back at the RAF base,” Constable Toby Johnston said, as he sipped a cup of tea that Kate had prepared for him. Gregory Davall smiled at the memory; he’d made it back to the house and crawled into bed beside Kate without coming close to being caught. “The security level has been increased and a number of guards are wishing that they had been more alert, rather than earning shit duties for the next month.”

“Thank you,” Davall said, as he sipped his own tea. It was far too easy to like the Constable, who had been a policeman ever since leaving the army at the age of forty-seven. It was chilling to remember that he would have to kill him if the Germans ever invaded. “What were the papers anyway? I couldn’t make heads or tails of them.”

“Maintenance information, I believe,” Johnston said, without particular concern. “The RAF had copies, so losing them wouldn’t have been a problem, but if they had been the plans for the latest aircraft or maybe the base commander’s collection of secret papers… well, even more heads would have rolled. I think that the base commander has been given a week to get the base’s security back into line or else he’ll get the sack, but after that, someone else will be trying to penetrate the base.”

Davall blinked. “It won’t be me?”

“Not this time,” Johnston said. He looked over at Kate for a long moment, before turning his attention back to Davall. Kate was the only other one in the household who knew about the Grey Wolves. Davall had told her, right from the start, just so he could rely on her help if he needed it. She was braver than he was. The Germans wouldn’t hesitate to drag her off in chains if they suspected his role. “There is a more important issue at hand.”

He put down the tea and leaned forward. “I got a message from the Major-General yesterday,” he said, grimly. Davall frowned; there was only one Major-General who would have an interest in talking to a lowly police constable — Gubbins himself. “We’re on alert status, as of yesterday, but a covert alert status.”

Davall felt his blood run cold. “Is this it?”

“I don’t know,” Johnston admitted. “The message wasn’t particularly clear — it was meant to avoid attracting attention from people in the police station who aren’t meant to know about the Grey Wolves or my role in them — but it included code phases indicating that it is believed possible that the Germans might launch their invasion. It didn’t say anything about where the Germans will land — and as far as I know, from the last major briefing, that was expected in Dover — or when, but there is a good chance that they will try something within the next few weeks.”

“I understand,” Davall said. “Do they have any specific orders for us?”

“There weren’t any included on the message, although I suspect that there may be a courier within the next few days to remind you that you have some duties,” Johnston said. “If the Germans invade outside your area of operations, your orders are the same as they always were; stay inactive unless summoned to the colours. If the Germans occupy the area, harass them as seems appropriate and, until then, remain under cover.”

Davall remembered the last courier he’d met personally and silently thanked God that he’d had the sense to meet him far away from Kate and anything else that could be used to identify him. The man had been too excited at the thought of meeting one of the auxiliary units to believe that he would keep it quiet.

“Of course,” he said, dryly. The Grey Wolves had always been a secret from every other serviceman around their operations area; they’d only been used rarely and never as a group. They didn’t dare risk allowing themselves to be identified too soon. “What sort of orders do you have for a landing?”

Johnston shrugged. “The orders haven’t changed much,” he said. “I’m to remain at my post, try and keep people calm, and try to avoid collaborating too much with them.”

Davall nodded. They’d been briefed on how the Germans had acted in the different countries they’d conquered. In the western countries, they’d been almost civilised, at least at first. They’d kept the police around, but they’d insisted that some of the policemen help them hunt for Jews and resistance fighters. As far as Davall could remember, the partisans in France had only scored minor successes, at best.

He had been briefed on how vicious the Germans had been to the inhabitants of the Eastern countries. He’d seen some grainy movies, filmed by Germans and sent to Britain, that had given him nightmares for a week, where every one of the bodies or slaves bore Kate’s face. If the Germans treated the British population like that, the Grey Wolves would extract what revenge they could, but he feared that it would be a terrible test of strength. One day, they would find him and punish him with a bullet in the back of his head.

He kept that thought from showing on his face. “You poor bastard,” he said, as Johnston got up to leave. “Do you have anything else for us to do?”

“Not at this time.” Johnston said. “Check your weapons and equipment when you have a moment, but remember; you can’t trust anyone. If you fail to keep your own security, you will be broken quickly by the Germans and then treated as an illegal combatant.”

“I know the risks,” Davall assured him, feeling sorry for the policeman. When — if — the German army reached Suffolk, it would have punched out most of the British army and probably taken London, leaving the Grey Wolves and the other underground movements as the only source of resistance. Johnston would be watching the Germans, knowing, perhaps, that they would know what he knew about the underground units… and what they might do to make him talk. “I’ll take care of everything.”

He watched as Johnston left his house and headed on to his next destination. Without his uniform, the burly policeman still looked like a soldier even though he hadn’t been in the army for years. Riding a bicycle, he still looked remarkably normal out in the near-countryside, but like so many others of his age, he had a military bearing. The conscription program had been going on for so long that hundreds of young men had gone through the army… and, soon enough, it would be James’s turn as a soldier. Only six years…

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Kate asked, softly. They’d been married for twelve years and he had no secrets from her now. “You could just abandon it all…”

“I was a young man back when I agreed,” Davall said. “Even so…”

The Germans hadn’t come, not back then. He’d had a child with Kate and known that the war would cost him more than just his own life. The treaty had seemed to bring peace for a time, but Gubbins had kept the underground units up to date just in case of war breaking out again… and now it seemed the war might be on the verge of re-igniting. If it did come to his home…

“I have no choice,” he said, softly, and took his wife in his arms. “I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”

That afternoon, he slipped back into the woods and walked down a path that was hardly ever used, even by walkers and young couples out for some privacy in the woods. The Grey Wolves all lived — with one exception — away from the main body of the city itself, spurning contact with the suburbs and living near the forest, where they could take refuge if they had to escape in a hurry. It wasn’t a perfect place to hide, but a man who knew the area well could escape while his hunters were still looking for him… and hide anything in the forests.

They’d cached the arms and supplies near an old house, one that made a convenient navigation post for the team, and it was fairly easy to find the location of the cache from it. He checked around the entire position first, just in case, before finding the hidden sheet of wood they’d buried just under a layer of dirt. It took a moment to find the edges and then pull it up, revealing a hidden pit stuffed with weapons and explosives, as well as a handful of other tools and some money. The Germans, it was generally expected, would want the British to use their money — that was what they had done in their other conquests — and so money had been provided. The weapons were all in good condition; they’d all been put through a course in handling them and treating them with respect, and they’d wrapped all the weapons up in covering.

It’s all there, he reassured himself, and carefully hid the cache again. If Hitler came to Britain, Davall would be able to hit a few of the Nazis before the Grey Wolves were hunted down like dogs. He strode away from the cache, found a path leading back down towards the village, and became an ordinary walker again. There was nothing to show that he had just been looking at enough weapons to fight a small war.

He checked his watch as he moved. He would have time to eat dinner with Kate and James before meeting the other Grey Wolves and discussing plans for the future. Somehow, deep inside, he was sure that this was the time — or else all of their preparations would be for naught.

* * *

“I never liked the sea,” Captain Harry Jackson confessed, as he stood next to Sergeant Henry Wilt, staring out to sea. He’d been born inland and had only seen the sea as a child on a visit to relatives in Poole, where he’d visited a beach and almost drowned. “What’s the point of us being here?”

Wilt gave him a mischievous look. “Because the Home Guard is supposed to be a countrywide organisation and Felixstowe cannot be left out of any preparations for defence,” he said, carefully. “If something should happen here, the army will expect us to serve as the first respondents to the crisis and deal with it.”

Jackson looked at him sharply. “And just what might happen here?”

“There was a major riot two years ago,” Wilt said, as they walked back towards the barracks. “There was a strike protesting something, and a boss sent in a group of hired thugs and… well, dockyard workers are tough, so they beat hell out of the thugs and then rioted. I think it required an army battalion to put an end to the rioting and a lot of people got hurt.”

Jackson looked around the dockyard complex. It was massive, with several large slips for massive freighters and a small MTB and destroyer base down the coast, providing a small base for the Royal Navy. Inland of the slips there were hundreds of warehouses and an entire rail line dedicated to moving cargo out of the dockyards and into Britain; behind that, he could see the town of Felixstowe, shimmering slightly in the early morning mist. But the workers themselves looked thin and scrawny, the result of rations that were somehow never enough to keep themselves going. And, as they were in a protected occupation, they couldn’t even find work elsewhere.

“I can see why they rioted,” he said, as they passed by a massive freighter which was unloading a massive pile of crates, dockyard workers coming up to transport them away from the ship and towards the railway station. A set of trucks drove past and they moved out of the way, heading towards the gate; the entire dockyard was surrounded by a fence and a guarded gatepost. “Are there any security problems here?”

Wilt nodded towards a line of pubs, inside the fence. “We get German crewmen coming here and sometimes they get into fights,” he said. “There’s quite a lot of Polish workers here, people whose families fled Poland before the Germans invaded, and they don’t get on too well with the Germans. More seriously, we have had some spying incidents out here, although the Home Guard hasn’t actually done much apart from providing manpower if it’s needed.”

They passed through the gates and began walking towards the Home Guard barracks. They were smaller than a regular army barracks; according to Home Guard regulations, one Company was supposed to be ready for anything, and a second Company was supposed to be in reserve, but the other part-time soldiers were permitted to get on with their lives in-between serving their time on guard duty. There was a great deal to guard at the barracks: apart from providing sleeping space and offices for the senior officers of the unit, it also stored the unit’s weapons and equipment.

He grimaced. Junior officers in the Home Guard had been pressing for the soldiers to be allowed to take their weapons home with them so that they could be ready at any moment, if there was a problem. It hadn’t been considered politically possible, not with so much economic turmoil sweeping over the country, and it meant that the Home Guard had to report to their barracks before getting their weapons. If something did happen, they should have plenty of time to respond, but it worried him.

“Ah, Captain Jackson,” Colonel Felton-Smith said, as Jackson entered his office. “What did you make of the docks?”

“I think we really need more patrols round there,” Jackson said, honestly. “If there are security issues we need to tighten security and ensure that no one comes in or out of the docks unless we know who they are.”

“You think that the Germans will slip some spies into Britain,” Colonel Felton-Smith said, thoughtfully. “I have just received this information from the War Office; a message from General Slim himself.”

Jackson nodded as he read through the note. General Slim, an expert in fighting in the Far East and the Middle East, had recently been appointed the commanding officer of the Home Guard, second only to the Minister of Defence and the Prime Minister. It was a role he was suited for. He was tasked with organising the Home Guard around the issues that plagued part-time soldiers who also needed to work or take in the harvest when they were wanted to serve in the Home Guard. It was one of the reasons why only two companies of the Home Guard were serving at the barracks; the other soldiers had regular jobs and employment.

“He thinks that we should come to full readiness.” he said, puzzled. “Does that mean we should declare a full mobilisation and bring the Guard up to alert?”

“No,” Colonel Felton-Smith said. There was a bitter tone in his voice, one that surprised Jackson. “For reasons they haven’t bothered to explain to me, they want us to merely come to alert, but not to mobilise the full force.”

“I don’t understand,” Jackson said. He could understand reluctance to mobilise — it would cost a lot of money and cause considerable inconvenience to everyone involved — but if there was some reason to be worried, why not start the mobilisation anyway? “What do they mean by that?”

“Off the record, I got some whispers down the chain that suggested that there are some reasons to be worried about the Germans,” Colonel Felton-Smith said. He sounded irritated and Jackson didn’t blame him; the warning was so vague as to be almost useless. “They want us to take what precautions we can to make sure that if someone does declare a full mobilisation, the Home Guard can be raised to its full complement as soon as possible.”

Jackson ran through it in his head. There were, in theory, two thousand Home Guardsmen in the area. He privately suspected that it would take at least a week to get all of them concentrated, particularly if they weren’t allowed to inform them ahead of time that they might be called up to serve. That sort of delay could be disastrous. They might manage to get a quarter of their established force up quickly, but even that would be tricky…

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said, thinking about the other units. Half of them were still out on exercise; they’d all have to be recalled, quickly. The others had returned to their civilian lives and it wouldn’t be easy to recall them all. “There’s no way that we can call them all up quietly?”

“No, it’s not going to be easy,” Colonel Felton-Smith said. Jackson remembered, suddenly, that the Colonel had fought in France during the Battle of France and left the country at Dunkirk. “Still, we’d better get on with it, hadn’t we? There’s no way of knowing how long we have before the balloon goes up.”

Chapter Seven

Berlin, Germany

Hitler was in a good mood, Himmler noted, as he entered the Führer’s war room. His leader’s face was split into a smile. The Fuehrer hadn’t been in such a good mood since the first reports had come back from the Russian Front, when his nerves about launching Operation Barbarossa had been swept away by the awesome successes of his army. Now, instead of a massive and inaccurate map of Russia, a scale map of Britain was hung prominently on the wall. A second set of maps was placed on the table. Himmler was no skilled map reader, but even he could tell how the massive fighting force that Hitler’s generals had assembled was straining at the leash, preparing to jump forward and attack the British.

“This is a day that will live for a thousand years,” Hitler said, as soon as the doors were closed. “On this day, the glorious forces of our Thousand Year Reich will finally put an end to the nation of shopkeepers and Jews that remains the one thorn in our side. Today…”

Himmler tuned him out. Hitler was capable of speaking for hours on a subject that interested him or one that he knew a great deal about, but he often ended up repeating himself. He might not be shouting at anyone, but if there was a defeat, even a tiny one, he would explode into a fury that would only be ended by his body failing.

It didn’t seem fair, somehow; Hitler was the most important person in the Reich, and still he was fading under their eyes. There had been hundreds of experiments conducted on concentration camp victims to try to find a way of prolonging the Führer’s life, and even with some of the new techniques, Hitler’s lifespan was likely to be no longer than a handful of years, degenerating all the way. That particular secret had been kept from the German people, but what would happen when Hitler died? Who would become Fuhrer then?

His gaze met the gaze of Speer, and then Kesselring. Only one person could wield absolute power within Germany, and only Himmler himself could ensure that the Reich gave birth to the Aryan society that would dominate the world for the rest of time. He knew that he must win the power struggle that was sure to follow Hitler’s death or collapse. Britain would be a battleground in more ways than one; Himmler’s agents would have to ensure that the SS came out of the affair looking as if they’d borne sole responsibility for keeping the peace. There was a Waffen-SS unit earmarked for duty in the invasion, but only one of them; there could only be one reason for that. Kesselring didn’t want the SS to be able to claim credit for the early victories.

“That leaves us with one question,” the Fuhrer concluded, after nearly half an hour. “Do we still have the advantage of surprise?”

All eyes turned to Canaris. “The British have been engaged in a low-level alert for the past week,” he said, after a moment. “I do not believe that they are aware of the full scope of our plans, but they are certainly suspicious that we are up to something, even to the point of trying to send recon planes over France. We shot two of them down and refrained from making a formal protest; we don’t want them to think that we have something to hide.”

Hitler laughed and, after a moment, the others joined in. “Overall, however, the British seem not to have declared a full mobilisation,” Canaris continued. “We don’t know what they’re thinking, but without a complete alert, they are likely to be caught by surprise, at least on a tactical level.”

Himmler interjected a comment. “Through certain sources, I have established that there are elements within the British Government that suspect that we are planning something,” he said, revelling in his position of power. The military intelligence machine had been demanding to know about his sources for years, but Himmler had no intention of admitting that the SS was using socialists as a source of intelligence; that would have been seen as a sign of ideological weakness. “Churchill, Admiral Cunningham and others have been pressing for an increased alert status…”

“That dog,” Hitler burst out, furiously. Himmler nodded in agreement; Churchill was the one national leader who had defied the Fuhrer and gotten away with it. Stalin had crawled on his belly before the Fuhrer, after which he had been taken away and executed; Tito had killed himself the night before he had been scheduled to meet with the SS death squad. “The British should have exiled him from the country!”

“It is quite likely that the operation directed against London itself will succeed in killing him as well,” Himmler said. The SS’s Black Book on British citizens who were to be rounded up included much of the former British government and almost all of the British aristocracy. As natural leaders — or so Hitler saw them — they would end their days working in one of the slave camps or simply receiving a bullet in the back of the head.

Himmler pushed his advantage. “Regardless, if Churchill is unable to convince the British that they need to come to alert, then there is no need to worry,” he said. “Even if the British come to their senses now, they will have almost no time to bring their forces up to readiness and strike at us first.”

Hitler calmed himself with obvious effort. “Yes, you’re right,” he said, absently boosting Himmler’s position in the coming power struggle. “What is their state of readiness?”

Canaris touched the map. “Their main units have been running through drills, but we believe that around a third of their soldiers are not on station, even in the Dover region,” he said. “If they had a day’s warning, they could recall their soldiers and airmen and prepare to engage the leading assault forces, but in the event they will only have hours and the confusion cannot help but benefit us. Their Home Fleet, in particular, just finished a set of drills and the crewmen will be exhausted; an ideal time to hit them.”

“Good,” Hitler said, reassured. “And now… our status?”

Kesselring, by common agreement, spoke first. “The airborne units are prepared for their missions,” he said. “The leading assault units for Scapa Flow are already running through their final checks and will be taking off within hours. Units with targets of importance will be take off in a coordinated effort so that they all enter British radar coverage at the same time. Those units have been given specific targets, although only a few of them are of vital importance.”

His fingers touched the map. “Luftwaffe 3 will be handling the most important section of the mission,” he continued. “They will launch a series of precision strikes against road and rail communications between the Dover region and the landing site, in Felixstowe. In addition, they will also drop two thousand parachutists into the area, with orders to carry out attacks against British troop formations, roads, rail lines, and other means of communication. Once the night comes to an end, the troops will withdraw back towards Felixstowe, where they will be reassigned and given other tasks as part of a general personnel pool.

“Luftwaffe 1 will launch heavy strikes against the ports, army units, airbases, and heavy fortifications of the Dover region.” he said. “They will also be dropping fake parachutists into the area, hopefully confusing the British defenders and convincing them that the main assault will be landing in Dover. Army units on the far side of the Channel will be simulating preparations for a landing for the first week of the campaign, whereupon they will be moved to join the invasion or held back, as the situation warrants.”

He nodded at the Fuhrer. “Overall, the Luftwaffe is prepared for its mission.” he concluded. “We should have no difficulty in making a mark on the British and winning air supremacy.”

The Fuhrer, remembering Goring’s failure in 1940 — and his later failure with the flying wing project — looked doubtful, but clearly decided not to push the issue. He looked over at Manstein, who straightened to attention and faced the Fuhrer with a firm gaze. Manstein knew just how much he could get away with, Himmler reflected. He was someone who it was best to keep a careful eye on just in case he developed ambitions of his own. The General Staff were supposed to be free of ambition, or at least political ambition, but Himmler didn’t believe it. Everyone, in his experience, wanted power.

“The army stands ready to do its part,” he said, after a moment. “We have the Hans Bader already on its way towards Felixstowe; it will land just at twilight, whereupon it should hopefully avoid inspection long enough for the troops to deploy. If not, the commandos will assault anyway and take the port as quickly as possible, capturing the docking slips and the port’s supplies — as well as putting the Royal Navy units there out of action — and then they will hold it until the first heavy transport arrives.”

His bearing tightened slightly. “We were able to load enough supplies for the commandos to hold the port for hours, if there is a major delay, but we anticipate getting the first heavy transport into the dock within an hour, maybe less, as they will have sailed only an hour ago. Admiral?”

Generaladmiral Erich Raeder looked over at the Fuhrer. “The main invasion convoys are already being loaded and will be escorted by the vast majority of our warships,” he said. “The flotilla will make a high-speed run to Felixstowe, whereupon they will unload and return at once for additional units. French and Dutch ports have already been prepared for rapidly reloading the ships. Other ships, including smaller freighters and barges, have already been marked for seizure and deployment into a transport force. As long as we can keep the sea lanes open, we can keep reinforcing the beachhead.

He hesitated. “The danger remains that the British Home Fleet may be able to come out to engage our force,” he concluded. “If Home Fleet remains at its current strength, we will probably lose, despite the more modern nature of our battleships and the carrier tactics we practised with our yellow friends. If Home Fleet is crippled, we should be able to dominate the Channel until the battle on the land is concluded.”

Himmler kept his face blank with extreme care. The Japanese had taught the Reich much about carriers and carrier operations — three of the Reich’s carriers were based on Japanese designs — but it wasn’t something that could be acknowledged in public. Officially, the designs had all been invented by the Kriegsmarine, which had developed them on its own. The truth was not something that could be shared with the world — it threw the ‘master race’ theory into doubt.

Manstein nodded his thanks. “To a certain degree, Field Marshal Rommel will have to improvise during the first few weeks of the war,” he admitted. “The reinforcement situation is the most critical part of the invasion; as long as the supply lines remain open, the British will lose in the end. We have better training, better equipment, and better soldiers. As long as we can keep the supplies flowing, we will win.”

“There does remain the question of the American angle,” Canaris said. Himmler felt the ripples of opinion running around the room and glowered inwardly. Canaris, he felt, overestimated the Americans, even if they were the only power left that could give the Reich a run for its money. “Churchill is surprisingly popular on the other side of the Atlantic and might well be trying to convince the Americans that we represent a danger to them as well. Do we have any way of defeating them if they decide to get involved?”

Himmler smiled. “The current mode in America is isolationist,” he said, recalling what one of his other unknowing spies had reported. “Certainly, they do have pressure groups, mainly Jews and a few others, pushing for a more vigorous response to the Reich.”

He shrugged. Hitler’s plans had grown larger and larger as his victories grew larger; he’d spoken before of one day carrying the war to the American continent. His delusions about the rest of the world were strange — he literally believed that New Zealanders lived in trees and had tails — but when matched with his mind, skilled at finding an opponent’s weaknesses, he was a formidable opponent. One day, Himmler was certain, the Americans would discover just what sort of nation Nazi Germany was, the day when the Reich would crush the American republic like a bug.

“It doesn’t matter,” Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel said. He was known as ‘lackey’ within the General Staff; Hitler used him as a mouthpiece, rather than as a serious officer. “If the Americans send everything they have now to Britain it will not alter the balance of power significantly, even assuming that their navy makes it across the Atlantic without being sunk by the horde of U-boats we have been launching into the waters. Upon a signal, they will all attack the American fleet and the Americans will be completely unprepared for their existence.”

Himmler understood; Keitel was speaking the Fuehrer’s own words. The Americans had been worried about the Japanese back in 1941, but when the Japanese had gone north into Soviet-held Russia, the American public had slipped back into apathy and the American Navy rebuilding program had been allowed to slip to a halt. The Americans barely had an army, nothing like the millions of men Hitler could send into battle, and in the time it would take for them to build one, the battle for Britain would have been decided, one way or the other.

“And so the American interest in the war will fade to an end,” the Fuhrer said. The confidence in his voice made Himmler smile. “Heinrich, what about Skorzeny and his commandos?”

Himmler smiled at Kesselring in triumph. Skorzeny was an SS man… and if his stunt worked, he would have ensured that the SS got a fair share of the credit for the invasion and its success. Himmler had read all the reports about the exercises carefully as the paratroopers went through their preparations, jumping out of planes at what seemed to be a ridiculously low altitude, then attacking the dummy target that had been prepared for them. The rate of training injuries shocked Himmler, who didn’t even like the sight of blood, but Skorzeny’s men were ready for their operation.

“The unit went into lockdown after being transported to an airbase in northern France,” Himmler said, and enjoyed the look on his opponents’ faces. “In” — he glanced at his watch — “less than an hour, they will take off and fly directly to London.”

“I have faith that Skorzeny will pull the operation off and succeed in decapitating the British,” Hitler said, his voice rising again. “Without their head of government, they will be unable to react in time to our advance, and we will rip the heart out of their island if they are so foolish as not to come to terms with us and take their place in the New Order.”

“Of course, Mein Fuhrer,” Himmler agreed. It was easy to praise the Fuhrer. It was much harder to talk him out of anything. “The operation is a master-work”

Hitler looked up, around the war room, before finally looking down at Goebbels. “You have prepared the news?”

“Yes, Mein Fuhrer,” Goebbels said. His eager gaze met Himmler’s for a moment, and then he flinched away. He wasn’t a candidate for true power in the Reich despite being one of the more intelligent of Hitler’s sycophants, and he knew it. It had made him bitter. “I have prepared the news release for the people, informing them that the British have been attacking us and finally we took pre-emptive measures to prevent a catastrophe.”

Himmler smiled at some of the reactions. Keitel and Speer looked as if they believed every word of it, although he doubted that Speer would accept such obvious nonsense. Manstein looked as if he didn’t care what excuse Hitler used to justify the invasion. Canaris, Kesselring and Joachim von Ribbentrop — who would have to present the news of the invasion to the remainder of the world — looked slightly disgusted, although Himmler wouldn’t have bet good money on Ribbentrop doing anything successfully for the Fuhrer. The man was an incompetent jumped-up wine salesman; his only real successes had come when he was dictating terms or when the other side had been eager for a deal.

Hitler straightened up, the Iron Cross he wore on his jacket flashing in the light. “I approve this operation,” he said, formally. Himmler felt the tension in the room rising as the Reich prepared another gamble, this one on dangerously uncertain territory. If the operation failed, it would shatter the one thing the Reich had in abundance; a reputation for being invincible. “Inform all of the troops; the operation is to commence immediately.”

Chapter Eight

Scapa Flow, Orkneys

As the sun slipped below the horizon, Benjamin Matthews glanced down once at his compass and then up at the darkening sky. It was only an hour to complete darkness. The little fishing boat was well away from the islands where Matthews and his wife lived, but they were used to fishing far to the east of the Orkney Islands. The little community had more fish than they knew what to do with, but fishermen could earn more money through catching extra, salting it, and shipping it to the mainland. So, Matthews had found himself and his small crew heading out to sea on a regular basis.

The war had never touched his community, apart from a handful of German bombing raids, one of which had killed a rabbit, and a German submarine that had sneaked into one of the Royal Navy slips and sunk a battleship.

Matthews himself was too old and too important to be drafted into the Royal Navy or one of the other services, but his three sons had all been sent south to join the army. Matthews regretted that, somewhat. He might make some money by selling to the Royal Navy, but what did the quarrel with Germany have to do with the islanders? By and large, they ignored the mainlanders, asking only that the mainlanders ignored them in return.

“Start hauling the netting in now,” he called over to Morag, his daughter and first mate. He had never had any time for the suggestion that a woman shouldn’t be sailing with a man, particularly when his sons had been taken away from him. Besides, it kept Morag away from the sailors. He knew what sailors were like; he’d been one himself. “Let’s see what we’ve caught.”

It was the quiet that awed him more than anything else about sailing. They hadn’t seen a single ship or aircraft since they’d passed the destroyer that had been patrolling around the islands, well away from the main fleet base. He’d seen the great ships before, massive ugly brutes on the surface of the sea, but he preferred sailing ships to boats with engines. His fishing boat might have been primitive, but it was reliable and he could fix every part of the boat without needing to take it to a mechanic. His sons might change their minds and place their faith in massive fishing boats, but Matthews knew where he belonged, and what he gained from fishing alone.

“Yes, dad,” Morag said. At fourteen, she was lovely; she looked so much like his wife that it chilled him. He’d have to see about introducing her to some of the young men from the other island settlements before too long; that would ensure that she married a good man who would take care of her. Matthews was already feeling older and older each day and knew that one day, not too far away, he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. He was just looking at her when he saw her head start up. “Dad, what’s that?”

Matthews blinked. Her hearing was sharper than his, but he could hear it too, now, a dull thrumming, echoing through the air. He looked around, wondering what could be causing such a noise… and then he saw them, moving through the air like a swarm of angry wasps. They took on shape and form rapidly as they flew west; aircraft, a massive flight of aircraft. Matthews tried to count them, even to estimate their numbers, but it seemed as if the sky was filled by thousands of black aircraft. He stared at them, trying to understand, and then it all made sense.

“Get the radio,” he cried, as he raced into the small cabin. He’d had a government-issue radio, like every other fisherman, just on the off-chance that they might spot something worth reporting to the military. He’d kept it charged because some of the fishermen used them to communicate between themselves, but he’d never used it himself to call the Royal Navy.

Morag didn’t understand, but he ignored her questions, struck suddenly by a sense of imminent doom. There seemed to be no end to the stream of aircraft flying overhead, but he knew where they were going; they were making a direct beeline for the Royal Navy harbour. He picked up the radio, flicked switches until the radio was warming up, and then tried to make a broadcast.”

“This is Matthews, ID ORK3473,” he called. He’d been given a crash course on how to use the radio, but he’d forgotten most of it. “There’s a massive flight of German aircraft heading west, I repeat…”

“Dad,” Morag said. Matthews looked up to see a smaller black aircraft flying lower than any other, heading right towards the fishing boat. He knew exactly what it’s pilot had in mind; he’d heard from sailors who had been strafed by German planes, down towards the south. “Dad, I think…”

“I know,” Matthews said. He reached out and took his daughter in his arms. “I love you…”

The German plane opened fire, strafing the water and shattering the boat with explosive shells. Moments later, the fishing boat blew apart and left nothing but wreckage drifting on the surface of the sea.

* * *

Admiral Fraser settled down in his bunk for the night, closing his eyes and trying to relax; it had been a long two weeks. His appointment as the commanding officer of Home Fleet — and hence the senior British Admiral actually on active duty — had been a pleasant surprise, but after nearly a year of commanding the fleet, he was starting to wish that he’d been left in command of the Gibraltar or Singapore fleet bases. He’d had up-to-date experience, or at least as much experience as anyone else in the Royal Navy, of modern battleship combat. He’d served on-board King George V as a Vice Admiral during the short but bloody combat with Italian battleships during 1943. They’d sunk two Italian ships there, losing no British battleships in exchange, although Nelson and Queen Elizabeth had been badly mauled by the Italians.

Fraser firmly believed that new technology would determine the shape of future war. In that, he was in full agreement with the Germans, who were pouring more and more resources into their Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. The Home Fleet had sunk the Bismarck nine years ago, but it had been a close-run thing. The Bismarck had been stopped by a fluke, a lucky hit, more than anything else — and once that hit had disabled the ship, the Germans had been doomed. If the ship had broken out into the Atlantic, it would have had a disastrous effect on the Royal Navy’s attempts to keep the convoy system going. The Germans had actually risked the Tirpitz in 1943, but in that case Hitler’s fears had prevented the German battleship from being more than a worrying problem for the Royal Navy. Fraser didn’t want to think about what would have happened if the ship had been given to an aggressive commander — a German Nelson — who had the guts to ignore the bleating of the Fuhrer and move in for the kill.

And now, he fretted, the Fuhrer might have bad intentions towards Britain. Fraser had read the message from the War Office with a mixture of incredulity and disbelief before turning to the one from the Admiralty, which had been a bit clearer. Fraser was experienced enough to read between the lines and guess that someone expected the Germans to make trouble. But they didn’t want to make a major fuss in case it was a false alarm. Fraser had wanted clarification. However, Churchill had been direct but unhelpful and the War Office had dithered. Scapa Flow was not a popular place among the crewmen, even though the Royal Navy had done its best to provide facilities for the crews; Fraser’s orders to keep some of the fleet in readiness might keep some crewmen busy, but it wouldn’t be popular. He’d strengthened the defences as best as he could…

It felt like only moments before there was a banging at his cabin door. “Come in,” he called, pulling himself to his feet. His orderly should have prevented any disturbance unless it was urgent; he grabbed his jacket and pulled it on before the inner door opened, revealing a nervous-looking Midshipman. “Yes?”

The Midshipman looked as if he was going to faint at the mere thought of addressing an Admiral. “Sir, there has been a disturbing radio transmission, and Captain Abernathy would like to see you in the CIC at once,” he gasped out. “Sir…”

“Very good,” Fraser said, wryly certain that the young man expected to be thrown to the dogs at any moment for daring to address an Admiral. “I’ll be there directly.”

It was only a minute later when he entered the CIC of the battleship. His quarters had been placed right next to the CIC. He’d spent weeks of training ensuring that everyone knew how to use the systems they had developed for coordinating the fleet and using it in a battleship duel; he honestly felt that if they had had the system back in 1943, the Italian fleet would have been wiped out. Captain Abernathy straightened up at once and saluted; Fraser returned it without much irritation. He’d served with Captain Abernathy long enough to know that he never panicked over nothing.

“Sir,” Captain Abernathy said. His face looked grim in the red light of the radar screens. “Ten minutes ago, we picked up a radio transmission from one of the fishing boats, a transmission warning of enemy aircraft. We lost contact almost immediately afterwards and have been unable to raise them since.”

They’ve been sunk, Fraser thought, and felt his blood run cold.

“I ordered the radar stations to be turned on and… well, there’s a lot of vague contacts in the air,” Captain Abernathy continued. Fraser glanced down at the nearest radar screen and flinched; the contacts were resolving themselves even as he watched. “I think that…”

“Enemy aircraft rising up now,” a radar operator stated, his voice cutting through the babble. Fraser remembered a classified briefing on the performance of some of the newer German aircraft and cursed under his breath. “I have at least five hundred contacts!”

“Sound the air raid alarm,” Fraser ordered. Klaxons started to wail at once; he knew that they would be louder on the outside, echoing over the still waters of the loch and waking soldiers and sailors who had been trying to rest after the exercise. They had equipped and rearmed the anti-aircraft batteries, but he wasn’t confident that any of them would be able to take down a German aircraft, even slaved to British radar stations. “Launch the ready fighters and order the crews of the carrier-borne aircraft to get in the air as quickly as possible.”

He found himself grinding his teeth in rage as he realised he’d made a dreadful mistake. The carriers held nearly sixty aircraft each, but they had been flown off to the local airbases, just to limit the potential for disaster. If there had been an accident on the landing deck of a carrier, the entire ship could have been destroyed, but now… there would be a great deal of confusion as the pilots strove to get into the air. They’d be lucky to have more than half of their fighters in the air when the Germans commenced their attack…

“Send a signal to the Ministry of Defence,” he ordered, feeling his heart clenching in his breast. “Inform them… that we are under attack. Great Britain is, once again, at war with Germany.”

* * *

There were pilots who claimed to have broken the sound barrier in one of the Messerschmitt Me 270 aircraft, although Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt didn’t believe them. He’d taken the aircraft through an entire series of fast dives towards the ground, an exercise that the pilots disliked as the engines sometimes staggered under the sudden changes in pressure, and hadn’t come close to actually breaking the sound barrier. It didn’t really matter; for the moment, the flight was the fastest thing in the air, and Schmidt was its point man.

He reached down and toggled his on-board radar. The Luftwaffe had developed smaller and smaller radars — ironically, they were based on an Italian design — but he’d been warned not to use it until they were making their final approach. It bothered him — if the British had been alert, they would have a chance to bounce his wing out of the sky — but he knew that radar signals travelled much further than they seemed. The British might be lurking just outside his range, but they would know he was there by detecting his own radar signals. The radar pulses raced ahead of his fighter, testing the boundaries of his reach, and bounced off a dozen British fighters, settling into a combat air patrol formation. Other fighters were rising into the air — too late. They wouldn’t have a chance to alter the outcome of the engagement.

“Richthofen, attack,” Schmidt ordered, and gunned his own engine forward. The aircraft lunged and raced towards a British fighter that turned to face Schmidt with a speed and agility that almost matched his own; the vaunted British Meteor was truly a worthy foe. He snapped off a quick burst of explosive cannon shells — if he hit the enemy fuel tanks, he would destroy the aircraft — and had the satisfaction of watching the Meteor explode in a flash of fire. A second British aircraft fired at him but narrowly missed and then evaded his return fire with a flip of his aircraft’s wings. He spun through the air, focused his nose on the enemy’s tail, and fired again. This time, the British plane spun down towards the ground.

White light flashed into existence as the first of the flares lit up. This was rapidly followed by explosions in the air as the British air defence guns opened fire, sending shells bursting in the air. The briefing had warned that the British had developed their own version of the proximity shell and Schmidt kept his aircraft evading, trying to avoid the ground fire even as he hunted down British targets. The white light of the flares cast an eerie glow over the entire horizon, illuminating the cold metallic shapes of the British fleet and the fires blazing up from where the aircraft had hit the ground. He cursed as a streak of tracer flew past, then threw the aircraft into a crash dive, levelling out barely above the ground and firing his cannon down towards a British aircraft on the ground. A line of explosions ripped through the airbase; he powered away from it before the defences could chase him away.

The entire battle was becoming a dreadful dogfight, with planes choosing their targets and trying to destroy the remaining British aircraft before it was too late. The Meteors were holding their own, but there were older aircraft now staggering up to join them. Schmidt guessed that they were carrier-borne torpedo-bombers or fighters, rather than land-based aircraft. The Reich had been experimenting with a carrier-borne jet fighter, but hadn’t managed to make one work properly. The British, as far as he knew, hadn’t had any success either. He fired down at one of them and smiled upon seeing it falling out of the sky before the radar screen flickered. The bombers had arrived. The white light grew brighter as the observers dropped more flares, allowing the bombers a chance to actually see their targets. Immediately after that, they launched their heavy weapons from their bomb bays. The bombs were the largest and most powerful ones that Germany had built. They were designed to punch through battleship armour and the armoured decks on carriers, and then explode within the vulnerable interior of the ships.

Schmidt tore his attention away from the rapidly growing inferno as more enemy fighters pounced on the bombers. He gave chase as the enemy aircraft attempted to engage the bombers, shooting down one of them before the enemy pilot knew that he was behind him. A hail of fire from the bomber reminded him of one of the very real dangers of the war, being shot down by his own side. He jerked away from the bombers, looking for more targets, knowing that it wouldn’t be too long before more enemy fighters appeared. He knew better than to hope for success even though raids had been scheduled on Scotland’s airbases just to ensure that the fighters based there had other problems than a major raid on the fleet base. The jet jerked as the heavy bombs started to explode down below. A fuel depot exploded on the island itself and lit up the area in red-yellow fires before spreading out of control.

The defenders on the ground were firing desperately towards the bombers, and one of them fell out of the air, falling towards the water, but it was too late. One of the bombs hit a carrier, another hit…

And then HMS Invincible exploded in a ball of flame.

Chapter Nine

Felixstowe, England

“I think that we’ll be in harbour within an hour,” Kapitän zur See Christian Wulff said, as the Hans Bader started to inch towards the green hills of the British homeland. Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck nodded as he studied the darkening hills with his binoculars, silently wondering if he would ever see Bavaria again; Britain had proven to be the graveyard of many reputations. “If we are lucky, they won’t want to inspect until the morning.”

Baeck said nothing. The short voyage had been hard on his men, even though they had trained endlessly for the mission; they all knew that if the British smelled a rat, a single destroyer would end their mission abruptly. A hail of shellfire would be more than enough to sink the Hans Bader, even though it had been covertly designed to be harder to sink than the average freighter.

“You seem quiet,” Wulff said, after a moment. “You’ve done everything you can, so why worry?”

Baeck glanced down at his watch. Rommel had said that there were other operations being planned against the British, but Baeck hadn’t understood the sheer scale of the overall plan until a day before when the Hans Bader had set sail from Kiel. The timing had to be precise. If they got it wrong, even slightly, the British would catch on to their plan and unceremoniously sink the Hans Bader. Baeck wasn’t given to reflection, but now, facing the British port and defences up ahead, he half-wished that he had turned down Rommel when he had offered him the mission. He had trained for the mission along with the others of his unit, but now… now they would finally put their training into practice.

“I’m a born worrier,” he said, as he lit a cigarette. “Why don’t they inspect our ships well away from anywhere that might be a target?”

Wulff shrugged. “The British Government doesn’t like having to deal with us, or at least having to deal with us openly,” he said, as they passed an MTB heading out to sea. Baeck tracked it with uneasy eyes, knowing that it too could sink their ship if it suspected what they really were. “For some reason their people don’t like us very much, and so we’re officially a German commercial ship rather than anything to do with the Reich itself.”

Baeck laughed. The Hans Bader would never have passed muster as a proper military ship, but it was well fitted to carry troops into a safe harbour, even while disguised as a commercial ship. They had replaced the cargo bays and cargo access points in the interior of the ship with a new structure that would allow his troops to leave the ship quickly and efficiently. If they took the port and its cranes intact, they could get most of the battle group out without any problems, and then secure the port and hold it against anything short of an armoured division. In the British place, he would have had an infantry division dug in at any possible landing place, but they had refused to spread out their forces that way. There was a Home Guard force near, he knew; how long would it take for the British to organise and mount a counter-attack?

“I’m going to check with the men,” he said, and headed down the ladder into the first of the infantry decks. He acknowledged the salutes of his men as he passed, waving some of them back down when they rose to stand at attention, others even tried to sleep. The soldiers enjoyed a relaxed atmosphere on ship; it was when they would be hitting their target that they would have to obey orders and fight as one. The Sergeants had been working overtime, preventing fights from breaking out in the confined quarters of the ship, while others had been studying the maps of their targets again, individual groups planning their actions as part of the overall plan.

He passed soldiers preparing their weapons and nodded in approval as the soldiers went through all of the steps. They’d all had weapons care and safety drummed into them from the first day at the training centre; now, they should all be able to field-strip an automatic weapon blindfolded and under enemy fire. Others held rocket launchers, antitank weapons and smaller grenade launchers and mortars. They were prepared to meet an armoured counter attack if one was mounted. They had practised endlessly; now, finally, they would have a chance to see if it worked as well in practice as it had when they were training.

He whistled once and waited until all of the section leaders had come up to surround him. There was no room on the Hans Bader for a proper conference room, although he would have refused one if it had been offered; he preferred to work with his men in the field. He spread out a chart of the docks and went through all of the objectives one by one.

“When I blow the whistle, you will all send your units towards your targets,” he said, at the end. The first few moments of the assault would be organised chaos, for them as much as for their British opponents; everything would depend upon the courage and experience of the German NCOs and the handful of officers in charge of the separate units. “Remember, we want prisoners, not dead dockyard workers, understand?”

“Jawohl, Herr Oberst,” they said, one by one.

Baeck nodded as they all confirmed that they understood; if they could press British dockyard workers into service, it would speed up the unloading phase and maybe even earn them some friends, if the workers were paid well.

“Good,” he said. “Have your units prepared in ten minutes.”

Night was falling as he climbed out of the hold and up towards the bridge, slipping past the hidden bulges that normally held lifeboats, and now held small naval guns that could be used to provide fire support if the assault force required it. The dockyard rose up before them as they sailed closer. They headed in through a set of concrete posts and approached a large docking slip. He glanced down again at his watch as the ship slowed down, water spraying around as it turned and started to mosey into the docking slip.

“Good,” Wulff said, almost to himself. Baeck, scanning the harbour with his binoculars, taking in the details of the dockyard, didn’t reply. “They’re allowing us to dock tail-end, as if we were going to unload cars. And they’ve spared us the tugs.”

Baeck’s lips twitched. “We are going to unload cars,” he said, as a small group of British inspectors appeared at the side of the docking slip. The crewmen worked rapidly to secure the ship to the quayside, extending a long plank for the British to walk up, all the while watching the entrances to the interior of the ship nervously. “Is that your friend there?”

“Yes,” Wulff said, tersely. “Remember, we need them alive, if possible”

Baeck signalled to a small group of his men, hidden inside the bridge, as the four inspectors started to walk up the gangplank, heading towards the bridge, and entered as if they owned the ship. Wulff had spoken of them with scorn and disdain; the inspectors had never sailed on a ship in their lives, he’d said, but held themselves competent to judge a real seafarer. He nodded to his men as the bridge door closed behind them and inspectors found themselves seized by the storm-troopers

“You are now prisoners of the Greater German Reich,” Wulff said, to one of them. The expression on his face made Baeck smile. “Heil Hitler!”

Baeck didn’t wait to see what the Englishmen would do; he reached for his whistle and blew it as loudly as he could, drawing his side-arm at the same moment and heading out of the bridge. The side of the ship burst outwards, as if someone was trying to break out of the hull, revealing German commandos carrying ropes and heavy weapons. One group raced down the gangplank, shouting out commands for the dockyard workers to get down on the ground and stay there. Others leapt off the side of the ship, using their ropes to get down to the ground as fast as possible and run towards their targets. A brief burst of automatic fire echoed out, followed by several singe shots from handguns; someone, up head, was resisting as best as they could. The commandos kept charging, leaving the stunned workers on the ground and left them there for their fellows to round up; Baeck barked an order to his secondary groups and watched grimly as the prisoners were herded into a warehouse. It was normally used for goods from the Hans Bader; now it would hold the prisoners until they could be convinced of their duty to serve the Reich.

“I want that rear-hatch open now,” Wulff shouted. The inspectors were hauled off. One of them shouted insults at Wulff, the others looking as if they’d been hit in the head several times. One of them was muttering under his breath about his wife and family, wondering if he would ever see them again. Baeck didn’t reassure him as explosive charges echoed through the ship and released the rear of the ship.

He heard the roar of engines as the first armoured car charged out of the ship and out onto the dockyards, advancing to support the unit that was attacking the gate. The Home Guard had clearly had a number of guards at the gate, and they were on the verge of breaking. Other forces were offering resistance as well, but his commandos dealt with unarmed dockworkers with ease and rounded them all up, expanding the prison warehouse into several more warehouses.

The armoured car opened fire with its heavy machine gun and the Home Guard position disintegrated. A man in a brown uniform was seen fleeing towards Felixstowe itself, probably to summon help, but a commando shot him in the back and he crashed to the ground with a thud that was far louder than normal. Baeck checked his watch as more firing broke out from the further regions of the docks. One of the ships had had an armed crew and was trying to fight back. The Hans Bader crewmen unfurled their own guns; a moment later, they fired a single shot towards the enemy position and resistance came to an abrupt halt.

“Report,” Baeck ordered, as Hauptmann Johannes Dempfle ran up to him. “What about the Royal Navy?”

“We have them penned into their compound and are preparing an assault now,” Dempfle reported. “The main body of the dockyards is in our hands and we can commence the unloading as soon as Kapitan Wulff is ready. Resistance within the dockyards itself has been light, but several people definitely escaped down towards the city itself and they’ll have spread the word.”

“Understood,” Baeck said. Behind him, the heavy guns on the Hans Bader pounded the British position. The British hadn’t had their ships ready to move, or else they would have attempted to get the destroyers out and pour fire on them from a safe distance; instead, the destroyer was being shelled to pieces by the converted civilian craft. “And the exterior of the docks?”

“The fence remains largely intact and we have parties moving up to secure the gates and prepare to hold them against a counter-attack,” Dempfle assured him. “We have taken several hundred prisoners, mostly workers with a handful of policemen and government inspectors, only one of them is a Home Guard soldier and he’s badly wounded.”

“See to it that he gets the best medical care possible,” Baeck ordered. He lifted his small radio to his lips. “Wulff, this is Baeck; I want you to start the main unloading process now, and signal back to the transports that we’ve taken most of the docks.”

He followed Dempfle down onto the docks and around the stern of the freighter, where a torrent of supplies were being unloaded onto the grounds and rapidly distributed around to the soldiers as they switched around, rounded up prisoners, and spread out to secure and hold the dockyard gates and exterior. The British had left them plenty of material to secure the docks and the soldiers worked rapidly. Meanwhile sailors from the Hans Bader inspected the other ships in the dockyard, preparing to sail them back to a port where they could be loaded up with soldiers. The scene lit up as one of the soldiers discovered the controls for the searchlights, turning night into day and allowing the soldiers to see what they were doing, even as other soldiers unloaded night-vision gear and headed over to the gates, preparing the defences for their inevitable test.

A young Leutnant ran up behind him. “Herr Oberst, we have heard from the transport command,” he said. “The first transport is only an hour away and the main convoy is altering course now; it’ll be here in three hours at most.”

Unless the British intercept it, Baeck thought coldly, careful to keep that particular doubt off his face. He’d gone through all of the logic behind the invasion as best as he could, but he knew that the main battle group, heavily escorted by almost every ship in the Kriegsmarine, would be a target that the British could hardly fail to miss. He’d been briefed on the strike on Scapa Flow and the air strikes that were, even now, being deployed against targets further to the west, but they would only delay the British at best. If the main transport convoy failed to arrive, the invasion was doomed.

“Good,” he said, shortly. “My compliments to Hauptmann Dempfle and inform him that I want the defensive perimeter pushed out as far as it will go without reducing our ability to concentrate our fire. In fact…”

His voice broke off as the noise of aircraft engines echoed overhead, dark shapes moving against the sky, barely visible in the mixed darkness and brilliant lights of the searchlights. He found himself praying, just for a moment, that they were German aircraft, rather than British pilots looking for targets; if the British had reacted in time to send in bombers, a single lucky hit could take out the entire invasion force. The noise faded slowly towards the west, and then, moments later, he heard bombs falling and saw explosions lighting up the skies.

“German aircraft,” he said to the young Leutnant. The young man had never seen combat before, not even the harshest training available to the Reich could match the sheer intensity of real combat. “Inform the Hauptmann at once, if you please.”

A second set of explosions, much closer, signalled the fall of the Royal Navy enclave. He watched grimly as the handful of prisoners were marched unceremoniously from their enclave to another of the warehouses, while assessment teams of his own people went to work, looking for anything that the force could use to hold the docks against the impending counter-attack. He stepped aside as smaller teams unloaded the small artillery guns and started to position them around the docks. Others scrambled up the cranes and took up positions where they could attempt to direct their fire. The longer the British waited, the harder it would be to recover their docks, but at the same time, they would be able to bring substantially more forces to bear on his position. He recalled the map he’d memorised of the surrounding area, running through the maths again; assuming a competent enemy commander, and he dared assume nothing else, they could have had a counter-attack on the way by now.

He walked quickly back to the command post. He glanced down at the handful of radio operators, each one trying to coordinate the defences, and studied the map one of them had set up. A German commander would have made a contingency plan as a matter of course; the British commander either didn’t have a plan or didn’t have the ability to execute it. It was tempting to believe that they’d already killed the commander, but he knew better than to believe that that was what had happened; they couldn’t have been that lucky.

“We recovered some ammunition and weapons from the Home Guard building,” Hauptmann Dempfle informed him. “I have had them distributed back to the sailors to put them out of the way unless we need them.”

Baeck nodded, trying to understand; the noise of aircraft high overhead was rising and falling as the Luftwaffe pounded British targets. His watch was suddenly a heavy weight on his wrist; he checked it absently and found that there were forty minutes until the first transport arrived, bringing reinforcements and the fighting power he would need to hold the docks long enough for Rommel himself to land.

“Herr Oberst,” one of the operators said, suddenly. His voice caught Baeck’s attention at once; junior officers would never interrupt their seniors unless there was an urgent reason. “Gate Three is reporting that there is movement on the main road, approaching the docks.”

Baeck, oddly, felt relieved. “Inform all posts,” he said, “the counter-attack is about to begin.”

Chapter Ten

Scapa Flow, Orkneys

The battleship rang like a bell.

“Direct hit to our stern,” someone shouted. Admiral Fraser barely heard him over the noise as the battleship shook again. The Germans were deploying remote-controlled weapons, glide bombs he’d only seen vague reports about, and the British Home Fleet was taking a beating. If there were still any British fighters in the air, they were making no apparent impact on the bombers. “Captain, the rear turrets have been disabled.”

The battleship’s guns yammered out again, seeking targets somewhere up in the sky, trying to hit the German planes through sheer luck. They were meant to be slaved to radars, but under all the confusion, the fire control system had broken down; they were effectively shooting at random. If the hit was as bad as it seemed, the King George V had just had her fighting power cut in half.

“Take us out into the channel,” he ordered the Captain through the intercom, hoping that the system still worked. The fleet had been at anchor, making them sitting ducks for the Germans. If they could start the ships moving, the Germans would have problems hitting the remainder of the fleet. The nightmare just raged on and on, with more bombs coming down. He heard the shouts from his men, reporting damaged or sunken ships, and felt cold.

The pounding noise of the engines echoed through the ship as he felt the battleship lurch into motion. The King George V was supposed to be one of the fastest battleships in the world — although both the Germans and Japanese claimed to have built faster ships — but it felt as if the battleship was having real problems moving at only a slow rate. The damage might have been worse than he had feared, even though the anti-aircraft guns were still firing endlessly into the dark. If the stern had been damaged, the ship might not be able to make it to another dock before it was too late. How badly had the Germans pounded the facilities on the islands?

“HMS Victorious has been sunk,” someone said, his voice an expression of doom. Fraser winced. Victorious had been one of the newer carriers in the fleet. She had the finest record for launching her fleet of fighter aircraft and torpedo bombers, but now the carrier had been blown apart.

The Germans had known about the British armoured flight decks. It was something that had given the carriers their chance of survival in the last war. So they had prepared their weapons to compensate. The glide bombs punched through the armour before detonating right next to the aviation fuel and the torpedoes the carrier crew would load onto the aircraft, blowing the ship apart. “Admiral, the destroyers are clearing the anchorage now.”

But they’re not here for the destroyers, Fraser thought, grimly. The Germans intended to wreck the fleet; it was the only thing that they could want, even though British destroyers were nothing to laugh at. If the Germans took out enough of them, there wouldn’t even be a chance for raiding the German supply lines at night.

“We need to get the battleships and cruisers out of the anchorage,” he told himself, wondering if the German admiral on the Bismarck had felt so helpless. The battle was being fought and the outcome was being determined… and he was powerless to affect either. He had to preserve Home Fleet as a viable weapon of war, but his capability to do that was limited, almost non-existent. Once the Germans stopped bombing, all he could do was pick up the remainder of his fleet and start repairing the damage.

The ship shook again, and he cursed under his breath.

* * *

“Keep firing,” Brian Timpson ordered, as the massive anti-aircraft gun fired a shell into the air, aiming at a German bomber that was trying to fly down towards the anchorage, bombs falling and gliding down towards the ships with an eerie precision that sent chills falling down his spine.

His crew worked like an assembly line, loading, firing, reloading and then firing again, trying to shoot a German aircraft out of the sky. The sky itself was lit up by the strange white light of the German flares and the flames licking up from the dockyards. One massive column of fire thrust into the air from one of the fuel dumps. Timpson silently prayed for the safety of the firemen who would be trying desperately to put the fire out before it spread into one of the ammunition dumps. If it reached the explosives, the area would look like hell on earth.

His gaze tracked a German aircraft as it flew high overhead launching a bomb, and his crew fired a shell at it. The radar screen was completely fuzzed out, but they knew they had to keep filling the skies with explosions and flying shrapnel. One of the proximity fuses detonated and sent a German aircraft spiralling down in flames. It crashed into the ground and exploded with a noise that he could hear through his earmuffs, over the deafening noise of the battle. His gun’s bark sounded again and again, the noise of the other anti-aircraft guns, the heavy guns on the battleships, the roaring of German aircraft high overhead… all of them were merging into one single terrible noise, as if it were the end of the world.

“Got him,” he shouted, suspecting that none of his unit would hear him. They might not have been the people who’d hit the aircraft either. There was no way to know with all the shells detonating up there, most of them hitting nothing, or maybe even fired at the wrong side. The RAF was supposed to be up there as well — he saw a second German aircraft falling out of the sky before exploding in mid-dive — but there was no way to tell the difference between brave British pilots and underhand German pilots; they’d just have to shoot at what looked like bombers and hope.

Another flare burst in the sky and he covered his eyes, gazing out over the anchorage, and feeling awe… and terror. He’d admired the big ships when he’d been a child. His lame leg had prevented him from becoming a crewman, and it had only been through sheer luck that he’d been given command of a battery. Now, however, half of the big warships were burning, and several of them had been sunk. He watched as flames spread over a small cruiser. Moments later, the magazine exploded and the cruiser shattered.

The sight held him. He nearly forgot about the need to keep firing at the Germans. A German aircraft went down into the water, narrowly missing crashing into a destroyer as it was steaming out of the harbour. The plane sent a massive fountain of water into the air upon impact. The noise kept growing louder as the German planes came lower, but fewer were plummeting from the air. He could see crewmen abandoning burning ships, trusting to the waters below to break their fall, but the waters themselves were ablaze as fuel oil drifted across the waves. The entire harbour looked as if it were on fire. He saw the dockyards and a battle-cruiser that had been in the docks for servicing, burning with the dull flames of ignited fuel. Just for a moment, as an earth shattering roar echoed out over the harbour. One of the battleships lifted out of the water, before flying apart and crashing down in ruins. The remains wouldn’t stay afloat for long.

He screamed curses into the air, shouting at the Germans who had ruined the fleet, but all he could effectively do was keep firing into the sky as German aircraft continued their destruction of the harbour… and of his beloved navy.

* * *

The sight held Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt’s eyes as he took in the scale of the devastation. He’d been warned by some of the older hands in the Luftwaffe that the scale of the damage was sometimes inversely proportional to how impressive it looked, but he was sure that the damage was vast and beyond easy repair. The British fighters had faded from the skies. He allowed himself a moment to relax, and consider the use of the rocket pods mounted under his wings. He hadn’t done much damage on the ground yet, and he wanted to wreak havoc before the order came to withdraw in a body. Some of the bombers had already started to retreat, having run out of bombs to drop on the British. It wouldn’t be long before he got the order to leave.

He glanced down at his chronometer and blinked; had it really only been fifteen minutes since they’d started the attack? He found it impossible to believe; it felt as if he’d been drifting above the burning wonderland for hours, watching like a god from on high as the British base burned and their proud fleet was reduced to ruin. Some of the ships were clearly still moving, heading out towards the North Sea and the U-boats that awaited them out there. Some of the subs crept closer to the harbour, well aware that any ship they encountered would be British. The British fleet wouldn’t know what had hit them…

His lips twitched. Actually, they’d know for certain what had hit them; they just wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

A flak burst only a few meters from his aircraft, reminded him that he was still in danger and he took the jet into a crash-dive, only levelling out bare metres above the water and flying low towards the burning ships. The water was full of British sailors, some of them panicking, others trying to salvage as much as they could, and he was tempted to machine gun them before remembering himself and the rules of war. The British weren’t monsters and would treat captured Germans decently, as long as the Germans treated British prisoners decently… and machine gunning helpless men wouldn’t improve the Reich’s reputation. Instead, he lifted the aircraft up, flew over a burning cruiser, and zoomed towards a small airfield on one of the islands.

He grew tense as he selected his targets. The British had had a perfect harbour and anchorage for their fleet in the Orkneys, and they’d been working on it for years, developing it into their main fleet base. It hadn’t been defended very well, but if the British had had a proper warning, or a radar plane in the air, the battle might have gone the other way. He saw the hangers and fired his rockets. They had been designed for antitank operations, but instead, they would suffice for use on a hanger that might hold important aircraft. A series of explosions rewarded his efforts, and he yanked back on the stick, screaming back into the air as the hanger disintegrated below him. They must have stuck several armed bombers or submarine-hunting aircraft in the hangers. The British had an entire line of such aircraft, all of which would be useless in a dogfight. However, the U-boat crews would be glad to know that many of them had been destroyed.

“Attention, we have enemy fighters coming in from the south,” the operator called. “All fighters, move to engage.”

Schmidt checked his ammunition — he’d fired off nearly two-thirds of his cannon shells — and turned the aircraft around, taking a quick glance at his on-board radar as he raced towards the British aircraft. They were probably more Meteors, coming towards them with fresh pilots and full ammunition, and that meant that they would have an advantage. He did a quick roll call and discovered that his flight had lost seven aircraft, either to the British aircraft or their guns on the ground; it would have been worse if they hadn’t been trying to stop the bombers.

“It’s time to take our leave,” the raid commander ordered, from the command aircraft. Schmidt had never liked that precaution, even though it ensured that the raid commander knew exactly what was going on. If the British had shot him down, there would have been a certain amount of confusion in the ranks. “Richthofen, engage the enemy fighters until the bombers have reached a safe distance.”

“Jawohl,” Schmidt said, and threw his fighter forward. He felt tired, as if every part of him had been in a massive struggle, but at the same time, he felt elated at his success. The lead British plane snapped a burst of tracer off at him and he dodged it with ease before firing back himself and swinging into a full-on dogfight with the Meteor. Losses would be roughly even now, but the British had even less experience than his own people. Both sides would be learning on the job.

The British pilot was good, he noted ruefully, flipping over himself and turning to engage him through a crazy series of loop-the-loops. He also had more ammunition. Every time he looked as if he might be able to hit Schmidt, he fired off a burst long enough to make Schmidt curse and dodge his fire, while Schmidt couldn’t fire back with such abandon because he had only limited ammunition of his own. Several of his pilots were retreating now, their ammunition drums empty; they’d be nothing less than sitting ducks for the British pilots. Finally, his opponent made one tiny mistake, and Schmidt stitched his cockpit with explosive bullets. The British aircraft exploded in mid-air

“All fighters, break off and return to the rendezvous point,” the raid commander ordered. Schmidt glanced down at his displays automatically, taking in the limited fuel and knowing that if they didn’t reach the tankers, they’d be going down in the cold North Sea. “Leave the remaining British and retreat.”

Schmidt didn’t bother to answer. He fired one last burst at a British aircraft, turned, and shot away. His aircraft was supposed to have a better acceleration rate than the British Meteor, and now he put it to the test as the remaining Richthofen fliers broke off and ran. The British gave chase over the burning dockyards, but eventually they broke off as they passed over the harbour limits and headed back towards their base. Schmidt allowed himself a sigh of relief; if the British had pushed after them and forced them into a dogfight, they would have burnt off too much of their fuel.

He glanced back in the mirror as they settled into their course. Scapa Flow was burning behind them, explosions still showing up as flames reached ammunition dumps and unexpended ammunition down on the ground, wrecking the harbour still further. The British would be able to put out the fires quickly — they had the entire North Sea for water — but repairing all the damage would take years.

It had been a good night’s work.

* * *

An hour later, Admiral Fraser stood up in a small motorboat, watching grimly as the crewman conning the boat took him on a long path around damaged ships and still-burning facilities on the shore, allowing him to make an inspection. Searchlights glared out, illuminating the scene, but he would have been happier not seeing anything at all. Here and there, the wreckage of a once-proud ship broke the waves, or the underside of a ship was clear to the eye, signalling a ship that had capsized and somehow failed to sink. Years ago, when Fraser had been a younger man, the Germans had scuttled their fleet in Scapa Flow; now, they’d wrecked a large chunk of the British Navy.

He felt a tear in his eye as he stared at the wreckage of an aircraft carrier. It had been one of the older ones, serving valiantly during the last war, and perhaps the Germans had targeted it out of spite. A single bomb had blown it open and the wreckage was now scattered over the water. Another battleship had been run aground by her captain to prevent her from sinking, a precaution that Fraser couldn’t disagree with, even with the need to get as many of the ships out as possible.

It was unbelievable; forty ships destroyed or seriously damaged, nine of them capital ships. Home Fleet no longer existed as an organised fighting force, and it would take weeks to organise the fleet into something that might be able to sail in the same direction without causing vast confusion. He had only one carrier and two battleships left, and that wasn’t enough to defeat the German fleet, particularly as most of the carrier’s aircraft had been destroyed on the ground. They could summon up reinforcements from the Fleet Air Arm base at Southampton, assuming that that base hadn’t been hit as well.

He closed his eyes. He had just presided over the greatest naval defeat in British history… and he had a nasty feeling that worse was to come. The Germans wouldn’t have launched such an attack without intending to follow up on it, and that meant an invasion of Britain. The invasion might already be under-way… and his ability to do anything about it had been almost completely wiped out. The German invasion fleet might already be on its way…

And, if they landed in Britain, they might be impossible to dislodge.

Chapter Eleven

Felixstowe, England

Captain Harry Jackson was asleep when the alert started, but the noise of explosions and gunfire brought him out of his bunk faster than a cat chasing a mouse, one hand grasping the pistol he kept by his bed and the other snatching up his torch. The clamour grew louder and somehow more disturbing. It took him a moment to realise that he was hearing German weapons, not British.

Invasion, he thought, snapping awake. It couldn’t have been a drill, not under such circumstances; he yanked on his jacket — he’d slept in his uniform, a habit he’d picked up from the regular army — and ran down the stairs into the barracks, where the Sergeants were working to restore some order. He barked a quick order at Sergeant Wilt as he passed and ran outside, onto the small parade ground, to peer in the direction of the harbour. There were flames rising up from the Royal Navy base and the chatter of gunfire was getting louder.

He spun around and ran back inside the building. “Have weapons and ammunition issued at once,” he barked to the Sergeants. “Send the staff officers down to the town to round up the others, now!”

“Yes, sir,” Wilt said, passing him a rifle and a set of ammunition.

Jackson took it and walked quickly into his own office. The din of fighting was becoming louder. He was required to carry out his duty step by step and that meant informing higher authority of the attack. He dialled the first number, a direct link to the local GHQ, and cursed as the line failed moments later. He went through the second number, then the third, and there was still no reply. The War Office was silent — or, he dared to allow himself to hope, the lines had been cut somewhere by German spies. He dialled a local number and sighed in relief when it was answered.

“Father, I need you to sound the church bells at once,” he said, when the sleepy priest answered the telephone. He’d met the man before, when he’d taken up the command; he had seemed surprised at even the vaguest possibility of German invasion. The churches represented a vital part of the warning network. Once the church bells started to chime at night, the men on leave would know that they needed to report to the barracks. “Don’t argue; just do it!”

He heard the aircraft overhead and was on the floor under the table before his mind quite caught up with his body. The aircraft had come in from the east, which made them German aircraft, and they might intend to bomb the barracks. The panic alone would kill hundreds; it had been seven years since British cities had been bombed from the air.

The sound of aircraft faded slightly, to be replaced by the sound of explosions in the west. He abandoned the phone and ran down the stairs, back out onto the parade grounds. There were fires in the west now, spreading out, at a guess, near the railway lines. The Germans were aware that the British would use them to move their forces. They would have targeted them deliberately and that suggested to Jackson that the invasion force at the docks was the main invasion force, one that intended to hold the docks long enough for reinforcements to arrive. It was obvious how the trick had been done. The Germans had done the same when they’d invaded Norway.

The scene was chaotic but showed signs of order as the Home Guardsmen attempted to line up, receive ammunition, and get into something reassembling order. Jackson felt a moment of despair, which he squashed ruthlessly under his duty and caught on to Sergeant Wilt as the sergeant worked to assemble the armoured cars. Other guardsmen were running in as they were awakened by the explosions and the church bells. It wouldn’t be long before civilians caught on and realised that they were at the heart of a war zone.

“Get the first platoons out there and seal off the port,” he ordered. The port was isolated from Felixstowe itself by the fence, but he doubted that it would take the Germans more than a moment to break it down and attack the town itself. He would have preferred to dig into the town and hold it for as long as possible, but that would give the Germans a chance to reinforce and then expand out and surround the town. He raised his voice for a moment. “I want motorcycle riders, now!”

Three of them, all younger soldiers, stepped forward. They looked achingly young to Jackson’s eyes. They had joined the Home Guard in lieu of being conscripted into the regular army, or had some problems that had prevented them from serving in the army. He saw fear in their eyes, but also a kind of grim determination; they wouldn’t break and run from the struggle. It was almost a shame that he needed them for something other than fighting.

“I need the three of you to take your bikes and get to GHQ,” he said, thinking as fast as he could. “Inform the General that we have a German invasion on our hands and I intend to attack them as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” the senior soldier said. “Are there any other messages?”

Jackson glanced over towards the glow surrounding the port. “Inform him that we need reinforcements as quickly as possible,” he said. “Take different routes, just in case of trouble; once you have delivered the message, attach yourself to his command and wait for orders. Dismissed!”

He watched as they ran towards their bikes, recovering them and saluting before they roared off into the distance. Jackson hoped that one of them, at least, would reach the General; without regular army support, the Home Guard might be badly out-gunned He took a final look into the west, seeing the fires still burning, and walked quickly over to the gathered collection of soldiers. He knew most of them personally, others didn’t come from his Company; there was no sign of the Colonel.

“I am assuming command as the Colonel hasn’t come to the barracks,” he said, remembering that his commanding officer had been intending to inspect the docks. He might be dead already. “Our task is to recover the port before the enemy can ship in reinforcements.”

The soldiers spread out as they advanced towards the docks, the armoured cars taking point and heading towards the main gate, which were burning. There were no signs of enemy soldiers, but Jackson was sure that that would change quickly; if the Germans behaved as he had been briefed, they would have dug in and prepared to halt any counter-attack. Tanks were of limited use against such a dug-in position, but he would have sold his soul to get a few, and some heavier guns as well. The follow-up units would be bringing their heavy weapons, but he wanted some heavy artillery, maybe even air support.

The first shots caught him by surprise and he fell to the ground quickly, hoping to avoid being shot as German fire crackled through the night. They were firing single shots, he realised, and they were being depressingly accurate; even in the semi-darkness, they’d hit several of his men. He’d heard of night-vision equipment, but the Germans seemed to have eyes like cats. Was their kit much better than the equipment that the Home Guard had been issued? The Guardsmen returned fire; after a moment, the armoured cars fired as well, hosing down the remains of the gates with machine gun fire.

The infantry followed, using the armoured cars to shield themselves from enemy fire as the armoured cars ground up to the gates… and then the lead car exploded. Jackson saw men falling backwards under enemy fire as a second mine detonated, and then a third… and then a streak of light destroyed a fourth armoured car. The Germans had antitank rockets, he realised grimly, as his men scattered, aiming frantically at the location of the enemy holding the rocket-launcher. Sparks in the distance and a shout in German, barely audible under the noise of the firing, suggested that someone had killed the German soldier, but there would be hundreds more. How many could the Germans fit into one freighter?

“Call up the heavy guns,” he ordered, as the first mortar round arced over the gates and fell down near his men, luckily missing them all. The Germans didn’t seem to notice. Their mortar teams kept firing the little shells over the gates, even as his own men threw grenades back into the German positions. Sergeant Wilt mounted a grenade on the end of his rifle and fired it over the gates, hitting something that exploded with disproportionate violence… and then the first German armoured car made its appearance.

“Shit,” Jackson muttered, as it appeared through the smoke and darkness, launching a flare into the night. For a long moment, everyone was blinking tears out of their eyes and the firing paused before it resumed, stronger than ever. The Germans charged forwards under the cover of the armoured car, crashing into his men and struggling with them for the position as the fighting got really out of control. It was becoming a melee and he knew just how dangerous those could be; Wilt hit the armoured car with a grenade and disabled it, but the Germans didn’t seem to be losing their enthusiasm for the fight.

“Coming, sir,” Sergeant Boothroyd called, as the roar of a bulldozer appeared and the massive machine pushed into the rubble. Jackson smiled as the sergeant gunned the engine and started to push through the wreckage, before a German soldier came forward and attempted to throw a grenade right into the cab. He was gunned down before he could swing and the grenade exploded moments later, blowing whatever remained of his body to bloody ruin. A second later, a German antitank rocket, designed to burn through armour, struck the bulldozer and sent it up in flames, trapping the sergeant and killing him before he could escape.

Jackson heard the noise of heavy guns behind him as the follow-up units established their positions and began firing into the docks, but they were effectively firing blind. They’d hit something, but what? The Germans didn’t seem to be alarmed at first, and then they changed their minds… and launched a sweeping counter-attack of their own against the guns. The Home Guard knew about the German proficiency at mounting such attacks on the spur of the moment, but how could they handle it in the semi-darkness? One of the gun crewmen fell and died as a sniper put a bullet through his chest; a second was hit moments after he fired a final shell on his own into the docks. The Germans were still coming towards them…

“Sir, we have to fall back,” Sergeant Wilt barked, firing towards the Germans with his own rifle. The counter-attack was falling to pieces right in front of Jackson; without tanks and armoured support, taking the docks back was going to be impossible. “We have to fall back and establish a defence line in the town itself or further back!”

“If we don’t hold them here, we won’t be able to hold them later,” Jackson shouted back, just before the sergeant tackled him and a burst of German machine gun fire shot through where his head had been a second before. “We can’t retreat!”

“Sir, we don’t have a choice,” Wilt said. Jackson could hear the bitterness in his tone at the thought of retreat, but there was no other choice and then an aircraft swooped overhead, dumping an entire series of flaming bombs on the Home Guard position. Panic started to settle in onto the soldiers; some fled at once, others slipped back while still firing. “Sir…”

Jackson blew a whistle and watched as his men fell back, those who had held the line. In front of them, German infantrymen and a handful of other armoured cars were slowly pushing forward, while mortar fire poured down on the retreating British. The hastily organised counter-attack had failed completely.

* * *

Thank God for that, Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck thought, as the rate of British fire slacked and began to fade. The British didn’t know– couldn’t know– but they’d come very close to hitting the Hans Bader itself and taking out the remaining supplies on the ship. They’d almost punched through the defence line as well; even now, there were still bursts of firing as individual British soldiers or platoons launched attacks against the fence, testing the defences. They’d have to expand now, just to keep the British on the run, but they didn’t have the manpower, not yet.

He looked into the gloom and smiled as a massive dark freighter came in to dock. They’d had words with the prisoners, those who worked on the docks, and convinced them to help the unloading effort, or else they would simply be sent back to slavery in Europe. They would have to be watched carefully, just in case one of them had decided to try to sabotage the unloading process, but it wouldn’t be easy to do that in any meaningful way. The handful of remaining prisoners had been bound and put out of the way on the Hans Bader; for them, at least, the war was over.

“I have the first strike reports from the parachutists,” the communications officer said. He’d been trying desperately to make some overall sense out of the confused fighting and the babbling on the radio that characterised the first moments of any invasion. Baeck looked over at him and checked his watch; it had been just over an hour since the fighting had begun, but it wasn’t until now that he felt even part-way secure from attack. “They’re claiming to have overrun their main targets and have secured their positions for observation purposes.”

“Good,” Baeck said, although it wasn’t really his concern. His job now was to complete the unloading of the freighters, unload the main convoy when it arrived, and secure as much control over the local area as possible. “Have the armoured cars and their supporting units move to controlling positions around the civilian populations and have all of the soldiers warned to make sure that any civilians they encounter are warned to remain home and stay off the streets.”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said. Baeck glanced down at the chart he’d been updating; resistance in most places had been light, disorganised, although one parachute unit that had been intended to land on an army base hadn’t reported back. That suggested that they’d been wiped out or captured by angry British soldiers; the odds were that they’d been killed. “Field Marshal Rommel is asking for an update; his unit should be unloading within the next two hours.”

Baeck stepped back as the first unit of Panzers were driven out of the new freighter and down to the gates, their commanders shouting orders at each other as they prepared to expand the area of German control. The plan called for over ten divisions to be supplied in the end, but that would take weeks; they couldn’t afford to waste too much of their fire-power in the early days of the invasion. The British would organise an armoured counter-attack of their own very soon.

“Inform the Field Marshal that we have secured the first objectives, beaten off a counter attack, and are currently preparing to seize the second set of objectives,” Baeck said shortly. The noise of firing burst up again in the distance, and then faded as one of the Home Guard units was defeated. How long would it be before the British mounted a second counter-attack?

“Jawohl, Herr Oberst,” the officer said. Baeck nodded and headed out to inspect the unloading operations, watching as a line of field guns was unloaded and rapidly moved towards their position in the defence line; they’d be needed if the British brought up some of their heavy tanks. The Panzerfausts might not be effective against the latest tanks in the British arsenal.

Another group of tanks was carefully moved out as supervising crewmen barked orders, watching as the press-ganged British workers assisted them to unload. They looked shocked and terrified, a look that Baeck remembered from his service in the remains of Russia; they had never really expected it to happen to them. They didn’t know it, but they were luckier than the Russians; they weren’t going to be handed over to Goring’s men to serve as slave labourers or sent to one of the concentration camps for being the wrong religion.

Baeck checked the remaining defence posts quickly and then watched as German forces began flowing down into the city itself, taking as much territory as possible before the British could counter-attack The Home Guard had either retreated from the city or some of its members had tried to blend in with the civilian population; they would have to be found quickly before they could organise trouble. It wouldn’t matter, in the long run, but in the short run it could prove disastrous.

One misstep now and the entire invasion plan might fall apart.

Chapter Twelve

London, England

Alex DeRiemer spent the day collecting the latest information on the German movements and trying to foresee a pattern in their activities before deciding that the Germans didn’t seem to be planning a leap across the Channel that evening. Their operational tempo had increased sharply over the past few days with observers in Sweden reporting that the German air force had been practising precision bombing. The German navy was preparing for sea. The activity had dropped off sharply over the last couple of weeks. DeRiemer had been starting to wonder, despite himself, if it had all been a drill. His boss had been less sanguine.

“Adolph is a crafty bastard,” he’d said when DeRiemer had broached the subject with him. “He may be merely rattling the sabre to make us flinch, or he may have evil intentions, but there’s a reason behind his madness.”

DeRiemer hadn’t argued with that point, but what was the reason? He’d warned the Government that he was sure that the Germans were planning an invasion of England, but as the German activity started to subside, he’d researched their other sources in hopes of finding out why, only to draw a blank. MI6 had agents within Germany, but the Germans had tightened up their security remarkably and anyone who might have been in a position to know what was coming wouldn’t be interested in trading secrets with the British. The members of Hitler’s inner circle knew what side their bread was buttered on; they wouldn’t dare to gamble on a British victory in an unspecified future war when Hitler’s forces were so strong. It would have earned them a short and unpleasant stay with the SS.

Shaking his head, he packed up and left the office. He turned the papers in to the secure office as he passed it and then headed down the stairs. He nodded to Kim Philby as they met. Philby had always struck DeRiemer as a sort of unstable character, but there was no denying his determination to work against the Germans; his hatred for the Nazis was almost unprofessional, more suited to SOE than the more dispassionate MI6. Philby looked preoccupied as DeRiemer passed him and headed out onto the streets of London, looking around as he walked towards his flat. Like other unmarried MI6 officers, DeRiemer had a small flat only a five minute walk away from the building, a legacy from the times when they could be expected to report for duty at any moment.

The city itself seemed so… peaceful and tranquil under his gaze; the richer folks of London hadn’t hesitated to take advantage of the end of the war by investing in more entertainment for themselves. They weren’t interested in supporting the Atlee Government at all. They’d spent most of the last war in only slightly reduced circumstances, while the brunt of the suffering had been borne by the poor. Thousands of young men had emigrated from Britain under the economic depression, heading away to South Africa, Australia and America, while the motherland suffered because of their absence. Only conscription kept thousands of men off the dole… and DeRiemer suspected that it wouldn’t be long before the program came to an end. It simply cost too much.

He let himself into his flat, nodding to the landlady as he passed, and smiled at her suspicious gaze. MI6 had hired, he suspected, the ugliest woman in the world… and the most suspicious. One of his colleagues had brought a girl home and had ended up being hauled up in front of his supervisor for a dressing down. It was like living in the remains of Soviet Russia; DeRiemer had visited Beria’s land for a month, and it had been drab and depressing. They’d even attempted to recruit him as a spy.

There was little time to think. He found the bed, clambered into it, and turned out the lamp. It seemed only moments later when the alarm shrilled at him. He reached out for it, pushed at it several times without silencing it, before realising that it was actually the telephone ringing. He pulled himself out of bed again, glancing down at his watch; had he really only had an hour of sleep?”

“DeRiemer,” he said as he picked up the telephone. The line was awful. It hissed and cracked at him as he tried to listen to what the man was saying. “Sir, I can’t hear you…”

The line cleared suddenly. “Get over to the War Office at once,” Sir Stewart said. The Director of MI6 sounded as if he was dreadfully worried.

It’s started, DeRiemer thought as the telephone went dead. He hit the radio and cursed as all he heard was static, but then he heard, in the distance, the noise of air raid sirens. The rich party-goers out there wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do; the wardens would probably have to cope with their panic as well as fires caused by German bombings. He dressed quickly, fled down the stairs, and opened the door with his key, leaving it open behind him. He doubted, somehow, that the landlady’s bomb shelter would be any real use — that design was more hazardous to the occupants than it was to the Germans, with the added disadvantage of looking like a pillbox and therefore a legitimate military target — but everyone would want to pile in and see if they could survive there until morning.

The skies were illuminated by the glow of searchlights, scanning the skies for enemy aircraft, but he saw no sign of any in the bright glare. A handful of anti-aircraft guns sounded out in the distance, but he couldn’t hear any enemy aircraft. The Germans might have risked the use of gliders, but surely they wouldn’t send them over to London, would they? They’d have to be out of their minds. He was drawn back to reality by an armed soldier blocking the way into the War Office, demanding identification.

“Here,” DeRiemer snapped and waved a card under the guard’s nose. There were thousands of people running around, some of them looking as if they didn’t have the slightest idea of what they were meant to be doing, or if they preferred to be panicking rather than actually doing anything useful. A stream of people, mainly the night staff, were heading out of the building and down towards the air raid shelters that had been dug near The Mall, others were heading towards Hyde Park, in hopes that it would be safer than a building that was sure to be a German target. DeRiemer pushed aside his own fears and took the steps to the basement two at a time, as he walked into the War Office itself, he passed another guard.

It had actually been instigated under Churchill, if he recalled correctly. It was a single room intended to provide global control of British military forces, wherever they were in the world. The idea hadn’t worked out as well as Churchill had expected — the technology just hadn’t been up to the challenge — but as the centre of Britain’s defences, it was almost invulnerable to German bombs and linked to every air base and military complex through secure telephones. The officer in command of British Home Forces - General Montgomery, Monty to the troops — could direct their operations without ever leaving London.

Monty himself was taller and thinner than DeRiemer had expected. He was also a frustrated old warhorse who had served in Egypt and Iraq before being called home to serve as commander of the British defences. DeRiemer had heard that Monty had objected loudly to the ending of the war, even to the point of offering his resignation. Atlee had approved Monty’s promotion, so the objection wasn’t held against him. Either that or Churchill had secretly intervened. There was no way to know.

“Alex DeRiemer, SIS,” he said. “Sir…”

“You’re the one who predicted that the Germans were planning something,” Monty said, without pleasantries. He waved a hand at the giant map on the table, being endlessly updated by a small army of WRENs and other servicemen. “Tell me; what the hell are they doing?”

DeRiemer studied the map for a long moment. The listing of bombed locations was growing longer by the minute and looked thoroughly intimidating. “They’re attacking Scapa Flow and Dover, as well as several of our airbases in England and naval bases around the coast,” he said, carefully.

Monty glowered at him. “I can tell what they’re doing,” he snapped irritably. “What I don’t know is why; why are they doing this and what do they want to achieve?”

“Britain,” DeRiemer said, carefully. He scrutinised the map again. “They’ve committed a large portion of their force to attacking Scapa Flow, so they clearly intend to knock out Home Fleet, or as much of Home Fleet as they can…”

“Distress signal from HMS Punjab,” one of the operators called, desperately trying to be heard over the growing racket. A new icon was placed onto the map; a destroyer had been sunk in the middle of the English Channel. “The Captain is reporting a torpedo attack and that he’s abandoning ship!”

“And mop up as many other ships as they can,” DeRiemer continued, realising now that the Germans had spread their plans wider than he’d feared. Their Elektroboot U-boats could sail for a long distance under the water, with very little need to fear detection as long as they were careful, and the Germans would know where their own ships would be, preventing any accidents caused by friendly fire. “I think that these are the opening moves in a long term plan to invade Britain.”

“I understand that,” Monty growled, adjusting his beret with one hand and waving a hand down at the map. “Where is the main angle of attack?”

DeRiemer looked down at the map and sucked in his breath sharply. Paratroopers had been reported everywhere from Dover to Manchester, an operating area so vast that the reports had to be mistakes, or hoaxes, or something had gone seriously wrong with the German war plan. He was more inclined to believe the reports from Dover — a German army group had been massing on the other side of the Channel — but the Germans wouldn’t launch an offensive right into the heart of the British defences, would they? He knew the German Army as well as anyone in Britain, and he knew that they didn’t have anything like that scale of numbers, not in the paratrooper divisions… and they would know better than to drop paratroops into an area where they couldn’t be relieved quickly.

“They have to be mad,” he said, as more reports came in. “They wouldn’t want to spend units like nothing, not when each one is a massive investment in training…”

DeRiemer said, “They have to be landing somewhere, but where?”

“More air strikes in Dover and moving up the east coast,” one of the dispatchers called, updating the map. “I have several reports of more ships being sunk, including one freighter and another destroyer.”

DeRiemer found himself puzzled, trying to understand the enemy tactics; could they have decided to try to land at Dover after all? The confusion wouldn’t last forever, not unless the Germans got very lucky; they might be trying to jam up British radio signals, but they couldn’t have taken out all of the telephone wires. The network had been designed with multiple redundancies built into the system; at a pinch, they could even commandeer the civilian telephone system.

Monty stepped over to a ringing telephone, answered it, and spoke rapidly in response to various questions. “That was the Prime Minister,” he said, as he put the phone down and returned to the balcony, looking down on the massive map. “He wants to put the entire country on alert.”

He didn’t quite manage to keep the contempt out of his voice. “He was also wondering if it was a real invasion,” he said. His voice lightened, as if he were trying to make a joke; DeRiemer didn’t smile at the implied humour. The Prime Minister was seeing his policy crashing down in ruins around his head. “What do you think?”

“I think that it’s a real invasion,” DeRiemer answered without hesitation. “The Germans aren’t stupid, sir. They won’t have launched a massive attack without some longer-term plan, and why would they launch an attack and give us time to recover from it? We already have our own aircraft up in the air, although overstretched…”

“I’ve ordered the northern squadrons to support Admiral Fraser at Scapa Flow,” Monty said, grimly. He didn’t look as if he were happy with that decision; he had been happy, DeRiemer suspected, as a commander of a large army, rather than the man sitting safe in a bunker while his men fought and died. “The Germans have actually been bombarding Dover from France, using their heavy guns to throw shells across the Channel; are they clearing the way for an attacking force?”

One of the operators interrupted him before DeRiemer could say anything. “General, we have a confirmed report of enemy contact on the ground,” he reported quickly. “The GHQ at Ipswich reported that it came under attack from armed paratroopers wearing German uniforms, who hit the gates and killed several dozen staff officers before they were beaten off.”

Ipswich, DeRiemer thought, and realised in a moment just what the Germans were doing. “They’re focusing their efforts there,” he said, sharply. Monty looked over at him, his eyes hooded and disbelieving. “There’s a port there, everything they need is there, and it outflanks most of our fixed defences without having to batter their way through the GHQ line.”

Monty spun around at once. “Send out a general signal to the RAF,” he barked. “I want them to funnel as many fighters into the Ipswich area as possible, before the Germans manage to get embedded and impossible to dislodge. Have torpedo-bombers loaded up for anti-shipping strikes and send them out to find the German fleet…”

He turned and addressed another dispatcher. “Do we have any update from Scapa Flow yet?”

“No, sir,” the dispatcher said, professionally. The contrast between her voice and her demeanour made DeRiemer smile. Her mouth moved silently as she spoke into one of the speaking tubes. “There’s been no update from Admiral Fraser, but the RAF units report that the entire dock-works seems to be on fire and burning down to the ground.”

Monty hissed a curse under his breath. “Do you think that they’ll try to land on Scapa Flow directly?”

“I doubt it,” DeRiemer said, after a moment’s thought. “If they’re landing at Felixstowe and spreading out to take other ports, they’ll need to concentrate all of their shipping on that single task alone; taking Scapa Flow against the defences there, even battered, would be tricky and wasteful. They’ll focus everything on that one spot.”

“I’m going to give the Cromwell Alert,” Monty said, shortly. He picked up another phone and barked an order down it, before crashing it back into the cradle with a bang. “The army reserves will be called up at once, and then we can start manoeuvring units to prevent the Germans from expanding too far from their beachheads. The local Home Guard should be giving them something to think about, even now…”

“General, we have some major distortion on the radar bands,” a radar technician said, running over to Monty and saluting. His face was glistening with sweat; DeRiemer noticed the smell and winced inwardly. “I think the Germans are dropping chaff to confuse our radars and make it harder to coordinate the defences.”

“I expected as much,” Monty said, with surprising patience. He wasn’t known for treating fools kindly, but under the circumstances, the untested staff members were likely to start cracking up under the stress. “What are they doing at the moment?”

“Sir, before the radar screens filled up, we detected a large flight of enemy aircraft,” the technician said. DeRiemer caught Monty’s eye as they shared the same horrified realisation. The German plan wasn’t done unfolding yet. “They’re heading directly for London!”

Chapter Thirteen

London, England

They approached from the south-east, heavy turbojets pushing the massive aircraft through the air, each one containing a small number of commandos and their weapons. They were flying lower than any of them would have preferred, but they were all experienced veterans, first at fighting insurgents in Russia and then in jumping from aircraft at dangerously low heights. They held themselves with the confidence that comes from knowing that they were the very best soldiers in the world; the men of the unit knew that with a certainty that was unshakable. Their devotion to the mission was absolute; every man would willingly give his life to ensure that it was completed, or die trying.

Gruppenfuhrer Otto Skorzeny glanced at his men, sitting on the deck of the aircraft, and smiled to himself. He’d put them all through hell, training them over the last few weeks; the injuries that some of them bore stood in mute testament to Skorzeny’s preferred training methods. They’d practised their tactics and operations against the very best, running through a wide series of possible scenarios and outcomes, all of which had been as realistic as Skorzeny’s ingenuity could develop. They sat there, wearing uniforms that were distinctly British and carrying weapons that were very definitely not British, and he felt a rare moment of pride. Some of them had served with him in Moscow, and he knew their merits. Others had only been through training and counter-insurgency warfare, but all of them had been tested in the training sessions. Those who were found wanting had been dismissed from the unit well before they could drag the entire unit down.

Himmler hadn’t understood, but Skorzeny, who cared nothing for political power, didn’t give a shit about the growing list of enemies he was making in the more regular forces. Kurt Student had understood, but he’d been more of a regular officer than Skorzeny himself; he hadn’t liked the idea of sending paratroopers on what was effectively a suicide mission even if Skorzeny himself was confident that they would make it out of London. If the British caught them wearing their uniforms, they would be quite within their rights to shoot them as spies, although that thought made Skorzeny’s smile grow a little wider. They were going to drop in on Atlee personally and kill him; if the British didn’t try to kill them, then maybe some of the odder propaganda from Radio Berlin was actually true.

Skorzeny felt the shape of one of his teeth with his tongue. Himmler had added a secondary mission for him, but both of them had known that it might be impossible to carry out. Himmler, unlike some of the commanders Skorzeny had known, didn’t often try to set impossible targets. Skorzeny and one of his subordinates knew the identity of someone who would help them, but it would be delicate. Himmler had warned him that his agent was unaware of just who he was helping, and when Skorzeny revealed himself, he would have to take control right from the start.

If he were to be captured, something he had privately sworn not to allow, he would have to use the false tooth and kill himself before he could be interrogated. The British wouldn’t be feeling gentle after the commandos had raged through Downing Street, killing everyone they met.

A chime sounded in the aircraft and Skorzeny pulled himself to his feet, making sure to exchange a quick glance with each of his men before they lined up besides the hatch, each man checking his partner’s parachute to ensure that it was perfectly set. a parachute failure would be completely impossible to recover from in time, before the unlucky commando plunged into the ground and died.

He glanced at the hatch as one of the crewmen unlocked it. The chime meant that they were five minutes away from their destination, the patch of air that was directly above The Mall, where they would fall down and only break open the parachutes at the latest possible moment. Skorzeny had lost nearly two dozen men through misjudging their timing, even though every man who tried out for the unit was an experienced paratrooper already, before they tried out for Skorzeny’s own personal badge. Hitler himself had created the silver badge that was the mark of one of his soldiers, a knife crossed with a small gun, and only a thousand German soldiers had the right to wear it. The relationship between the Waffen-SS and the regular army wasn’t very good at the best of times, but even the regulars admitted that Skorzeny’s unit was the finest group of paratroopers and light infantry in Germany, perhaps the world.

London was glowing as the aircraft swept in; his eyes tracked lights on the ground, each one providing a possible target for the bombers that were sweeping along ahead of the transports. If everything went to plan, they would drop their loads on the army barracks near the centre of London, although Skorzeny was too experienced a soldier to assume that they would kill every one of the defenders before they could react. Timing was everything in wartime, and the British would have had at least some warning before the bombers attacked even if everything had gone perfectly. An alerted force on the ground would still be armed and dangerous, particularly if they had armoured cars or tanks as well…

He’d given the soldiers a pep talk before they’d left the base, reminding them that they were the best soldiers in the world and that they’d trained heavily for the mission. The moments seemed to grow longer and longer as the transport levelled out for the drop, and then the aircraft shook as an anti-aircraft battery took a shot at it. Skorzeny refused to show any sign of fear. Statistically, it was much more likely that they would die through a damaged parachute than through being shot down by such a weapon. The British would have done better to have had a permanent combat air patrol over London, but instead they’d chosen to draw down their military as much as possible.

“Ten seconds,” the crewman said, as the river flickered as they raced over it. “Five seconds…”

He was first out of the lead aircraft, as it should be; his body free-falling towards the ground. He’d done it before, but the exhilaration racing through his bloodstream was something he only felt when making a combat jump into a war zone. London was burning — he could see flames rising up into the sky from a number of locations — but if they’d knocked out the barracks, there was no sign that they’d succeeded. He yanked on the cord at just the right moment, grunting as the parachute unfurled and slowed his fall, allowing him to land with a bump. He bent his knees and rolled with the motion, as he had been taught, and removed the parachute before it could land on top of him. His men were coming down all around him, releasing their own chutes and drawing their weapons, assembling quickly into combat groups.

He glanced around quickly, comparing what he saw to the maps he’d been forced to memorise; they’d come down almost perfectly, although some of his men had landed in St James’s Park rather than along the road. He blew a whistle and the first team advanced around him, while the second team headed off in the direction of Buckingham Palace. Shooting broke out almost at once as the security forces on the ground realised that they were under attack, but their firing was off and ill-coordinated, a result of their surprise. Skorzeny pushed his men forward, racing against time, and the paratroopers punched through the British defenders.

“They’ll be bringing up reinforcements,” he cried, to one of his men. The subordinate nodded and detailed off some of the parachutists to block the roads and prevent the British from launching an immediate counter-attack. They ran into more armed soldiers and a brief gunfight broke out, ending when the British soldiers were all wiped out.

They’d fought to the last man, Skorzeny noted. He gave them a nod of respect and kept his team moving, even as more firing could be heard in the distance, coming from Buckingham Palace. The gates of Downing Street loomed up in front of him, barring the way to the unpretentious row of houses that served as the governing centre of Britain, but the team knocked them down. There was no time to waste and they didn’t care about the damage; Himmler had told him, in a rare mood of openness, that Speer had already drawn up the plans to knock down Downing Street and replace it with a building in the best Reich style, one fit to rule an empire. The handful of stunned policemen on guard didn’t put up much of a fight, even though there were more barricades than they’d been led to expect. It puzzled him that there was so little security protecting the British Government. There was a whole division of SS troops protecting Hitler.

He pushed the issue aside as the team placed explosive charges on the most famous front door in the world. Taking cover as the charges detonated and watching as the door literally disintegrated under the impact of the explosives. The remains caved in, allowing the commandos to rush into the building. They immediately ran into a terrified-looking elderly man. Skorzeny knocked him down and kept moving. They’d been supplied with pictures of all of the important men and women in the Downing Street complex, and he wasn’t on the list. There were SS units that wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot down anyone who got in their way, but as long as they weren’t a threat and stayed out of the way, Skorzeny was content to leave them alive.

A female scream from above brought the commandos pounding up the stairs, running into a small room with at least seven beds, each one holding a young lady; Skorzeny checked them all, realised that they were Atlee’s secretaries, and led the team onwards. They weren’t important; the next room turned out to hold one of Atlee’s friends, who was shot out of hand. Henry Teasdale was well known for his hostile attitude to Nazi Germany.

“They’re not in their beds,” one of the commandos shouted, as the team broke into the Atlee’s bedroom. “They must have made it into the bomb shelter.”

Skorzeny led the race back downstairs, ignoring the growing screams and shouts of panic from the girls; they would have much more to worry about if they ever ran into one of the units the SS used to spread terror in an occupied zone. The handful of men he’d left on the ground floor nodded to him — salutes were forbidden in a combat zone — and waved to a set of bodies, one of them unmistakably Lord Halifax. Skorzeny checked quickly, just in case, and confirmed it; the Foreign Secretary had been caught in his rooms and killed by one of the commandos.

The search took only five minutes, but it felt like an eternity to Skorzeny, who was grimly aware that the British were gathering their resources to strike back and exterminate his team. He could still hear gunfire and explosions all over the area, but that might mean that the team had been beaten off from Buckingham Palace, or that they’d succeeded in their mission and were on their way back to rendezvous with the main unit before they started to execute the second part of the plan. The British barracks couldn’t have been totally destroyed, which meant they could expect a counter-attack at any moment, despite the chaos and the fighting in the sky, high above. The British had probably directed their fighters to engage the Luftwaffe high over London, although the transports would have beaten a retreat already; they were useless once their paratroopers had been dropped onto the ground.

“Found it, Otto,” one of his men called, finally. The unit didn’t stand on formality, something else that irked the regulars and most of the remainder of the Waffen-SS as well; if a man qualified to join, as far as Skorzeny was concerned, he could call him by his first name. “They had the entrance well hidden, but we found it once we checked all the walls and floors.”

“A bookcase,” Skorzeny said, shaking his head. The British had been clever; some designer had created a mechanism for allowing the bookcase to move backwards and forwards, as if it were a safe in a bank, hiding the entrance to the underground bunker. He nodded to his engineers and they started work at once, placing more shaped charges against the bookcase and then standing well back as the charges detonated. This time, their target stood up better to their assault; the bookcase disintegrated, but the armoured door behind it barely fell off its hinges. Two commandos grasped hold of it and pulled hard, allowing a third to throw a belt of grenades into the space beyond, causing an explosion that blew the door off its hinges.

Three commandos moved forward quickly and rappelled down the shaft, breaking through into what was clearly a lift. Skorzeny followed them as shooting burst out, painfully loud in such a confined space. Atlee would have a few defenders in a position to hold the bunker, even though they must know that they were trapped without any means of escape. His men were pinned down and radical action had to be taken. He unhooked a grenade of his own and threw it towards the defenders, who were only half-seen in the gloom. The explosion rewarded him with a scream from someone, but the enemy fire didn’t dwindle; he guessed that he’d hit a non-combatant with the explosion. He pulled out several more grenades and threw them, one by one, into the room; this time, the enemy firing trailed off and his men were able to race into the bunker. The noise of grenades and firing grew louder for a moment, shaking the air and sending dust clouds cascading down on his shoulders, and then faded away; Skorzeny lowered himself down and entered the bunker.

It wasn’t dark and drab, but clearly part of a much larger complex, one that his briefing hadn’t suggested existed. Just for a moment, Skorzeny felt a twinge of worry; down in the bunker, he had no way of communicating with his men on blocking duty, or with the group that was supposed to attack Buckingham Palace. His men were trained to seize the initiative at all times, not least because Skorzeny himself might be killed at any moment, but what would happen if the British mounted their counter-attack before he could complete his mission? He might fail… and he had never failed before.

“Search the bunker,” he yelled, as the men raced through. One door proved to be made of reinforced steel, too hard for them to break through without explosives, but the others led to sleeping quarters — empty — a kitchen — also empty — and a small collection of weapons, most of which looked to be as good as his own. The bunker system didn’t end there, but he knew, somehow, that they were right on the verge of success; as the engineers took out the sealed door, he saw the Prime Minister’s personal bunker.

It wasn’t that impressive compared to the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin, where Hitler had ruled the Reich during the war, but it was luxurious enough to prove that whoever was intended to use it, they were important. Skorzeny wasn’t too surprised; one thing that all of the regimes he knew about had done was see to the protection of their senior officers and leaders, even though the British had suffered a slight failure of imagination in that regard. He didn’t waste his time staring at the pictures on the walls, but looking at the man staring back at him with wild eyes, Clement Atlee himself.

Atlee looked as if he were grasping for words, his eyes flicking desperately to the woman beside him — Skorzeny knew that she was his wife — and the handful of other people in the bunker. Lord Halifax should have been there as well, but he’d been delayed, and had ended up being killed apart from the others. There was no time for sentimentality or even respect; he lifted his weapon, sighted carefully on Atlee’s head as his wife began to scream, and then fired a single shot into the Prime Minister’s head. Atlee toppled backwards as Skorzeny’s men continued the shooting, picking off the British leaders and their staff; Atlee’s wife caught a stray bullet through the arm and her screams just got louder and louder. Skorzeny finally smacked her on the head to silence her.

He ran through a quick check; most of their targets had been eliminated. The rampage through the other parts of the Downing Street complex had killed most of the others, although there were a couple who remained unaccounted for in the bloody slaughter. Leaving Atlee’s wife behind, Skorzeny led his men back to the shaft and back up the ropes, heading out of the building as quickly as possible. Their time was about to run out… and the British would be out for blood.

All they had to do now was escape.

Chapter Fourteen

London, England

“Sir, we have parachutists coming down in the park,” an army sergeant reported, running up to Monty and striking a salute. The panic was growing stronger by the moment. Half of the operating staff were on their feet, looking as if they expected the order to evacuate the building at any moment. Alex DeRiemer ran though the maps in his head and concluded that the Germans could be on them within moments… assuming that the War Office actually was the German target. “Captain Milligan is looking for orders, but the barracks have been hit!”

Monty took control of the situation decisively by firing a single shot into the ceiling. “We’re not in any danger,” he said as silence fell, and the staffers stared at him. “Sergeant, inform Captain Milligan that I want him to deploy his men to defend this building while we summon up what reinforcements we can from the outer barracks.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, heading out the door at speed. The operators were slowly taking their places again, picking up telephones and continuing to try to issue orders, summoning the RAF back to London to defend it from the German parachute hordes.

Monty was thinking along the same lines. “They’re throwing away a unit of paras,” he said. “Why are they doing that?”

DeRiemer hesitated. “It has to be a strike intended to kill everyone who could issue orders to the armed forces,” he said, grimly. Monty looked up as a distant explosion made the bunker shake slightly, underscoring his words. “If they wipe out everyone in high command, who’s going to be able to get the word out to the troops?”

“This building will have to be defended, then,” Monty said. He picked up a phone, barked a series of orders into it, and then put it down again. “I’ve just passed on tactical command to the recovery site outside the city, somewhere that won’t be affected by the German bombings or the commandos they’ve dropped into London. Do you have a side-arm?”

“No, sir,” DeRiemer said, wondering just what Monty meant. He’d gone through firing courses as part of his work for MI6, but he couldn’t reasonably be called a soldier by anyone, unless the army was really desperate. He wiped his spectacles and peered at Monty; the old soldier looked as if he was weighing up the odds in his head. “What do you want me to do?”

“There’s two platoons of armed soldiers here,” Monty said, as he led DeRiemer out of the chamber and up the stairs to the main lobby. DeRiemer could hear the noise of firing growing louder and smell the haze from guns being fired in a confined space. “The Germans may know about the set-up here, but we kept the information on the duplicate set-up a secret, so they may want to take this place and kill us all. If that happens…”

He stopped as they reached a barricade; the sound of firing was growing louder. “Sergeant Yates,” Monty said, seeing one of the soldiers positioned to fire back at the enemy. “Report!”

Yates didn’t look at Monty; he kept his eyes on the door. “At least thirty men out there, sir,” he said, grimly. His voice was very dry; DeRiemer couldn’t understand how he remained so calm under the pressure of the attack. “They tried to rush us as soon as they got organised and we blew the shit out of them, killed at least ten of them and sent the others falling back. They got smarter and now they’re firing on us from all sides.”

Monty nodded. “And deployments?”

“Captain Benton has deployed one platoon here and one platoon to sniper positions,” Yates said, just before he fired a single shot out of the building. “Sir, I suggest that you keep your head down…”

A burst of machine gun fire from outside, blasting into the barricade and past it into the walls, underscored his words. “We had this entire building designed to be difficult to seize,” Monty said, his voice just as calm as the Sergeant’s voice. DeRiemer wouldn’t have been surprised to see him pull out a cigar and light it. “They might bomb us, but even then, we have the bunker.”

He glanced over at Yates. “Have the staff been evacuated?”

“Those who remained in the building, yes,” Yates said. He fired another shot as a German paratrooper showed himself for a second. “They’ve been moved down into the bunkers, sir; we don’t dare send them out to the streets with the Germans out there.”

“General,” a new voice said. DeRiemer liked Captain Benton on sight; he was short, brown-haired, and carrying enough weapons for three men. He passed an assault rifle to Monty and an older pistol to DeRiemer, who held it carefully, trying to remember how to use it. “I have an observer on the top of the building. He’s saying that Buckingham Palace and Downing Street are under attack and we’re just getting their remains.”

Monty frowned.

“We need this building held,” he said reaching for a telephone. It came off the wall in his hands; a stray bullet had smashed part of it, rendering it useless. “Have you sent a runner to the barracks?”

“I think they know that they’re under attack,” Benton said very dryly. Monty gave him a reproving look. “I’ve tried to send someone to warn them about the parachutists, but unless they come up here, we’re not going to be able to leave the building.”

“They can’t expect to remain in the centre of London forever,” DeRiemer said, feeling terror lurking at the back of his mind. Somehow, he had never even thought of the possibility of holding a normal conversation in the middle of a fire-fight; a noise from behind him made him duck instinctively, even as he realised that it was only Yates taking a pot-shot at a German soldier. “We have to catch them on the ground?”

Monty whirled around. “How the hell do they intend to escape?”

“I don’t know,” DeRiemer admitted.

“We have to remain here until we get reinforcements,” Benton said, before Monty could say anything. “Whatever the Germans are doing, we’re powerless to prevent it …”

* * *

Major David Simmons picked himself off the ground and barked orders, watching as armed soldiers ran around, trying to form up into units. The Germans had bombed the Albany Street Barracks - officially known as the Regent’s Park Barracks — with a precision he wouldn’t have believed possible; the flaming ruins had made it almost impossible to assemble the Royal Horse Guards in anything like their normal order. They’d been equipped to serve as a light infantry unit, but the alert hadn’t prevented them from continuing their ceremonial duties, something that might have saved hundreds of lives. The sergeants and military policemen were running around, trying to assemble the soldiers into composite units, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Sir,” a runner shouted, sweat pouring down his face. “There are parachutists landing in St James’s Park and they’re attacking the Palace.”

Simmons felt his blood run cold. There was a closer unit, at Hyde Park Barracks, but if they weren’t responding to the crisis, it could mean that the German bombers had successfully killed enough of the soldiers to shatter their unit integrity and prevent them from interfering with the German mission. They probably wanted to snatch the King and his family, maybe even flying them out with a light aircraft from the Palace’s grounds. It was his duty to ensure that failed. The idea of catching the King in the middle of a fire-fight chilled him, but they must respond to the Germans before they completed their mission and fled.

“All soldiers, form up on the armoured cars,” he commanded. It had been sheer luck that the small unit of armoured cars, used mainly for preventing or breaking up riots rather than fighting the enemy, hadn’t been destroyed. The system was damaged, but with clear orders, the soldiers began to return to normal, preparing for the unbelievable; an assault against their own government, or at least it’s buildings. There were hundreds of very important people trapped with the Germans, and somehow he suspected that the thousands of people fleeing the scene didn’t include the main targets. The Germans were good.

“Sir, they’re wearing British uniforms,” the runner said, his voice calmer now that he’d managed to catch his breath. Simmons swore under his breath; fighting at night was dangerous enough without the disadvantage of knowing that the enemy looked exactly like his own side. “The Palace needs your help.”

The column of soldiers moved out at once, spearheaded by the armoured cars as the soldiers advanced down towards Hyde Park and the Palace. The streets were emptying quickly as policemen, some of them looking to be on the verge of panic themselves, urged civilians to get out of the firing line. It had been years, as far as Simmons remembered, since anyone had practised an evacuation drill; London was paying now for that little oversight. Flames could be seen in the distance, some of them billowing up into the sky and daring the puny humans to put them out, others, nearer, were rising up from the direction of the barracks. Simmons detailed a runner to run to the barracks as the soldiers picked their way through Regent Street and down onto Pall Mall.

He toggled his radio and said a silent prayer under his breath. “This is Simmons,” he said, cursing the failure to set up a proper communications drill. The radio sparked and hissed at him, but he could hear voices, if very faint and barely heard. The Germans might be listening to the transmissions, but it was a risk they needed to take. “All active units, report in.”

He’d scattered some of his formed-up units around and listened as their senior officers replied. Some of them were being commanded by Sergeants, one of them by a Corporal, but they’d have to do. The responses came in just as a burst of firing came at them out of the darkness surrounding the Park; they’d bumped into the German defence line. The armoured car pushed forward, its machine guns splitting the night with lines of tracer fire. He saw, as something exploded, a group of men running towards Downing Street. One of them turned and lifted a weapon; he knew, then, that they were Germans. Their weapons looked nothing like the automatic weapons the British used…

They opened fire and the soldiers returned fire, cutting two of the Germans down before they reached cover and kept firing at the British line. They had a sniper up somewhere in one of the buildings; he hit two of Simmons’ men before one of the armoured cars swept the building with machine gun fire and killed the German. The entire battle was starting to turn into one of the counter-insurgency fights Simmons had seen in Northern Ireland; the thought gave him a moment of confidence. They’d won the few fights when the IRA came out to do battle in open fields — or, more often, in civilian areas with civilian lives caught in the middle. Simmons hoped that most of the civilians would be out of the area by now, but he’d heard that some SS units were fond of keeping civilians around to make life unpleasant for insurgents in Russia, and if they did that in the middle of London…

He ground his teeth as the soldiers slowly pushed their way into the park, cutting off one German unit from the other, assuming that they hadn’t abandoned one of their targets. The noise of gunfire was growing louder, most of it coming from the direction of Downing Street, so he assumed that the majority of the Germans were there. He didn’t relish a house-to-house fight through Downing Street, but if there was no other choice, he would have to deal with it. He detailed a unit to head towards Buckingham Palace when ten soldiers appeared out of nowhere; they didn’t know just how lucky they’d been not to get shot.

“Captain Pagan,” the leader said, saluting. His weapons were British, Simmons realised, and allowed himself to relax. “We managed to clear the bastards out of Buckingham Palace, but the King was wounded and the barracks have been effectively destroyed.”

Simmons nodded. The Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment was dedicated to preserving the lives of the Royal Family, whatever it took; they had headed directly to the Palace and counter-attacked the Germans. He hoped that one of them might be a senior officer, but instead, they were all junior to him.

“We’re going to have to dig the Germans out of the area,” he said, shortly. It was the only responsible decision he could have made. He’d already started deploying his men in position for the assault; once the experienced men were ready, they would advance and dig out the Germans. He wasn’t sure if he had the time to get all his ducks in a row, but in the absence of orders from higher up the chain, he intended to make sure it was all done properly. “Join your men to mine and prepare to advance.”

* * *

Skorzeny hadn’t been wasting his time; after the first organised counter-attack, he’d ordered his men to fall back in their units, leaving a trail of traps and mines behind them. The British had been hampered by his snipers, but now that they were organising their forces, they would be able to rapidly hunt down his remaining soldiers and kill or capture them all. The din of combat was coming closer and he knew that time was about to run out.

He’d deployed nearly two hundred men in the assault; a third of them were now dead or seriously injured, unable to escape. Two of his Strumscharfuhrers had been giving them what aid they could, but now their time was up and they held their silenced pistols to their heads. The injured soldiers couldn’t be taken with the commandos and they couldn’t even defend themselves; those who could still fire a weapon had been given the best positions Skorzeny could find and ordered to hold for as long as they could.

“Now,” he said, into his radio. A handful of German bombers had loitered overhead, without dropping their bombs, until he gave the order. Their bombs fell and struck at British positions, bombing at random to allow his men a chance to escape. All too aware, of the tightening noose, Skorzeny barked a command and the remaining uninjured commandos scattered, a handful following him and others spreading out across the city. Many of them would be caught, but those who survived would go to ground until the Panzers reached their hiding places.

More firing broke out behind him as the injured men died to defend their comrades’ backs. The British had probably sealed off the bridge, but they hadn’t been able to prevent Skorzeny and his men from getting down to the river and jumping into the river and swimming downstream. Each man had a small straw in his possession and used it to breath, remaining underwater until they had drifted well away from the firing, before sticking their heads out of the water and checking their location. Skorzeny ordered them all out of the water and they broke into a warehouse, using it as a place to dry their uniforms and dump most of their weapons. The handful they kept were British-issue; they’d recovered them from Atlee’s bunker.

“Good,” Skorzeny said. They all spoke perfect English; they should be mistaken for English soldiers, rather than German soldiers, if they were seen. Flames and smoke were still rising up over London as the commandos walked through the streets, ignoring the panic and the handful of other military officers they met, merely exchanging salutes and walking onwards. Skorzeny led them through streets he had memorised, hunting for a particular address; he finally found it in a well-kept little set of streets, where the British upper middle-class would live.

He glanced at his men for a long moment. He hadn’t had time to brief them on where they were going; technically, he shouldn’t have brought them at all, but they were going to be needed. Their target lived alone, well away from anyone who might have revealed his activities to the world; Skorzeny and his men would be able to secure him without much in the way of bother, provided that they were unnoticed. The British weren’t the Germans; according to his briefing, where a German household would be awed to see soldiers, the British would be more likely to call the police and make a complaint. If they did that and someone worked out that there shouldn’t have been an army unit there…

Skorzeny pushed his doubts aside and knocked on the door. There was a long pause before he finally heard the footsteps of a man walking towards the door. When it opened, the man’s eyes blinked at the sight of armed soldiers. Skorzeny didn’t give him time to react. He stepped forward, pushed the door wide open, and urged his men inside. Two of them went off to search the house, the other three remained, holding their contact in their hands. He wouldn’t be able to escape.

“Good morning, Mr Philby,” Skorzeny said, very calmly. Philby would know who he was. “I am Contact Zero.”

Philby’s eyes went very wide. A moment later, he fell to the ground in a faint.

Chapter Fifteen

Felixstowe, England

Dawn was breaking, but there was little respite for the workers as the first of the large convoys came into port and began to unload. The night had been a nerve-wracking one for Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck, even though he was certain that as the Germans expanded their control, he would have more warning of a second counter-attack A handful of infantry units had taken up positions surrounding Felixstowe itself and had reported a handful of skirmishes with Home Guardsmen, but there was no sign of a counter-attack

Baeck watched the frantic activity through tired eyes. The larger ships had been built to serve as invasion transports, despite their civilian appearance, and soldiers were marching off them in a seemingly endless line directed by NCOs to rallying points where they would be tasked with their missions and sent out to expand the beachhead. A stream of panzers had joined them, formed up to provide some additional heavy fire-power; the longer the British waited, the more confident Baeck was of beating off the expected counter-attack The Hans Bader had returned to the nearest French port for reloading; once it returned, Baeck expected that the lodgement could be expanded still further. The British would be working desperately to establish a defensive line to the west; once the German forces were strong enough, he suspected that Rommel would want to advance at once towards Ipswich. The larger town served as the GHQ for British forces in the area and the British commander would probably be based there.

He straightened to attention as Rommel himself entered, snapping a salute. Rommel looked tired but happy; Baeck felt a moment of resentment at how Rommel had remained with the main convoy, even though that had been at the Führer’s direct orders. Rommel wouldn’t want to take the credit, and he was a little surprised that Rommel hadn’t simply jumped in and started issuing orders already, but Baeck felt as if he owned the lodgement. He’d commanded the force that had taken it.

His yawn surprised him. “I’m sorry, Herr Feldmarschall,” he said, quickly. Baeck hadn’t realised just how tired he was until he’d yawned. “It’s been a long night.”

“And you will get some sleep once this is over,” Rommel said, waving away Baeck’s concern. Rommel, a real soldier, wouldn’t worry about decorum during a time of struggle. “I have had a message from the Fuhrer himself, who has ordered you to be given the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes” - Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross — “as a reward for your service, which has not gone unremarked in Berlin.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple box, revealing an older medal, which he pinned quickly onto Baeck’s uniform. “You did very well…”

“This is your medal,” Baeck realised suddenly. Rommel had earned it for his campaigns in North Africa. “I can’t accept that.”

“Yes, you can,” Rommel said, firmly. Baeck felt a moment of pure pride as he gazed into Rommel’s eyes and saw the confidence and determination there. “It is my pleasure to give it to you.” He slapped Baeck on the back before proceeding to the next order of business. “Now, I need a report from you on what’s happened so far.”

Baeck pointed a hand at the map he’d hastily pinned up in the harbourmaster’s office; the harbour-master himself was currently under guard in one of the warehouses. He had protested the use of British labour in no uncertain terms, claiming that the workers were soldiers, until Baeck pointed out that if that were true, they were without uniforms and could be shot at once.

“We have roughly ten thousand troops and two hundred vehicles on the ground now, with more arriving all the time,” Baeck said, without hesitation. The shipping routes had been well planned, but a single British ship in the wrong place could have ruined their day, and shattered the plan. “I have sent patrols up towards Ipswich in the east, and have surrounded most of Felixstowe itself, with the intention of taking the town formally within the next few hours. So far, apart from one counter-attack, resistance has been light, but sometimes very determined. We caught them with their pants down.”

“Best way,” Rommel said. “What about the civilian population?”

“They are staying largely out of the way,” Baeck said, simply. “We sealed the town and hope to avoid any major confrontation with the civilians, simply ordering them to return to their homes and await orders. I expect that some of the young men will seek to try our mettle fairly soon, but until then, we’re keeping our grip as light as possible, consummate with our own security.”

Rommel nodded, his mind clearly following similar paths. Neither man wanted to be responsible for a massacre, and that was what would happen if British civilians ran into their formations with older weapons, but if it was a choice between keeping the roads open and opening fire, or allowing the British to slow their progress, they would have to open fire and hope that the Fuhrer was in a forgiving mood when he heard about it. Britain wasn’t Russia.

“We have three hundred prisoners in the warehouses now, guarded by my people,” Baeck continued. “Most of them were either administrators for the docks or Home Guardsmen who cannot technically be used as labour; we’ve kept them prisoner until we can decide what to do with them permanently. A handful are women who were apparently plying their trade with the crewmen who stayed here and don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Leave them for the moment,” Rommel said, twisting his lips dryly. “That leads us with one important issue; what are we going to do next?”

A test, Baeck thought. He indicated the map with one hand. “According to aerial reconnaissance reports, the British have been forming a defence line here with the remains of the Home Guard and the regular army forces that were in the area,” he said. “We believe that they intend to fight to hold Ipswich and keep us penned in here while they bring up their heavy forces to crush us. I was under the impression that we intended to seek battle with them at once, and towards that extent I ordered the airfield just west of Felixstowe held and secured as a base for further operations.”

Rommel nodded once. “Good thinking.”

Baeck allowed himself a moment of relief; holder of the Knight’s Cross or not, a word from Rommel in the Führer’s ear would have resulted in him being unceremoniously transferred back to Russia or somewhere else where the women were ugly, the beer was terrible, and the locals were trying to kill him.

Rommel continued, “I brought along a small SS security division to secure the town, one carefully briefed in their role as part of my operational plans.”

Baeck caught the disdain in his voice and nodded. Rommel was disliked by the SS, or at least the parts of the SS that were essentially thugs and counter-insurgent units, rather than the armoured shock divisions of the Waffen-SS, who respected him. Rommel’s history with the SS wasn’t a very good one; when confronted by a unit of the Einsatzgruppen, who claimed to have authority to begin a purge of certain elements of Egyptian society, he’d produced a handgun, informed the SS officer that he was in command by orders of the Fuhrer, and if the SS unit attempted to disobey orders again, Rommel would have them all shot. The incident had made Rommel famous, but had irritated the SS, which had regained its power years later after Rommel had been recalled from North Africa.

“Once we have secured our rear, we can advance forward against the British defence line,” Rommel said. “What about our dispositions?”

“I concentrated our high-mobility forces along the roads heading towards Ipswich so that we can advance quickly,” Baeck said, tapping the map. “The local commanders have authority to engage the enemy if they see him, but all we’ve seen so far are Home Guardsmen trying to escape the cordon we’re throwing up around the area. I also ordered the recon units to push the limits as much as possible, but with the presence of substantial British forces to the west…”

“They’ll know by now that we’re the main invasion force,” Rommel said, studying the map and comparing it to the one in his head. “What about the paratroopers?”

“Most of them reported success,” Baeck said. “A handful were forced to break off under enemy fire. One group is missing. Some of them were able to make their way back to our lines, others may still be on the way or lying low until our lines reach them. We have seen some British aircraft, but most of them were beaten off by the Luftwaffe while our ground-support aircraft have been moving up to the captured airbase.”

“That will change,” Rommel said, glancing into the blue sky. A vague hum in the distance caused both men to listen carefully for a moment, trying to identify the noise before it faded; it sounded almost like a motorboat. “What about the waters?”

“We saw a handful of British small craft trying to escape us,” Baeck said. “We captured all of the ships in dock and pressed most of them into service, in hopes of expanding our troop transport capability. So far we haven’t seen any major response from the Royal Navy. One hopes that we battered them enough to put them off trying to interfere, but I don’t have access to any information…”

“We pounded Scapa Flow, but for obvious reasons we don’t know exactly how much damage we did,” Rommel said, as Baeck yawned again. “Enough talking, now; you have to get some sleep.”

Baeck was moved to protest. “Herr Feldmarschall…”

“That’s an order,” Rommel said, shortly. He waved a hand at one of his orderlies. “Mayer, escort Oberst Baeck to a place where he can rest and ensure that he gets at least five hours of sleep. Coordinate with his second to ensure that most of the commandos from the Hans Bader get some sleep themselves; we can reinforce the defences with our own units. Get Hauptmann Bothe to report to me in an hour and…”

His voice was fading as Mayer escorted Baeck away towards one of the warehouses, where some sleeping areas had been set up; Baeck was asleep almost before he hit the makeshift mattress.

* * *

SS Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl had never seen an English town before, but it looked very different from the Russian and Norwegian towns he knew from his service there. It was strange to his eyes. Some of it consisted of rows of neat little houses. Others seemed chaotic as might be expected in a town that had, until recently, been little more than a fishing town. The British had built Felixstowe up into a major port for trade with the continent, which meant the Reich, and that had had an effect on the town itself. It made him wonder, absently, if he could expect friends or enemies in the British town; there was no telling what might have happened already.

The British were hiding, he thought, as he watched from his armoured car. The SS used Pumas to patrol lightly-occupied territories, such as Norway; Stahl’s men were safe from anything short of an antitank gun, or a Molotov cocktail in the wrong place. The remains of the Home Guard might be present in the town, holding their weapons and preparing to make a stand, or they might have retreated to Ipswich. Stahl hoped that they would make a fight of it; if he managed to convince the British in the town that their army had failed them, it would be much easier to break them to the yoke. The crushing of resistance, both mental and physical resistance, was crucial to the success of the overall campaign. The British needed to feel that they were beaten before they would submit.

He saw only a handful of British men on the streets — no women — and those who saw him looked once and then looked away, probably trying to hide the expressions on their faces. He’d seen that before, in Vichy France; the French Government might be craven, but the new generation of Frenchmen longed for a time when they would be free of the Reich’s control over their lives. Many young Frenchmen were taking the easy way out and sailing to Algeria; the remainder, sometimes, spent their lives futilely trying to hurt the Reich. The British wouldn’t have learned caution yet, he knew; they might make a fight of it…

But they hadn’t, he realised, as his unit secured the Home Guard barracks without a fight. The barracks had been abandoned quickly, leaving some equipment scattered around, but there were no signs of any Home Guardsmen in the building. They’d probably sensed the tightening noose around the town and tried to break out before it was too late; some of them had probably made it, others had been caught by the infantry units that were surrounding the town and sent to the hastily-created detention camp. Stahl wouldn’t have given two Reich-marks for their future; he knew exactly what fate Himmler had in mind for them.

“Secure this location and remain here,” he ordered after they had completed their search. “I want a regular series of patrols through the town, with weapons and armour displayed openly, and if there is any trouble, handle it decisively.”

“Jawohl,” his subordinate said. “Herr Standartenfuhrer, what do you intend to do now?”

“I intend to secure the remainder of this town and then lay down the law to the Town Council,” he said. He’d sent one platoon to the Town Hall, trapping everyone inside the building, but he didn’t want to go too soon and make the councillors feel that they were important. The SS briefings had stated that the Town Council would have limited control over the town and would therefore only be useful to keep the rabble under control. “Remain here; report to me at once if anything changes.”

The Town Hall was larger than he had expected, but much less grandiose than any similar building in Germany; the British didn’t seem to go in for vast imposing buildings leaking their power and glory into the air. The SS unit that had surrounded it had been carefully briefed and were remaining polite, but very firm; a single handcuffed man had been left by one of the gates. A bruise on the side of his face revealed that someone had punched him.

“He took a swing at Werner,” one of his soldiers said, when Stahl quirked an eyebrow. “We knocked him down and left him there.”

“Carry on,” Stahl said, as he entered the Town Hall, he walked past a small group of civilians into the heart of the Town Hall, the meeting room for seven councillors, three of which faced him as he stared at them. “Which one of you is the Mayor?”

“That would be me, sir,” one of the men said. Stahl had believed that all English Mayors wore chains of office, but this one, carrying himself with an air that suggested that he had seen armed combat, wore nothing but a simple suit. “Welcome to Felixstowe.”

Stahl bit back a laugh at the Mayor’s tone. The Englishman wasn’t scared, but he was angry, very angry. He might not try to resist — intelligence suggested that the British civilian authorities had been ordered not to offer any resistance and keep as much of the country running as possible — but he certainly wouldn’t help, at least not until Stahl found a lever that could be used to make him collaborate completely.

“Thank you,” he said, dryly. “As the designated representative of the commanding officer of the local German forces, operating under the authority of Fuehrer and Reichskanzler Adolph Hitler, I am declaring Felixstowe an occupied town under the commonly accepted rules of war. I demand your cooperation in making the transfer to German authority as smooth and painless as possible.”

The Mayor said nothing. “If you refuse to cooperate, I will be forced to administer this town myself, using my storm-troopers to enforce my will,” Stahl said, pressing against their determination to resist. It would be so much easier to operate if the local authorities acceded. “If that happens, I cannot say that the persons in this town will be respected…”

“Enough,” the Mayor snapped. The frustration in his voice almost made Stahl smile. The Mayor might want to fight, but he knew that it was futile. “What are your orders?”

“My orders are very simple, at least for the moment,” Stahl said. “This town will remain under your control, provided you obey orders and work to keep your people peaceful. All remaining Home Guardsmen and soldiers within the town are to surrender at once. All weapons and radio transmitters are to be handed in at once. The people in the town who have work in the docks are to report to them at once for their orders, for which they will be paid a fair wage in Reich-marks; those who have no occupation in the docks are to remain at home unless they have no choice but to do otherwise. The local policemen are to be disarmed and registered, but after that, they are to continue keeping the peace…”

He went on, completing the list of initial requirements; they didn’t have to hear all of them, not yet. They wouldn’t want to assist the SS in rounding up the Jews and everyone else in the Black Book. They would help until they were so implicated in Stahl’s actions that they would have no choice except to make the jump from reluctantly cooperating to outright collaboration. When that happened…

“Please impress upon all your people the importance of obeying these rules,” he said, in conclusion. “You have a lovely town and it would be a shame to damage it.”

Chapter Sixteen

Near Ipswich, England

The tent looked nothing like a secure comfortable base, yet Captain Harry Jackson was absolutely delighted to see it as the remains of the Felixstowe Home Guard staggered towards safety. They were following directions they’d received from a small motorcycle unit that had been scouring the country looking for survivors, but until now there had been no sign of organised resistance. A pair of armoured cars were parked near the tent and hundreds of soldiers were milling about, being organised by sergeants and several senior officers. The entire scene was chaotic, with hundreds of men moving in all directions; even the sight of a small armoured column failed to restore Jackson’s spirits.

The escape had been nightmarish. They’d fallen back, only to be pursued by the Germans, who had chased them right out of Felixstowe. Halfway there, they had been engaged by a force of German paratroopers who had been trying to make their way back into Felixstowe, and had been as surprised to meet the British as the British had been to meet them. Jackson didn’t know what orders he’d given, although he was certain that he had issued orders; his mind was a complete blank. They’d been lucky not to have shot the motorcyclist who’d met them. The rider had told them that several other units hadn’t been so lucky.

A small desk had been set up in front of the tent, and Jackson pulled himself up into a straighter posture as he took in the face of the man sitting there, trying desperately to organise his forces. He ordered Wilt to find his men somewhere to rest for a few hours and walked over to the desk, waiting until the General looked up to salute.

“Captain Harry Jackson,” he said. “Felixstowe Home Guard.”

General Barron returned the salute. “I’m pleased to see you,” he said, his voice grim, but tightly controlled. “What was it like back there?”

“The Germans have taken the port and probably the town,” Jackson reported grimly. “They have some armoured support and have been unloading freighters ever since they landed.”

“I see,” Barron said. “Do you have any idea of the enemy’s strength?”

“I don’t know, sir,” he said. “I think they will have at least a few thousand men. They stopped us outside the gates, sir…”

“We never really expected to have to fight them up here,” Barron said, more to himself than to Jackson. “We ensured that the best equipment and the best training went to the forces near Dover, where we expected the Germans would have to land if they wanted to invade us. They’ve outflanked the fixed defences until they reach the GHQ line surrounding London and half of our communications are down.”

Jackson recognised the offer of absolution and allowed himself to relax slightly. “Sir, they can’t succeed, can they?” He asked. “I mean… there’s the Navy, and the Air Force, and…”

“The Royal Navy was hit pretty badly last night,” Barron said shortly. For the first time, Jackson detected a tiny hint of despair underlying his voice. “I don’t have any details, but the War Office — which was also hit last night — sent a warning to the effect that I couldn’t count on either naval interdiction of the Jerry supply lines or naval gunfire being directed onto the German positions. The RAF sent in a pair of recon aircraft and both of them were shot down; the Germans are not only bombing strategic targets across Britain, but they’re maintaining a constant CAP over their own landing site.”

He paused. “We’re going to need you and your men debriefed by the Intelligence Corps, but at the moment, we think that the main focus of German activity is here, coming towards us from Felixstowe,” he said. “ I have spotters out and we’re struggling to establish a line of soldiers to block the enemy from advancing without casualties. The worst problem at the moment is civilian refugees; it’s been too long since we had any drills and that’s starting to show.”

Jackson winced. “What are they doing?”

“The BBC hasn’t been able to formulate any message yet, but the arrival of the Germans is common knowledge in this area and several thousand civilians fled at once for the west,” Barron said. “The people are blocking the roads and trying to catch trains while we’re trying to organise military convoys and reinforcements for here. I’ve used soldiers to clear some of the roads, but mostly the refugees are being urged to return to their homes.”

Jackson shook his head. “They won’t take that advice, sir,” he said, remembering all the horror stories about how the Germans conducted themselves in occupied lands. There would probably be rumours of German atrocities already, even though none of them would ever be confirmed and probably hadn’t happened. “Is there anything else that they might do?”

“A few hundred German refugees and Danes have been lynched,” Barron said. “It’s not something that I can do much about, particularly as many of them might have been spying for the Germans before they landed, but it’s another problem for us.” He shook his head. “Now, before the Intelligence Corps get their hands on you, how many soldiers do you have left?”

“Forty-one,” Jackson said, cursing his own failure. His original company had been decimated; the unit he’d brought out of the chaos had been the remains of several units, all of which had lost over half of their number in the desperate fighting around the port. “Several of them are injured, sir, and we’re low on ammunition.”

“They’ll go into the personnel pool at the moment,” the General said. “The injured ones are to report back to see the doctors, but if they can still fight, we’re going to need them as part of the defence line. They’ll probably end up being formed into a new company with other stragglers and you’ll have command; there won’t be time for proper formalities.”

“Sir, I…”

Barron ignored him. “I have Sergeants running companies and Lieutenants commanding entire sections because of the vast shortage of personnel,” he commented, his voice icy. “I need you to take command of one of the reformed companies and get it back up into fighting trim, quickly.”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said, pushing his doubts about himself aside. “How long do we have?”

Barron held up a hand as the noise of an aircraft came in from the east. “That’s not one of ours,” he said, his voice hushed. Jackson raised an eyebrow; he’d never been able to tell the difference between a British jet aircraft and a German jet aircraft. “I think that that bastard is up there spying on our positions, which means that they have to know just how weak and disorganised we are, and if they come bursting out…”

Jackson remembered. He’d studied the Nazi campaigns in France and Poland, and one thing had been clear; the Nazis had never given the French or Poles a chance to recover from their early defeats, pushing forward and trying to scatter them before the command structure could recover from the shocks of the first blow. There had still been thousands of armed and dangerous men scattered across the country, but the controlling brains had been stunned and unable to draw their far flung units back into a coherent formation.

The Germans hadn’t knocked the British out with a single punch, but if they could secure their grip on Suffolk, they would be much harder to dislodge. They were expanding their grip on the coast to speed up their unloading operations, and if they built up enough supplies…

He remembered taking part in a training session organised by Basil Liddell Hart, back before Liddell Hart had been placed on half-pay — again — for some unspecified offence. They’d seen, then, what tanks could do and how hard they were to stop, particularly if there were no friendly air units or tanks around to assist in stopping them. The Germans had respected Liddell Hart’s theories and they’d been the ones who’d put them into practice; they would build up, attack, and then start marching to London. They were confined, at the moment, to a small lodgement; could they be destroyed before they could build up and attack?

“Can we not attack them?” Jackson asked, after a moment’s pause. “We could try and knock them back into the sea…”

“We’re too disorganised to mount a proper attack,” Barron said. “We’re pitifully short of armour and supporting elements; we’re having some moved up, but if we hadn’t been holding a training drill, we wouldn’t have had any tanks at all. We can hold the Germans and execute a fighting withdrawal, but actually stopping them will be difficult, let alone launching a counter-attack If we get the divisions we’ve been promised, we might be able to start thinking about a counter-attack, but at the moment, our orders are to hold the line and preserve as much as possible for future operations.”

He tapped the map on his desk. “I’ve distributed recon units, between Ipswich and Felixstowe, and we should have warning of any renewed German push to the west,” he said. “Our main defence line will be here” — he drew a half-circle in front of Ipswich — “as preserving the road and rail connections in the city will be of paramount importance. Your unit, once reformed and rearmed, will join in the defences and hold the Germans.”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.

“You’ll be briefed on communications protocols as soon as you reach the line,” Barron concluded. “If we can hold them, we have a chance of putting an end to this invasion before half the country is overrun; good luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jackson said, saluting again.

The discussion with the Intelligence Corps office — a person whose face managed to combine attentiveness with a certain rat-like malice — was more like an interrogation. The interview was mainly focused on what sort of forces Jackson had seen, but the officer also managed to get in a few criticisms of Jackson’s operations, and even a hint that Jackson had fled in the face of the enemy. The missing Colonel Felton-Smith was also blasted, although as Jackson suspected he’d been caught by the Germans and either killed or captured, there was little point in ripping apart his reputation.

“This is a waste of my time,” he concluded, after the fourth suggestion that he had fled. “I don’t know enough for you to make any real recommendations to the General and you are preventing me from getting on with my job.”

The officer managed to look both astonished and suspicious. “It is impossible to say,” he said, in a voice that was more like a whine than a dignified tone, “just what part of the puzzle will allow the rest to fall into place. You may not know what you know, but if I can put it together with the remainder of my information, I may be able to learn something important. I have already learnt that the Germans have moved nine heavy freighters into the port and have sent out all of the ships that we had in harbour that were seaworthy.”

Jackson saw the implication at once. “They might be able to reinforce faster than we expected,” he realised. “Is that what you meant?”

“They have several divisions right on the other side of the Channel,” the officer informed him. “If we know how much tonnage they have at their disposal, we can estimate how quickly they can reinforce their forces and expand their beachhead.”

Jackson scowled at him. “If you’re so smart, how could you not know that the invasion was coming?”

“Some suspected trouble,” the officer admitted, grimly. “They just didn’t realise how the Germans would spearhead their attack.”

An hour later, Jackson stood on a car and examined the line of soldiers standing in front of him. Most of them were Home Guard; the survivors of his force and some others, a handful were regular soldiers who had been caught away from their regiments and had been co-opted into the makeshift company rather than being allowed to make their way back to their units. Jackson hoped that the army bureaucracy had managed to catch up with this change, or the men were likely to end up facing charges of desertion in the face of the enemy, which carried the death penalty. They would have to prove that the Home Guard had drafted them and that wasn’t going to be easy.

“We’ve taken a beating,” he said, grimly, watching them. They looked despondent, some of them bitterly determined to carry on fighting, others broken and shattered by the experience. The Germans had beaten them off and defeated them… and, for a unit that had never known defeat before, it could be disastrous. “They threw us back and killed hundreds of our friends and fellow soldiers, and they now think that they’ve won.”

He leaned forwards. “They’re dead wrong,” he decried. “We fought well and bravely against those paratroopers, and we chased them away from their targets. We hurt the Germans and now, without their advantage of surprise, we’re going to hurt them again. They’re going to come at us again and this time, we’re going to kick them right where it hurts! This is the sort of fighting we are trained to do, with weapons we understand and well-built positions, and we are going to hold the Germans. This time, we are going to hold!

“They’re going to come at us with tanks and heavy weapons, but we’re going to stop them,” he continued. “We’re going to hold and we’re going to make them regret that they ever came into our country and attacked us. Behind their lines, our wives and children are trapped… and we’re going to free them. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” they shouted back.

“I expect each and every one of you to hold the line until they withdraw or we are given orders to fall back,” Jackson thundered. “If a man should leave his post without orders, I’ll shoot him in the back myself. We are going to hold them, whatever it takes, and win time for our forces to regroup and crush the ratzis like bugs. No one breaks, no one runs; we hold and we fight as a body!”

The march through the countryside was surprisingly quick; they found the defence line, such as it was, without too many problems, although the presence of German aircraft, high in the sky, warned that the Germans were watching them. Jackson saw the German aircraft, so high up that it was barely visible, and wondered what had happened to the RAF. Had the remainder of the country been attacked as well? The General hadn’t said that there had been any other incursions, but if the Germans could have launched more than one, wouldn’t they have tried? The soldiers grumbled a little as they joined in the construction works, but Jackson was starting to realise that he might have made a mistake; the line just wasn’t very solid. They all knew how to dig foxholes and hiding positions for the guns, but when the Germans came down the road towards Ipswich, they were likely to have very few problems in punching through the line.

“I want those antitank guns set up to provide covering fire,” Jackson ordered, pushing his concerns aside while he prepared his lines. The colonel commanding the hundreds of men who were funnelling into the area seemed to have a clear idea of what he was doing, but he was clearly worried about being encircled; the Germans would probably have the advantage in manoeuvre war. They would want to take Ipswich intact, because of the road and rail connections, but they could do that by starving out the town, rather than simply trying to take it by storm.

It made him wonder what preparations were being made in Ipswich itself. Were there Home Guardsmen there being prepared for a siege, or were they considering declaring the city an open city, no soldiers from either side allowed. If that happened, the Germans would probably ignore the declaration, just as they had ignored a similar attempt on the part of the Russians. They had stormed Stalingrad by force and killed almost all of the inhabitants, those who hadn’t bowed the knee quickly enough. They had then gone on to impose their domination on large chunks of Russia, encouraged the Shah of Iran into rebellion, and won the war. Did anyone truly recognise the growing threat before it hit them?

He shook his head. The English countryside looked so safe and tranquil…

But, to the east, the Germans were gathering their forces. Soon, he knew, they would attack.

Chapter Seventeen

London, England

The Members of Parliament looked stunned and disorientated as they filed into the chamber, some of them fresh from viewing the damage to Downing Street and the results of the pitched battle in St James’ Park. The remaining German commandos had fought to the death and had left behind nothing but rubble when they had finally been crushed under the weight of superior fire-power Alex DeRiemer suspected that some of the commandos had actually escaped in the chaos, but it would be impossible to know for certain until they resurfaced, if they resurfaced. They might just have gone to ground and decided to wait until German panzers reached London.

He cast an eye down at Churchill. The former First Lord of the Admiralty and the new Prime Minister — almost all of the remaining Cabinet members were dead — looked grim. He’d spoken briefly to DeRiemer and Monty, ordering DeRiemer to stay with him and Monty to attempt to make some sense out of the reports that were pouring in from across the country. DeRiemer would have preferred to be working with the intelligence reports himself, but Churchill’s orders had been clear; he wanted the man who had predicted the new German offensive with him. DeRiemer didn’t know if he should feel honoured or very nervous.

The MPs settled down, quieter than normal. He saw a young lady in the Conservative ranks, her face pinched and grave, very grave. Others looked as if they were on the verge of heart attacks; the rumours placed the German Army within hours of London, something that was technically true, but only if they met no opposition.

DeRiemer was now convinced that Dover was a feint; the searching soldiers hadn’t encountered a single enemy parachutist, not even someone who had bailed out of a crashing aircraft. Dover was silent; the same could not be said for Suffolk. The Germans were on the land now, standing where Napoleon had failed; England had been invaded.

The Speaker gavelled for attention.

“Honourable Members,” he said, his own voice shaking, “I call upon the Right Honourable Winston Churchill, recently confirmed by His Majesty the King as Prime Minister, to address this august body.”

DeRiemer wondered, as Churchill stood up, just how tempted he had been to start his speech with ‘I told you so’. For the past seven years, Churchill and a small number of other politicians and military men had been a voice crying in the wilderness, warning the world that the threat of Nazi Germany had yet to end. His influence had seen some precautions taken, but they had proven themselves painfully inadequate when the Germans finally landed; DeRiemer felt that almost as a physical blow. If he had been able to predict the exact site of the German landing, they could have had an infantry battalion dug into the port, and the Home Fleet out of the harbour and protected by a cloud of RAF aircraft. If…

“Honourable Members of this House, I speak not only to you, but to the British Public,” Churchill said. He rarely spoke directly on the wireless; he had a slight stammer in his voice that was only apparent if people listened to him directly. Years of experience in public speaking had helped him suppress it until it was almost unnoticeable. “I come before you today with grave news; our country has been, for the first time in centuries, invaded by an enemy force. Yesterday evening, German forces landed in the Port of Felixstowe and commenced unloading the spearhead of a major fighting force aimed at nothing less than the conquest of our entire country.

“And yet, that is not the gravest of tidings,” he continued. “I must confirm to this house that Home Fleet was attacked last night from the air, a savage attack employing the most advance technology and anti-shipping weapons the Germans have at their disposal. It is with a heavy heart that I must confirm the loss of nine heavy capital ships and forty smaller ships. Even this setback pales in comparison to the deaths of thousands of our soldiers, sailors and airmen. The defenders of the harbour gave everything they could to stand the German Air Force off, but eventually the Germans were able to hit and seriously damage Home Fleet as a weapon of war.

“And yet, even that news is overshadowed by the German attack within the centre of London itself,” Churchill concluded. “I must confirm now, to the people of this great nation, that Prime Minister Atlee and dozens more were murdered by German commandos, who parachuted down into London. The commandos were finally defeated but in their wake they left nothing but destruction. Our country is bleeding, and yet…”

He seemed to be speaking directly to DeRiemer as he spoke.

“When Hitler showed himself for what he was, we did nothing,” he said. “When Hitler broke the bounds of international law, we did nothing. When we finally stood up to him, we found that he was too strong for us to handle any longer, and our valiant French allies went under, forced into a humiliating surrender and permanent submission to Hitler’s evil regime. We fought on, aiding those we could and salvaging what we could, but in the end, we made a critical error. We chose the easy way out.”

“We told ourselves that we could endure no longer,” he said, anger darkening his voice. “We told ourselves that all our allies, one by one, had fallen, and there was no disgrace in a peace without victory. We were safe from Hitler’s control, so there was no shame in coming to a respectable agreement with an honourable man… but did we understand that Hitler was not an honest man? Yes, we knew that, and yet we deluded ourselves that he would abide by a treaty that was only convenient for him for a short time. We allowed ourselves to let down our guard, and, yesterday, German forces thrust a knife at our nation’s heart.”

The Chamber seemed silent, wrapped up in the moment. “This is England’s darkest hour,” Churchill pronounced, and his words echoed in the air. “German forces are ashore in strength and are preparing an offensive towards London. When they come to London, they will attempt to take this proud city and shatter once and for all our empire. Hitler will remain unsatisfied until he has eaten the entire world, and now he has finally come for us… and we find ourselves in a weaker state than ever.”

He paused. “We have lost the ability to control the Channel,” he said. “Elements of the Royal Navy are steaming back towards England as fast as they can, but until they rendezvous with the remains of Home Fleet. We will have to stop the Germans in a war fought out in the villages and hills of England, a savage campaign that will lay waste to the land we love, but a campaign that must be fought.

“We know what defeat looks like,” he said, coldly. “We know the fate of the French, strangers in their own country. We know the fate of the Russians, broken into servitude. We even know the fate of the Italians, who are treated as dirt by their German allies… and we know just what fate the Nazis have in mind for the Turks, the Swiss, all the remaining free nations of Europe, including us. We know…

“And we will fight.

“I told this House once, long ago, that I could promise nothing, but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” he said. “I tell you now that we can win, and we will win, and we must win, so that a monster like Hitler can be defeated and prevented from controlling the entire world. If we are defeated, here, in our own lands, Hitler will have nothing preventing him from conquering the entire world. We will fight and we will win! Hitler’s empire will come to an end; we, we free people, bearers of the hopes and aspirations of an entire continent groaning under the yoke of slavery, will end him.

“There is no peace with Adolph Hitler,” he concluded. “We will fight him until he is defeated, or until he kills the last of us, who will never accept a role in his New Order. Today, we start fighting back!”

He sat down. After a pregnant pause, the entire chamber erupted into cheers and shouts, a handful of MPs singing ‘God save the King’. DeRiemer looked for the young female MP and met her eyes for a long moment; they, too, were glowing with passion and determination. For the moment, at least, Britain was united behind Churchill.

His lips twitched. All that they needed do now was drive the Germans back into the sea and then march to Berlin.

* * *

Kim Philby fancied himself as a man on the edge. As a young man, he had converted to communism and had, since then, followed orders from Moscow to remain above suspicion and continue to report from the heart of the British intelligence service. He’d accomplished a great deal over the years, gaining responsibility for monitoring the remains of the Soviet Union, an irony that never failed to make him smile. Moscow — through him — possessed near-perfect awareness of what their enemies were plotting, even Churchill’s desperate plan to have Beria assassinated and replaced with one of the Red Army Generals in hopes of keeping Russia in the war.

Philby hadn’t despaired when Beria had made the devil’s bargain with Adolph Hitler. It wasn’t unprecedented in the history of the Soviet Union — Lenin himself had made a bargain with the advancing Germans, buying time for Imperial Germany to collapse, as Lenin had predicted — and Philby had just continued to report, even through the hiatus that had followed when Moscow had fallen. The contact line had been re-established, however, and Philby had continued to feed reports to ‘contact zero’ until the day the Germans arrived.

He tasted brandy on his lips and looked up into the merciless eyes of Otto Skorzeny. He knew who Skorzeny was, of course; Radio Berlin had turned him into a superhuman, a perfect soldier and commanding officer, almost able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Skorzeny lived a charmed life, dancing through bullets as if they were nothing but rainfall; the only sign of any stress in his life was a scar that he’d picked up in the wars. If Skorzeny was Contact Zero, then…

Philby’s life had just shattered around him.

“Let me tell you a story,” Skorzeny said. “Moscow; nine years ago. The city has fallen, but a handful of senior NKVD officers are desperate to make a bargain with their new rulers, so they take their files to the senior SS office there and show him what they can offer. That man is none other than Himmler’s own personal hatchet man; he sees what they’re offering, arranges to have the building sealed off and examined by the SS, and takes the files back to Berlin. Himmler orders it to be kept a secret, checks through the files, and issues his orders. The windfall has to be used. A few months later, they make contact again with part of the chain that leads back to you, and start issuing orders.”

His face twisted into an ugly smile. “And you obey.

“You spend the next few years sending back all the information you could get you hands on,” he continued, his smile growing wider. “You get requests for information from the heart of the Soviet Union and you forward it on. You get requests about information on how Germany is penetrated by British Intelligence and you pass it on. You get requests about some dispositions of British forces and you pass it on… all unaware that you were working for the Reich. How does that make you feel?”

Philby blanched. His mind was racing, trying to find a way out of the predicament, but nothing presented itself. He’d had an evacuation plan for when the British finally realised what he’d been doing, but that plan had certainly fallen apart when Moscow fell; he’d almost certainly walk right into the hands of the Reich. If he made it to Russia, they probably wouldn’t be too happy to see him; from their point of view, he was an agent who had gone silent. He thought, briefly, about trying to talk MI5 into striking a deal, but…

“I know what you are thinking,” Skorzeny said, calmly. Philby jumped as the commando’s face came closer to this own. “You’re wondering if you can take us to the nearest army post and betray us, hoping to save your neck from the hangman’s noose. I don’t think that that would be a very good idea, Philby; your actions ensured the deaths of thousands of people in the Royal Navy and cleared the way for our invasion. You spied for us; once they finish laughing at you, you’ll be hung from the neck until you are dead.”

His hand stroked Philby’s neck; Philby flinched away, but didn’t dare lift a hand to brush Skorzeny away. “And that would be a great shame,” Skorzeny said. The touch of his hand was somehow soft yet threatening, crushing Philby’s soul as it moved around his vulnerable neck, reminding him that he could be killed by a single blow. “You have nowhere to go now, nowhere but the Reich. Your services have earned you a place in Germany, if you are prepared to help us now.”

Philby struggled, looking for an escape, but he couldn’t see one — apart from suicide. Skorzeny was right; if he were caught, the enormity of his crimes would ensure that he was tried in a secret session, then hung and his body buried somewhere without a marker. He hated the Reich, detested it and all it stood for, and he had worked faithfully to bring about its end… unaware that he had really been helping his ideological enemy. Hot tears stung his eyes as he started to shake; Skorzeny snorted in disgust and half-turned away, sparing Philby the sight of his smile.

He finally forced himself to speak, blinking away tears. “What do you want me to do?”

“Well, for the moment, I want you to play host to us,” Skorzeny said, easily. “There are six of us, but this house has quite enough room for us all, and I’m sure someone as well-connected as yourself can get enough ration cards to get the food to feed us without problems.”

Philby shuddered. “I can’t…”

“Of course you can,” Skorzeny said. “You’ve lived a double-life for so long that you don’t even remember how to be a normal person. How much did you enjoy the feeling of having put one over your employers? You were the perfect loyal British citizen in the daytime, but at night, you spied for the Reich, thinking you were serving the Rodina. You will have no problems at all feeding us.”

He leaned closer and produced a knife, holding it to Philby’s throat. “You may still be thinking of betraying us,” he warned, his voice darkening. “You could, I admit, run to the barracks and call out the militia. But believe me, if you did that, you would be hung by your own people or killed by me personally.”

Skorzeny said, “Your choice, if you want to remain alive, is no choice at all; you will help me and support us in our operations.”

“Fine,” Philby burst out, bitterly. The sense of submission was too bitter for him to taste. Skorzeny’s jeering face pushed at him in truly terrifying ways. He was starting to wonder if Skorzeny was even human; he’d heard strange tales of experimentations and disgusting medical procedures from the east, supervised by the eerie figure of Doctor Josef Mengele. “I’ll do what you say, provided I get something in Berlin.”

Skorzeny smiled, cat-like. “And what do you want in Berlin?”

“I want a place to live, some freedom, and no more work,” Philby said. He’d surrendered, he realised grimly; all he could do now was sell out for the best price he could get. The Germans would be able to compensate him for his woes; the other Cambridge Spies could take care of themselves. “I need something in return for my efforts.”

Skorzeny nodded. “That won’t be a problem,” he said. He managed a reassuring smile that somehow managed to be the most terrifying facial expression he had yet produced, unsettling and somehow mocking at the same time. “Once you get to Berlin, your usefulness will come to an end, one way or the other.”

Chapter Eighteen

Felixstowe, England

The knock on the door made Gregory Davall’s blood run cold; he’d been half-expecting it since the Germans had occupied the town an hour ago. He had watched through the windows as German soldiers, their uniforms and rank tabs identifying them as SS paramilitary occupation forces, marched through the town, showing a terrifying amount of discipline. The young men, physically perfect, all bearing the same expressionless face, had shown themselves to the townspeople, in what Davall knew to be an attempt to intimidate the British into submission.

“Stay here,” he hissed at Kate, wondering if he should try and make his escape. The Grey Wolves had been ordered to remain undercover for the first hours of the invasion, but he had a particular instruction he needed to carry out, one that would depend on remaining unsuspected by the Germans. He hadn’t been too impressed with what he’d seen of the British Eastern Command during his training; he wouldn’t have put it past them for the files containing his name and details to have fallen into German hands. They would certainly want to round the Grey Wolves up before they could cause trouble.

The knock was repeated as he reached the door and opened it, revealing the face of one of the town’s policemen, not the one who knew about the Grey Wolves. It would be difficult to carry out his orders without being detected by the Germans. It all depended on how much supervision they intended to develop over the town; the police would have orders to cooperate on a limited basis, in hopes of avoiding a direct German occupation. The Germans would be far harsher than anything the British could do.

“Mr Davall,” the policeman said, his voice strange in his ears. He was trying to remain firm and controlled, but Davall could hear the sick note of fear and desperate concern under his voice. “You and your family are ordered to present themselves at the Town Square at noon to hear a proclamation from the occupation authorities. I must warn you that failing to show yourself may result in arrest and possible detention.”

“I understand,” Davall said, keeping his voice calm. The Germans would want to ensure that everyone got the message. “We’ll see you there.”

He closed the door in the policeman’s face and walked back into the kitchen. “It doesn’t look as if we have any choice, but to go,” he said, to Kate. Her eyes went wide with fear; she’d crawled into the basement with him as the sounds of fighting had grown louder, holding James in her arms and almost squeezing him to death. “I think it’s going to be all right.”

Kate was smart enough — she’d been born the daughter of a fisherman — to know when he was trying to reassure her. “You’d best be careful,” she said, taking hold of him and pulling him to her. “I don’t want to lose you as well.”

Davall held Kate’s hand firmly — she held James in her other arm — as they emerged from the house just before noon. Their neighbours — some of them friends, some of them people they barely knew — all shared the same expression; fear. Looking at them, Davall suspected that the Germans had already won half the battle; the people were defeated, trying to avoid the gaze of their new masters. He tried to muster an encouraging smile as he met the eyes of people he knew, but as they walked onwards, he started to feel it himself, a sickening dread deep in the pit of his stomach. The Grey Wolves had thought they’d known what being occupied meant, he realised, but they hadn’t had the slightest real understanding.

The town square was just in front of a grassy park, a place where children and teenagers had used to play; he remembered that a group of schoolchildren had played football there yesterday, one of them accidentally breaking a window with a mistimed kick. There were still children now, joined by their parents and relatives, watched by blank-faced Germans who showed no sign of even recognising that the British existed. The civilians slunk around the sentries, a defeated people trying to avoid the notice of their victors, and joined the milling crowd in the park.

Davall kept his face expressionless as he took in the sight. The Mayor was fond of hectoring people from the steps of the Town Hall; now, there were two heavy machine guns set up around the building, and hundreds of German soldiers standing in position, their eyes missing nothing. A large red flag hung from the Town Hall pole, flapping listlessly in the breeze, but revealing just enough of itself to prove that it was a Nazi flag. The black crooked cross was all too clear.

A Swastika, Davall thought, and shuddered.

Precisely at noon, a German mounted the podium and peered down at the crowd. Davall disliked him on sight; he had a pinched, sallow face with eyes that suggested a touch of jaundice. His black uniform drank in the sunlight; he showed no visible reaction to the occasional bursts of gunfire that rang out in the distance, sending shock-waves of fear through the crowd.

“Thank you for coming,” the German said with what felt like inane politeness. He spoke perfect English, with just a hint of upper-class in his voice; it made Davall wonder if some of the rumours about members of the aristocracy coming to terms with the Germans were actually true. The BBC hadn’t made any broadcast in the morning; they’d listened for a signal. “This town is now under the control of the Greater German Reich, operating under the authority of the Fuhrer. I advise you to listen carefully and heed my words.

“For the time being, we intend to leave you as undisturbed as possible,” he continued. Davall felt Kate’s hand tightening on his hand. “However, I must inform you that any attempt to interfere with our activities, report our activities to any enemies of the Reich, or to carry out anything we feel is designed to hamper our efforts will meet with the severest punishment under German military law. Specifically, depending upon the severity of the offence, punishment will either consist of a long stay in a work camp on the continent or death by firing squad. These sentences are fixed and there is no appeal.

“We must therefore insist that you hand over all weapons and radio transmitters, immediately,” he continued. “If anyone is found in possession of a weapon after today, it will be taken as a sign of your active participation in an insurgent group and you will be severely punished. All citizens will register with the local SS office as soon as one is established, whereupon you may continue with your lives or apply for well-paid work assisting the German forces.

You may not leave this area without permission and if you are caught trying to do so, it will result in the severest punishment. Any action taken to harass the occupying forces, regardless of its nature, will result in the severest of punishments. Any member of the British Army, Home Guard, or volunteer forces caught within the occupied zone who does not make themselves known to the occupation forces will incur the severest punishment.”

Davall watched him as he spoke, adding more crimes that would face the severest of punishments, and felt a cold wellspring of fear in his heart. The German was trying to sound as if he cared about the people, and was only trying to act on their behalf, but there was something in the way he breathed the word ‘punishment’ that suggested that something wasn’t quite right with his head. He didn’t look that healthy; was he suffering from an inferiority complex, or did he have some disease?

“In the long term, we expect that this town will become a peaceful and productive part of the Reich,” the German concluded. “You will have access to the ports on the other side of the Channel and your people will be in a good position to make business contacts in the Reich that will bring new prosperity to this town. We ask only that you obey our laws and prevent any of your fellows from causing trouble. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.”

The townspeople dispersed slowly, some talking in whispers, others trying to escape the Germans as fast as they could; they would be running if the crowd had allowed them passage. Davall found himself looking at the German vehicles and wondering how large a Molotov cocktail would be required to damage them. A PIAT might be required to damage the heavy vehicles; bullets would just glance off them as they advanced towards the shooters. The Germans had done well to show off their weapons to the British civilians; they wanted to make the veiled threat very clear.

Kate tugged at his arm and he allowed her to lead him away from the square, pausing only to pick up one of the leaflets the Germans had given to a group of children to disperse. The leaflet reflected an odd sense of German priorities, ranging from a repeat of their instructions to turn in all guns and radio transmitters, to setting a sunset curfew; anyone found on the streets after dark would be arrested and — as he had expected — severely punished. The leaflets wouldn’t even be good for wiping his behind; he could only hope that they had taken up space on a German ship that could have housed some ammunition or a few dozen German soldiers. The Germans themselves were patrolling vigorously, small groups walking down the centre of the road in perfect step, ignoring the British citizens.

“They will count on using your perceptions to fill in gaps,” his instructor had told him. She’d come from Holland, escaping two years after the Germans invaded. She’d made it out with a Jewish family, winning Britain a propaganda coup but little else. “They will patrol heavily to mask their weakness and convince you that they are everywhere, all-powerful and all-knowing. You must choose your targets carefully.”

Kate closed the door behind them with an audible sigh of relief. “Greg… are you going to be doing anything tonight?”

“I think so,” Davall said, wondering what he should do. He knew what he had to do — and delay could prove fatal — but if he went in the night, the Germans were likely to be mounting constant patrols, just to hammer in the message. If he got caught, it could prove fatal for Kate, as well as the other Grey Wolves. “Kate, love… it’s better that you don’t know.”

“Of course,” Kate agreed, angrily. “If you don’t come back, I’ll kill you myself.”

Davall didn’t smile. The joke was likely to hit too close to home. If the Germans caught him, they might make Kate a widow without her ever knowing that her husband was dead. Worse, they might ship him off to one of the work camps they ran in France or Germany, leaving Kate to hope that one day, he would be returned. They might also decide to put him to use in one of the factories here; he might be a worker in a electronics workshop, but the Germans would certainly see him as someone who could work for them. Skilled workers were important.

“I won’t let them kill me,” he promised, and sipped his cup of tea. “I’ll come back to you.”

It was an hour later when he wandered over towards the block of soulless flats that had been erected two years ago to house some of the dockyard workers and their friends. The Mayor and Town Council had been delighted at having hundreds of new people flowing into Felixstowe, but the local population had been much less happy at the deluge of workers from across Britain and ship crewmen from across the world. They’d seen the arrival of small groups of Germans, Frenchmen, Balts and even a few Swedes as a sign that their community was changing, particularly when they started getting into fights. They’d ended up with the mind numbing apartments and a strip of bars and clubs near the dockyards that attracted, much to the irritation of the older residents, far too many of the younger generation. Felixstowe was a pretty conservative place in the world… and the influx of newcomers threatened that…

His lips twitched. The German underlying message had been all-too-clear. They would keep their word and develop Felixstowe, but only as one of their ports. In time, they would change the place completely and the old population would either be assimilated or driven out. They’d done it before in Norway and France; they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again in Britain. He grimaced inwardly as he passed through the door and entered the flat, wrinkling his nose as the smell of urine and vomit reached his nostrils. He had never understood why Constable Toby Johnston would choose to live in such a dump; his only real explanation was that the Town Council had thought that having a policeman living there would be good for the building, and Johnston had drawn the short straw.

He knocked on the door, waited nearly five minutes, then used his skeleton key to open the door and slip inside. The policeman’s apartment was neat and tidy, arranged with military precision, but with enough hints of humanity to remind Davall that his target was a living breathing human being. He searched the flat quietly and professionally, noting the position of some valuables; he’d have to take them to show a reason for the murder. The window was inoperable, but he peered out through the grime anyway, looking out to sea. A massive German freighter was coming in to dock.

The sight almost made him despair. From his vantage point, it looked as if the Germans had it all their own way. Where was the Royal Navy? Where were our boys? Where was the RAF? What was happening further into Britain? He could see armoured columns snaking off into the distance, their crews seizing as much territory as possible; it looked as if their main target was Ipswich. It wasn’t that far off by car. How long would it take for a panzer tank to cover the distance?

Bastards, he thought, as he settled down to wait. He’d done enough poaching on his training course that he knew how to be patient, but the feeling in his belly kept disturbing him; he’d placed himself in a very vulnerable position, compromised his own safety — and that of Kate’s and their son — for his country. That was true of every soldier — he remembered his attempt to join the army with a moment of bitter amusement — but in his case, it was worse. He wouldn’t be covered by any rules if he were to be captured… for a moment, long enough to seem an eternity, he teetered on the brink of running, abandoning the mission and hiding himself somewhere in the forest. He knew it well enough to be sure that he could hide from the Germans indefinitely. He could hide…

The sound of the lower door opening and footsteps moving up the stairs forced his hand. He darted, silently, into a corner and raised his cosh. He’d been taught how to use it on dummies, which were harder than any human head, but the person he was about to face might be wearing a helmet. He tensed as he heard a key rattling in the lock, refusing to breathe as the door opened, revealing the shape of Johnston’s head as he stepped into the flat and walked over to the kitchen. Davall lunged forward and brought the cosh down, but Johnston moved slightly and the cosh just missed its target, sending Johnston falling to the floor. Davall cursed under his breath and fell on top of Johnston, his hand reaching down and covering the policeman’s mouth before he could scream, while his other hand dropped the cosh and drew a knife.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as he stabbed downwards, once. Johnston’s body jumped under the sudden shock, almost throwing Davall off his back, but a second later all the life left him and he lay still. Davall let go of his mouth and turned the body over, confirming that he’d killed the right person, a man he’d known for more than seven years.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, as he worked with frantic haste. Johnston’s superiors would be expecting him back at the police station in an hour, unless the Germans had forced them to change their timetables, and when he didn’t show up, they would start looking for him. He picked up some valuables, removed the knife and cosh, and then left the room, closing the door behind him. Behind him, a dead body lay on the floor, taking its secrets to the grave. The one man who could have named all of the Grey Wolves was dead.

Davall calmed himself as he made his way out of the flat and back into the main streets, pausing only to drop the valuables in a waste bucket before slowly making his way home. The Germans he passed on the streets ignored him, but he took care anyway as he entered his own street, keeping one eye out for them as he opened the door and sighed. He’d killed a man with his own hands; he expected that he would feel different, but all he felt was numb, dispassionate. Johnston had died, but his death should have affected his killer more, right?

In the distance, he could hear the sound of guns.

Chapter Nineteen

London, England

“I think that we can get started now,” Churchill said, as he took his seat at the head of the table. The conference room might be buried under a London that was being bombed intermittently, but it was still surprisingly comfortable; the insight into how the rich and powerful lived made DeRiemer roll his eyes. “For the moment, Parliament has granted us the power to run the war to the bitter end, so… where exactly do we stand?”

The heads of the services exchanged short glances. “I have an update from Admiral Fraser at Scapa Flow,” Admiral Cunningham said after a long pause. “The surviving units of Home Fleet have decamped from Scapa and are sailing to the Tail of the Bank, up at the Clyde; Scapa Flow is too insecure for continued use. The base itself took a serious pounding, and while we can repair much of the damage quickly, the remaining facilities will take months to repair. At best, we’re looking at weeks of heavy repair work at massive cost.

“Home Fleet itself is a shadow of its former self,” he continued. “All the carriers were destroyed and most of the heavy ships were lost or damaged; the damaged units will take months to repair, even assuming that we could get them to a dockyard without the Germans turning their attention to completing the job. The net result, Prime Minister, is that the Germans have effective control over the North Sea as far south as Dover, and can reinforce almost at will.”

Churchill looked as if he had been struck a physical blow. “We cannot prevent the Germans from reinforcing their positions?”

“The main forces earmarked for that role were Home Fleet and assorted destroyer and MTB units based along the east coast,” Cunningham said, grimly. “Home Fleet has a handful of smaller units left, but they don’t have the fire-power to survive against the German battleships and carriers. One of the MTB units was actually based at Felixstowe; one of their ships managed to escape before the Germans seized the harbour, the others were either destroyed in the fighting or were captured and pressed into German service.

“I have ordered MTB units and submarines to launch attacks as and when they can against German ships and have ordered everything of ours out of the war zone, so that they don’t have to worry too much about hitting our ships,” he concluded. “Regardless, our ability to prevent the Germans from reinforcing their bridgehead is severely reduced and if we attack, we will lose units we can ill spare.”

Churchill held his eyes for a long moment. “What do you recommend we do?”

“We have to recall the Mediterranean and Eastern Fleets at once,” Cunningham said. “As long as the Germans control the seas, they can land more or less wherever they like, preventing us from concentrating against their beachhead. Once we have those units concentrated and backed up by the RAF, we can engage the German fleet in a duel and defeat them, ending their ability to supply their forces.”

Churchill nodded. “And how long will it take to reinforce to that degree?”

Cunningham said as he tapped the map. “It depends. The Suez Canal is going to be blocked very soon by the Italians and their German reinforcements, which will mean that the Eastern Fleet will have to sail directly from Singapore to Panama, and then from Panama to Gibraltar. The Germans will be aware of that threat, and we can expect them to throw all of their submarines at the Eastern Fleet, maybe even a commando assault against Panama, aimed at blocking the canal. At best, Prime Minister, I’d say forty days, which might be too optimistic.”

“There’s no helping it,” Churchill said, slowly. For a moment, the old war-dog looked beaten down by events. “What about the air force?”

Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory scowled. He’d been accused, years ago, of having fomented a plot to remove one of his predecessors, the iron-willed Hugh Dowding, from his post. He was nervous. Dowding himself was still alive and Churchill might recall the man who had won the last Battle of Britain to take command of the current fighting. Dowding was a skilled and experienced officer, with many enemy kills to his credit, but there was that question mark over his loyalties.

“Enemy raids were directed against our airfields. Almost every airbase and radar station along the east coast was hit, sometimes badly,” Leigh-Mallory said, his accented voice, rich with the tone of the upper-class, rolling out over the table. “The combat air patrols in many places fought bravely and well, but the scale of the attacks were beyond our immediate capability to deal with them, particularly when the chain of command began to break down under the scale of the crisis. Once we gained a picture of what the Germans were doing, I ordered the RAF units in Scotland to concentrate on defending Scapa Flow, but as their own airbases were under attack, many aircraft were caught between two fires.”

He paused. “As the hours wore on, we were able to rotate planes from the western airfields and reinforce the planes already in the air,” he continued. “The Germans now have the capability to hit almost anywhere within Britain, but once our forces were in the air, we were able to attain local superiority over the west coast and expand our presence down to London…”

“Too late,” Churchill commented grimly. The RAF had made its appearance in the skies over London unable to prevent the Germans from launching their final bombing raids. “What about the current situation?”

“The Germans are raiding us hourly,” Leigh-Mallory said, ignoring the accusing tone in Churchill’s voice. “The main targets of the attacks are still airfields and radar stations but this time the Germans have studied their failure in the last war and have adapted their tactics to hammer away at our command and control network. We have something like five hundred fighter jets in service at the moment — we lost nearly two hundred in the first encounter — but we have effectively lost control over the south-east of England.”

He nodded towards the map. “I have hopes that that situation can be reversed fairly quickly, but for the moment, our ability to resist the Germans in the air has been badly reduced,” he said, slowly. “One new weapon the Germans have revealed — which we never had a word of warning about — is a bomb that somehow homes in on radar emissions, destroying the radar installation and severely damaging the station itself. The boffins are currently working on ways to jam it, but until we can develop a countermeasure, I must warn you that our ability to stand off a German raid has been greatly reduced.”

Churchill said nothing for a long moment. “We are relying on you and your men to hold the air for us,” he said finally. “I expect your men to fly constantly if that’s what’s needed to keep the skies above our army clear. What about our ability to hit back at the Germans?”

“Bomber Command is ready and raring to go,” Leigh-Mallory said, glancing down at a sheet of paper on the desk. “It has been suggested that they concentrate on targeting the German fleet, but the presence of the five German carriers means that they will be unable to hit the Germans hard enough to break their ships, so I suggest concentrating our targeting on the invasion ports and damaging them enough to interfere with the German ability to reinforce.”

Monty glared at him. “Our men on the ground need support from your boys,” he snapped, angrily. “Where is that support when they need it, hey?”

Leigh-Mallory glared back at him. “The Germans are maintaining a constant combat air patrol over their landing zones and have augmented that with defences on the ground and several radar stations on British soil,” he snapped back. “Everything I send into the area gets shot down; I cannot even get you some aerial recon pictures because they have the ability to shoot them down! Their reconnaissance aircraft are drifting over the country at will and I cannot do anything to stop them!””

“Enough,” Churchill said, shortly. “This is a council of war, not a fighting room. Monty, just how do we stand on the ground?”

Monty looked over at DeRiemer. “Alex did most of the work of pulling it all together,” he said, nodding to the map on the wall. “I believe that he should give the briefing.”

“Thank you, General,” DeRiemer said. He’d learned that Monty preferred to be addressed as General. “As you know, gentlemen, England has been invaded by the armed forces of the Greater German Reich, the first landings being effected at roughly 1900 last night, despite the best efforts of the Home Guard. Since then, the Germans have expanded their beachhead in the direction of Ipswich and, we expect, will assault the town in the next few hours.”

He paused. “We have debriefed every man and woman who has come out of the invasion zone, before passing them on to form new units,” he continued. “We have confirmed that the Germans have received at least seven large ships in the port and have press-ganged British workmen into helping them unloading their ships, providing a rough estimate of around ten thousand Germans with their armoured support. The presence of panzers and armoured fighting vehicles has been confirmed and we expect their troops numbers to multiply rapidly. Intelligence believes, as I said, that the Germans intend to take Ipswich and use it as a hub of their operations, which we believe will be aimed at London.”

“Makes sense,” Churchill said, after a moment’s pause. “London is the linchpin of our society and if they can take it, continuing the struggle will be difficult. How long do you think it will be before the Germans will assault the town?”

“Hours, at most,” DeRiemer said. “They should know that we’ll be straining every sinew to reinforce General Barron as quickly as possible, so the more they spread out, the harder it will be to dislodge them. As they have almost uninterrupted recon capability, they will be able to target their assaults with the aim of destroying the defences and capturing or killing the soldiers.”

“Once the army goes, the town becomes impossible to defend,” Monty said.

“We must launch a counter-attack at once,” Churchill said, suddenly. “If we cannot beat the Germans on the water, we must defeat them on the land before they have a chance to build up and break out of their lodgement…”

Monty took the plunge. “Prime Minister, that will be impossible at the moment,” he said. “Perhaps I could brief you…?” Churchill nodded irritably. “The Germans have damaged a great deal of our transport network, which means that it will take us days, at least, to move heavy forces into Suffolk to reinforce General Barron. The armoured forces can be moved fairly quickly, but the Germans will break out before we can build up enough to stop them, although I am sure that General Barron will bleed them badly.”

“So, you think that we will lose Ipswich?” Churchill asked. “Do you expect us to win the war?”

Monty didn’t rise to the bait. “I believe that Ipswich is currently impossible to defend successfully,” he said, after a moment. “We need to focus our efforts on first stopping, then defeating, the German army, but our contingency plans concentrated on a defence of the Dover region. By landing in Felixstowe, the Germans have outmanoeuvred us in the first blow, outflanking most of the defences until they reach the GHQ line around London. Their success presents us with a serious problem.”

His hand traced a line on the map. “I propose that we concentrate the defence line here, here, and here; a line running from Colchester to Cambridge to Peterborough. If we have to, we’ll focus part of the line at Chelmsford, which will present us with some reserves when — if — the Germans break through the early line. I propose, furthermore, that we concentrate our own mobility forces behind this line, in preparation for an early assault if the Germans somehow fail to take advantage of their own mobility and attack the defence line. It should be possible, within a week, to have enough men and fire-power in the area to give the Germans pause.”

Churchill studied the map. “And if they decide to strike out in a different direction?”

“I am hopeful, Prime Minister, that that is what they will do,” Monty said. He tapped the map thoughtfully. “There’s very little point in trying to strike north in the direction of Edinburgh, or even as far as Newcastle, as there’s much less there to attract their attention. They must know that as long as the British Army remains in being, their conquests will be anything, but stable — therefore, destroying our army is their top priority.

“Ideally, we would want to lure them into ground of our own choosing, as Wavell did in Egypt during 1st Alamein,” he continued. “We have large Home Guard forces massing to the north of London, and up in the direction of Manchester and Liverpool; given time, we’ll out-mass them, so they will want to crush us as quickly as possible. It is my intention, Prime Minister, to meet that assault and defeat it.”

Churchill leaned forwards, his eyes afire. “Can you defeat it?”

“It depends on how much time we have to make preparations,” Monty said. “We may have to rely on our underground forces to delay the Germans enough to build a defence line that will hold them and break them.”

Churchill looked over at Major General Colin Gubbins. “One simple question,” he said, “can the Auxiliaries distract the Germans?”

“For a short period of time,” Gubbins admitted. “Unfortunately, by the very nature of the units, it is difficult to assign them any orders, specific or otherwise. The orders we did give them were to go to ground during the early stages of the invasion, but to commence attacks as soon as possible. We do not, however, have any specific locations for their targets.”

“I understand,” Churchill said. “What about the cells overseas?”

The master of the Special Operations Executive sighed. “There has always been a reliability problem with the cells we attempted to form over in France and most of Western Europe; they may hate the Nazis, but they don’t want to risk themselves when there’s no hope of freedom. Our ability to encourage them to do things has always been limited, mainly restricted to providing weapons in exchange for intelligence and some other support, but now… well, they’re not going to want to risk themselves for us.”

He shook his head. “I will attempt to encourage them, Prime Minister, but setting Europe ablaze will probably be well outside their capabilities,” he said. “I have higher hopes for our own units on the ground, but we have very little in the way of communications with them, mainly carrier pigeons and some buried cables.”

“I see,” Churchill said. He looked over at Monty. “I am appointing you overall commander of British forces in the field,” he said. “I want you to bring victory, understand?”

“Yes, Prime Minister,” Monty said. If it occurred to him that he’d just pledged to defeat an army that had beaten every other army in Europe and defeated the British Army in several bitter engagements, it didn’t show on his face. DeRiemer hoped, for Britain’s sake, that he knew what he was doing. “I shall see to it at once.”

“Good,” Churchill said. “Admiral, Air Chief, I expect you to bend every effort in getting as much help as possible to the troops, understand?” They both nodded. “Good; meeting adjourned DeRiemer, stay here one moment.”

DeRiemer waited until the room was clear. “Prime Minister, I…”

Churchill shook his head. “Jack,” he said, addressing one of the guards, “please send in Professor Anderson.”

Professor Anderson proved to be the kind of man who made DeRiemer want to stay a safe distance from him; he combined an air of scientific genius with a distinct air of being willing to experiment with anything, anywhere, even to the point of blowing up a cup of coffee just to see what would happen. He had short hair, a face that suggested that he had managed to singe his goatee off numerous times, and wore a suit that somehow managed to appear like a lab coat.

“Thank you for coming,” Churchill said. Anderson didn’t look awed at being addressed by the Prime Minister; he looked more irritated at being dragged away from his work than anything else. “I need a complete briefing on the Omega Project, right now.”

DeRiemer listened in growing disbelief as Anderson outlined progress, much of which was well above his head, his comprehension dwindling as Anderson’s explanation became more and more complicated. Churchill listened as if he heard speeches like that every day, which was actually quite possible. When Anderson finished, DeRiemer was left feeling completely puzzled, and bemused. Why had Churchill wanted him to hear that?

“I don’t want to hear more science at the moment,” Churchill said, curtly. “I just need the answer to two questions; how long until you can produce a working device?”

Anderson considered it. “The funding for the project was cut back sharply in 1944,” he said. “We have much of the theory, but not the equipment to test the theories and build the device. It would take at least six months with an unlimited budget; once the Americans discontinued their interest in the project, we lost access to their research as well.”

He hesitated. “It has been suggested that the Americans actually completed the project,” he admitted. “They just never shared anything after Dewey took office.”

“I need you to complete a device as soon as possible,” Churchill said. “The country is under attack, Professor, and your country needs you.” He smiled grimly. “There’s one other point… do the Germans have an atomic bomb themselves?”

Chapter Twenty

Near Ipswich, England

It had been sheer luck that they’d been in the area, although Captain Thomas Bashford would not have used the term luck, not when it meant that their tiny force of tanks was right in the middle of the German advance. Bashford’s small unit of eleven Centurion tanks had been running a small exercise in the fields to the north when they’d been surprised to hear the sound of firing in the distance, coming from the east, just as they lost all of their communications. Bashford had waited, sending runners back to the GHQ to find out what was going on, and finally a Jeep from General Barron had found them. The Germans had invaded Britain!

Bashford’s orders were simple enough; his unit, which had been armed for a live-fire exercise, was to delay the Germans as much as possible. It hadn’t been easy sneaking the tanks into position to the east of Ipswich and they’d lost two tanks to the Germans before they’d taken up their positions overlooking the road towards Felixstowe. If the Germans wanted to advance quickly, Bashford knew, they’d have to use the road… and he would get at least one good shot at them before they returned fire. As the sun rose higher in the sky, Bashford found himself tensing; the presence of German aircraft in the sky proved that the Germans were closing in on his position.

His radio buzzed suddenly. “Attention, Tommy Boy, Mother has gone to market,” it buzzed, the signal wavering in and out of coherence as German jamming systems fought to confuse the British still further. The speaker was positioned on a hill watching for signs of advance; the code words warned that the first Germans were on their way. “Mother wants ten eggs and two loaves of bread.”

She’ll be lucky, Bashford thought, mentally translating the signal into ten enemy panzers and two companies of infantry. The Germans would try to push their panzers as far west as they could and break through the defence lines; his force would have to delay the Germans long enough for defensive lines to be constructed to the south-west, towards London, but he knew that he couldn’t hold them for long. The Germans would advance their infantry as fast as possible, probably armed with portable antitank rockets or German PIAT weapons.

He leaned down into the tank’s turret. “Load HEAT round,” he said, as if they hadn’t been preparing for the fight even before they had suddenly been pitched into a very real war. “Bob, move us as soon as we fire.”

The tension rose as the radio buzzed a second warning, followed by a flight of German aircraft passing overhead, heading towards Ipswich to launch attacks on targets within the town. Bashford tensed as a second flight flew overhead, following up on the earlier mission; if the Germans knew where they were, they would prefer to send a rocket-armed fighter after his tank rather than send one of their panzers. He would be able to shoot back at a panzer. They’d camouflaged the tank as best as they could, but the planes had a bird’s eye view of the surrounding territory and might just see them from above. If that happened…

Something was moving in the distance. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes and peered towards the newcomers, drawing in a breath as he made out the shape of Panzer V tanks. The Germans called them Panthers, if he recalled correctly; they’d built them for service in Russia after encountering the Russian T-34 tank. The Russians might have been lousy soldiers, but they’d been good engineers, and the T-34 had actually proven itself to be better than anything the Germans had had. If they hadn’t had a megalomaniac with a well-developed sense of paranoia commanding their forces, the Soviets might actually have won and defeated the Germans.

If that had happened, we’d probably be standing off a Soviet invasion, he thought, as the next set of German vehicles advanced. They had motorcycle scouts out, and they were advancing fast enough to ensure that they would trip any ambushes the British might have set. Bashford pushed ‘what might have beens’ out of his mind as the gunner loaded the round and carefully brought the Centurion’s massive gun to bear on the lead German panzer. It was one of the command vehicles, Bashford saw. There were dozens of aerials sticking out of its hull, while it was protected by a smaller force of German infantry. The infantry would be a problem; Germans were trained to react quickly to surprises and would advance as quickly as possible against his position when that happened.

“Fire,” he commanded. The tank shook violently as it fired the first shell; the remainder of his unit fired seconds later, their shells racing through the air and striking their targets. Bashford saw a German panzer explode into a ball of flame as the first shell struck it, then a second and a third, and then the driver yanked the tank back just as the German turrets traversed with frightening speed. He cursed as a shell exploded only meters from their position. The Germans were firing back and trying to hit his units before they could escape. He barked an order to the driver and the tank spun around, briefly shielded from enemy fire by the ridge, heading for their second planned firing position. “Reload; antitank round!”

One of his tanks exploded as the Germans found their range, the noise of their shellfire deafening Bashford, even through the helmet he wore. He cursed, seeing that none of the crew had managed to escape, and said a silent prayer for them under his breath. The noise of shellfire suddenly grew louder and a volley of shells came screaming down as the German long-range guns focused in on their position. He smiled grimly as he ducked into the turret; unless the Germans got lucky and scored a direct hit, they were unlikely to actually manage to do more than churn up the ground.

The chatter of the machine gun was deafeningly loud in the confined space as the loader opened fire, aiming at a squad of German infantrymen who had just appeared on the other side of the ridge, lifting a rocket launcher and taking aim at the tank. Two of them scythed backwards in a gout of blood, the others threw themselves down to the ground and tried to aim their weapon, ignoring the danger. The rocket missed by centimetres as the tank lurched away, the main turret traversing to aim at a German panzer that was itself taking aim at them. It fired, destroying the German vehicle.

“Panzer,” the gunner cried, as a third German tank appeared. This one was quicker; they fired a shell towards the tank and barely hit their target, the shell slamming into the tracks. The tank slewed to a halt as the gunner threw a round back at the Germans, but the sudden movement had ruined his aim and put their shell somewhere into the distance.

“Abandon vehicle,” Bashford ordered, and dove for the hatches. They were a sitting duck now, and the Germans wouldn’t hesitate to kill them after they’d hit them. The crewmen followed him as the cabin began to fill with smoke; coughing and gasping, they scrambled out and immediately ran to the west. If the tank was burning, it would only be a matter of time before the flames reached the ammunition and…

The tank exploded. Bashford forced himself forwards, knowing that they would only have moments to escape back towards the British lines, but it was too late. He drew his side-arm with one hand as German bullets began to whistle past them. He threw himself into a ditch, crawling as fast as he could. The noise of shells overhead grew louder as the Germans pounded their targets, but the noise grew and grew to the point where he was wondering if he was the target, him personally. His crew had vanished. He clutched his weapon as he heard German voices and shouts behind him, preparing to make a final stand.

He heard them shouting before he saw them, icy German-accented voices barking a command, ordering him to throw down his weapon and put up his hands. He ignored it, knowing the fate of many German prisoners of war, and took aim in the direction of the voices. The bullet came out of nowhere and cut through his head, sending him down into darkness, but at the end, he was happy. The German advance had been delayed.

* * *

“Never mind the British tanks,” Hauptmann Johann Bothe barked, as the line of panzers crested the hill and pushed through the remaining British positions. They left ten wrecked panzers in the wake, all picked off by the British tanks when they had emerged from their hiding places to open fire. The ambush had been a complete surprise.

Bothe glared down at his map. Rommel had divided his forces into two prongs, one heading to the north-west and the other heading to the south-west, catching Ipswich between them and hopefully forcing the British to stand and fight. The Germans had done something similar at Moscow, he recalled, but Ipswich was much smaller than the Russian capital and probably not important enough for the British to make the linchpin of their defences. Rommel’s plan hoped to prevent the British from making more than a temporary stand, but they’d shown themselves to have teeth even if they were on the run. The lost panzers could be replaced quickly, assuming the sea lanes remained secure, but the time spent fighting their way out of the ambush could not be recovered.

Ask me for anything but time, he thought, as he barked orders to the infantry. 7th Panzer was Rommel’s own unit. A core division that had seen action in France under him, before being moved to the Western Desert and then to Russia for the final operations against Beria. It was the best fighting unit in the Wehrmacht, armed with the latest tanks and armoured personnel carriers… and supported by some of the most advanced German technology. A small air force was devoted to covering them from the air and, they even had their own organic support units. 7th Panzer was an army in its own right, one altered and modified by Rommel until it matched his tactics.

The radio hissed in his ear as the artillery units to the east pounded the British position again. The British lines were forming up in front of Ipswich, and Rommel had altered his orders slightly; Bothe’s prong would spread out a little more, in hopes of catching British soldiers before they could escape from the trap. Bothe snapped an order into his own radio and the panzer lurched back into motion, heading towards the west… and then cutting out across the country. A fence, designed to hold horses and sheep inside a farm, provided no barrier at all to the panzers; they just crashed through and kept going, navigating by their maps and the compasses.

“Don’t stop for anything,” he spat, as the infantry advanced in their own units. They were passing through small villages, some of which would have made formidable defence strong points if the British had had a week to prepare them, but there were no signs of any defenders, apart from a handful of Home Guardsmen who opened fire from a prepared position, throwing grenades towards the panzers. Bothe took the measure of the threat at once and ordered the panzers to charge the Home Guard position, smashing through their barricade and driving right down the centre of their village. He held himself low as the Guardsmen tried to hit him, but as the German infantry advanced, they found out that they had worse problems.

The panzers slowed as they left the village, waiting for the infantry to catch up with them again, and then Bothe heard a shot. It was aimed at one of his panzer commanders; he saw, astonished, as the commander collapsed into his panzer. The panzers division turned as one and poured a hail of machine gun fire into the nearest building. As the infantry arrived, they were sent into the building. Bothe had hoped that the sniper was dead, but as the infantrymen emerged, he saw that three of them were holding a young man, and others were escorting an older family. A father, a mother, two daughters…

“This is the one who fired the shot,” the infantry leader reported, shaking the younger man. Bothe examined him thoughtfully; he was nineteen, if he was a day, and wore no uniform. He should have been in the army or the Home Guard, but for some reason the lout hadn’t been anywhere, but at home. “This is his family.”

The father proved to speak German. “Sir, my son didn’t mean to fire at you,” he said. “He…”

“Fired at us from ambush, killed one of my men, and did it without wearing a uniform,” Bothe snarled, unwilling to deal with it. A captured British soldier was sent back to the detention camps, where he would be well-treated. An insurgent had no such options. They needed to discourage resistance or the invasion would bog down. “Did you know that he was going to fire on us?”

He didn’t wait for the answer. “Hang him from that tree,” he called to the infantrymen, who went to work with a will. The mother was screaming as she saw her son being dragged over to the tree; his father lunged forward, only to be brought up short by two of the infantrymen, who sat on him as their comrades rigged up a quick rope. Bothe watched dispassionately as they attached it around the young man’s neck, despite his struggles, and pulled. A moment later, it was all over.

Bothe shook his head, unsure of his own feelings. That young man could have been him, if the war had gone a little differently; like all who’d grown up with the Hitler Youth, he was sworn to the defence of Germany. He might have taken up a weapon and used it himself in the defence, maybe even without any formal training or without a uniform. It was easy to feel sorry for the family, but in the end, there had been no choice. If the young man had wanted to fight, he could have enlisted and fought in the army, instead of wasting his life by attacking a column of German panzers single-handedly That had been folly well beyond some of that produced by the Hitler Youth.

He glanced over at the infantry commander. “Is the house empty?”

The commander nodded. There was one final task to perform, despite the damage that had been inflicted on the house already, a task he personally loathed. At his command, the family was escorted away from the house, and Bothe’s panzer put a high-explosive round through the window, sending the entire house up in a wave of fire. It wouldn’t burn down completely, but in the end, it would be ruined beyond easy repair. He looked over at the family and met the cold eyes of the older daughter; they had just made an enemy for life.

His gunner agreed. “We ought to shoot them all,” he muttered, just loud enough to be heard. “They’re not going to change.”

Bothe cast his eyes over the gathering townspeople, noting with grim amusement a weeping girl, barely eighteen years old, who was staring at the body as she sobbed. There was nothing to say, not now; they’d been shown the price of resistance. As the noise of German aircraft high overhead grew louder, he muttered a command and the panzer roared into life, heading out of the village and back towards Ipswich. In the near future, an SS unit would visit them, order them all to register with the German military authorities, and drive home the message about resistance.

An hour later, they reached the outer defence line around Ipswich.

* * *

Ned Archer had kept his face carefully blank as the German soldiers had taken Jonny Atkins, carried him over to the trees, and hung him for taking a pot-shot at them. The young fool had hit one of the Germans, as miraculous as that seemed, but the Germans had reacted quickly and well. They’d had the right to hang Jonny under the laws of war and destroy his house — his family would have to live with other villagers for the moment — but he hoped that it would remind people of just what bastards the Germans could be. He’d fought in the last war and remembered it all-too-clearly. The Germans hadn’t hesitated to punish resistance wherever they found it.

The cable near the village hadn’t been disturbed by the Germans, much to his relief; he’d feared that it would have been cut as the German panzers advanced cross-country. He lifted it, attached a field telephone to the cable, and whispered down the line. Within hours, the story of Jonny Atkins would be on the BBC, and the entire world would know what the Germans had done.

Of course, he knew, they wouldn’t take any notice.

Chapter Twenty-One

Near Ipswich, England

Captain Harry Jackson clutched the ground with both hands as the German shelling came down around them, scattering down over the British positions and shaking the ground with its endless thunder. He wanted to cover his ears as the pain grew worse, but somehow he didn’t dare move his hands, or even dare to move at all. The clamour of combat was growing ever more intense, suggesting that the shellfire was either landing closer or the volume of fire was being increased; how much more could his men take? He hadn’t been alive to fight in the Great War, but he’d heard that shellfire had sometimes shocked men out of their minds; would that happen to them? The firing grew louder… and then it faded and died.

He rolled over and clutched his assault rifle as he stumbled into position. Most of the company had survived the experience, but he could see flames and smoke rising from all over Ipswich and the surrounding area; the German bombardment had been mainly targeted on the defences. He glared up at a German aircraft, floating through the sky with a nonchalant lack of concern for the British anti-aircraft fire, and then took up his firing position; the Germans would have been sending in their infantry while the British had been keeping their heads down. The defences hadn’t been anything like strong enough to deter them from attacking, and if they could take the town at a rush, they would force the British to withdraw as quickly as possible.

The gun felt heavy in his hand as the smoke and dust cleared. The briefing they’d received only an hour ago had confirmed that there were two major German forces advancing towards the town. Despite the use of tanks and British shellfire to deter them from advancing, and the Germans would be on them within an hour.

Their orders had been simple; hold the line for as long as possible, kill as many of the Germans as they could, and then fall back in the direction of London. Jackson privately suspected that if the Germans broke through the lines, the British forces were going to be encircled and would have very real problems escaping, but the alternative was being captured. They’d heard enough rumours of what was happening in the east to dread capture.

There, he thought as he saw them. The Germans knew that the defence line was here, all right. They were advancing on their bellies and bringing up armoured cars in support. Jackson whispered a command to the company’s sniper as he spied a German officer. He saw the sniper wiggling away to find a place where he could fire a perfect shot.

Snipers had the worst job in any army; they were, in theory, protected by the laws of war, but they tended to be shot out of hand anyway, as most soldiers hated enemy snipers. The Germans were no different; Jackson had seen some of the files from Russia, where the SS had been particularly inventive when it came to punishing enemy snipers.

“Fire on my command,” he ordered. He could hear the dull pounding of another barrage in the distance, bombarding the advancing Germans, but the Germans didn’t seem to have been put off by the artillery. They kept advancing, moving with a calm focused precision that Jackson almost envied. He muttered a second order to one of his men, cursing their shortage of mines, and then carefully sighted in on one of the Germans.

“Fire,” he barked as he followed his own command. The German he’d selected as his target jerked once and lay still, the other Germans started and rolled over, firing back towards the British positions. One of them was either very good or very lucky; a bullet buried itself in the earthworks just in front of Jackson; he flinched and then continued firing. His men were all disciplined — the Home Guard taught them to take care of their ammunition supplies, as they might not be able to re-supply quickly — and burst after burst of controlled firing rippled out, scattering the Germans and leaving many of them dead. He didn’t dare think that they would actually hold the Germans, but as the Germans fell back, he allowed himself a second of hope…

Which was dashed as the armoured cars opened fire, sending a hail of machine gun bullets over their heads, and ripping away the foliage that had hidden them. The Germans couldn’t get their guns low enough to actually tear up the earthworks themselves, but they could force the British to keep their heads down, long enough for the infantry to advance. Sergeant Wilt picked up a PIAT, one of the latest designs, and took careful aim, exposing himself only long enough to fire the small projectile towards the lead armoured car. The German vehicle was hit; Jackson smiled as it blew up, killing its crew. The other cars fell back, revealing a line of panzers that were advancing right towards their positions.

Jackson cursed as the tanks spread out. A pair of rockets were launched by British soldiers, but one of them missed as the panzers closed in, firing as they broke through the British lines and charged on into the distance towards Ipswich. Jackson felt stunned and disorientated for a moment, barely remembering the German soldiers before they advanced rapidly, their weapons flaring at the remains of the British soldiers.

A whistle blew in the distance. “Fall back,” Jackson shouted, and the cry was taken up by the sergeants and other officers. The Germans were seeing a British company running for its life, rather than a semi-planned retreat; they would be encouraged long enough to stay on their feet as the British guns opened fire. The second defence line included some small artillery weapons, which opened fire and cascaded shells down on to the advancing Germans, scattering red-hot shrapnel through the air. He thought he heard screams over the noise of the shells, but there was no way to know for certain.

The German assault was getting bogged down up ahead, he saw, as three panzers exploded in quick succession. General Barron might not have had many antitank guns, but the weapons he’d had were carefully positioned, concealed from the Germans watching from the air, and only used when the German panzers had finally broken through the outer line. The Germans were falling back as their infantry advanced, their own shellfire trying to knock out the antitank guns as they reacted faster than Jackson would have believed possible. The Germans were the masters of war and it showed.

“Get down,” Wilt shouted at him as machine gun bullets strafed through the company. Jackson hit the ground hard enough to jar every bone in his body; the remainder of the company wasn’t so lucky as a dozen men were killed by the German aircraft, a strange spinning autogyro-like craft firing down at them from a controlled hover. Jackson had seen the RAF use something like it, but this was the first one he’d seen in an assault role - and it was on the other side.

A hail of machine gun fire glanced off the heavily armoured autogyro before something broke and the craft fell out of the air, crashing into the ground and exploding. A burning pilot staggered out of the craft before collapsing on the ground. Jackson winced, then walked over to the officer, put his pistol to the screaming German’s head and pulled the trigger. There had been nothing else he could do for the man.

A second whistle blew and Jackson joined the line of retreating men. He saw, vaguely, a major trying to direct the retreat as the Germans pushed through the gap they’d created, sending in more of their autogyros and panzers; he saw one of the autogyros firing rockets into a British trench before a hail of machine gun fire cut it out of the air. The Germans were punching through the defence line and, judging from the noise in the distance, had done it at more than one location.

Ipswich was falling to the Germans.

* * *

The edges of Ipswich rose up in front of Hauptmann Johann Bothe as the panzers reached their first targets. They’d been warned that the British would build an inner defence line within the city itself, as the Russians had done on too many occasions, but at first, there didn’t seem to be any sign of resistance. The British defence line had been stronger than they’d anticipated, and Rommel had used the panzer units as his scalpel for digging into the British position, but Bothe was feeling quietly confident. They’d made it through the chaos and survived, so far.

The British infantrymen were falling back as well as his tank engaged a few of them with machine gun fire. One of them took aim at the panzers with what looked like an early model Panzerfaust and was rapidly cut down before he could open fire, but the others scattered and escaped the tank. It was one of the problems with panzer warfare, despite the German army’s rapid development of all-mobile military units; the panzers would break through, but then the infantry would have to mop up the defenders and the defenders would have a chance to escape. Rommel had formed units of British vehicles to transport infantry into the battle, as the main shipping effort had concentrated on panzers, but even so, there was a gap between the damage the panzers had caused and the infantry securing the victory. The channels were buzzing with information, most of it irrelevant as far as Bothe was concerned, but British units that had been scattered by the panzers were reforming and sometimes giving the advancing German infantry a bloody nose.

He checked his position quickly, uncomfortably aware that he was far too close to all kinds of possible cover than he would prefer, too close for comfort. The British might be trying to sneak snipers up from the town, or sending them up into tall buildings to take aim at his forces, despite the possibilities of German retaliation. Ipswich wasn’t an older German town, or one of the new towns that had been created out in the east; it was just uncomfortable enough for his forces to have very real problems identifying a threat until it opened fire. He knew what the SS would have done, in such a situation, but he liked to think that the 7th Panzer was more of a disciplined unit than an SS security patrol. Besides, Rommel would have had him punished if he had caused more damage to the town than was absolutely necessary.

A line of trucks pulled up and disgorged a company of infantrymen, forming up rapidly into platoons as they massed outside the town. Bothe saw their commanding officer and held a quick consultation with him; the infantrymen would try to take the town without a fight, but the panzers would accompany them, just in case of trouble. The town would have a large population of civilians, Bothe knew; if there was a fight in the centre of the town, like at Leningrad, there would be a bloodbath. Ideally, the British would see sense and surrender, but there was no telling what a cut-off unit would do.

He glanced down again at his map as the radio updated him. The town was now surrounded and most of the British forces in the defence line had been captured, killed, or driven away. They would have to reach their next command post and defence line before it was too late, but if they made it, they would face the Germans again with much more experience. The Werhmacht trained as it planned to fight, and he understood from the Abwehr that the British tried to do the same, but there was nothing like an experienced unit for holding their ground. They would have seen the elephant.

“Advance,” the infantry Oberst ordered, and the infantry moved forward. Bothe had half-expected a formal military parade, but that would have to wait until the town had formally surrendered or all resistance had been cleared out; until then, the soldiers would have to comport themselves as if they were going to be attacked at any moment. More infantrymen arrived as they pushed through buildings, breaking in and searching them in a hasty attempt to spring any ambushes before they stuck their head too far into the noose.

The panzer rumbled forwards behind the infantrymen and Bothe watched carefully as he saw the first barricade. The British had been busy; they’d dragged cars, lorries and even a military vehicle of some kind and turned them into a barricade. The cars looked like the Fuhrer-cars Volkswagen had been producing for the German people, the car that Hitler himself had backed; had they been sold over in Britain as well? He nodded once as the infantry commander issued an order and repeated it to the gunner; a moment later, a high explosive shell shattered the barricade and the infantry raced forward.

The fighting surged backwards and forwards as the British fought for every inch of ground. The fire-power of the panzers wasn’t held back after the first few moments, and Bothe’s crew put shells into every building that the British were using as firing points, reducing them to rubble. The British used the wreckage as shields and kept fighting, forcing the infantrymen to clear them out. A PIAT came close to killing Bothe and his crew; a second tank was set on fire by a Molotov Cocktail, dropped from one of the handful of remaining buildings. After that, they cleared a bloody path towards the centre of town, avoiding sniper fire and advancing in a hail of devastation. If Rommel had hoped to take Ipswich intact, his hopes had been dashed…

A shell landed near a building; a moment later, a small group of school-aged children fled from the remains, scattering out over the city. Bothe barked an order and the panzers ceased fire; the British, he noticed with some relief, did the same. They’d hit a school, he realised; the reports had suggested that the basement of a school was sometimes used as a bomb shelter, but he hadn’t realised what they’d been shooting at until it was too late. How many children had they killed?

A British officer stepped forward into the silence, blood streaming from one eye, carrying a white flag. Bothe watched as his infantry commander came forward, and the two officers talked briefly; the soldiers took the brief truce as a chance to catch up on their reloading and take a breath.

The reinforcements were already spreading into the city; he could still hear short bursts of firing as units bumped into their counterparts or aircraft duelled in the sky high above. They hadn’t seen much in the way of British aircraft — the Luftwaffe was clearly doing a good job keeping them off the panzers backs — but all it would take was a single aircraft pass with rockets, and half his column would be reduced to flaming wreckage.

“They’re surrendering,” the infantry officer shouted finally, a shout that was picked up by his people and the panzers. The firing in the distance ended abruptly as the word was spread through the streets. Bothe watched as a line of British soldiers, most of them wounded, came out of the rubble and were escorted rapidly towards the edge of the town. They looked as if they’d been through hell, and Bothe could understand their grief and despair; it was possible that they had accidentally killed some of their children. How many more civilians had died unnoticed in the fighting? Was there any way of finding out?

Dismissing the thought for the moment, he ordered his men to take up their planned positions. The main task now was to secure Ipswich and ensure that the roads and rail links were reopened as soon as possible. The army engineers would already be on their way and they would want protection; Bothe and his men would have to provide the support for the soldiers on protection duty. Rather more worrying, an SS occupation force would be coming into the city and they would take control of its day-to-day existence, not a fate that Bothe envied the British.

He glanced down at his map. The British lines had been broken and Commonwealth forces were on the run, fleeing back towards London. It wouldn’t be long before Rommel realised that a panzer unit wasn’t really cut out for securing a town and would send them down after the British, or maybe find them some other task to do when it came to mopping up the remains of the defenders. There were still pockets of British troops out there, and they would have to be dealt with before they could escape and join up with their fellows.

* * *

“They forced us back,” Jackson admitted finally. It was a painful confession to make, even to a man he had come to respect in the last two days. “They broke the line and forced us back.”

“That was expected,” General Barron said, shortly. His face revealed nothing of his own inner stress, or his fury at having to vacate his command tent and move down south to Handyman Hall. “They have the fire-power advantage for the nonce.”

He shook his head. “I have some particular tasks for you and your men,” he said, looking over at Jackson. “Get some sleep, and then report back to me; the Germans are going to need a reminder, from time to time, that they’re in our country… and I’m calling on you to deliver that reminder.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Near Felixstowe, English Channel

Lieutenant Nigel Molesworth tested the air with one finger as the motor torpedo boat drifted down towards the German shipping lanes. It was dark, with the only light behind provided by the half-moon and the stars high above, but Molesworth knew that the HMS Hawthorn was in desperate danger. As a tiny MTB, with only thirteen crewmen and a small arsenal of weapons, the ship wouldn’t survive even an indirect hit… and the Germans were out in force. Their main fleet was out there somewhere, providing cover for their convoys, and if no one stopped them, they would eventually be able to lay waste to the land Molesworth loved.

He peered into the darkness as the MTB drifted further down towards Felixstowe. Landsmen didn’t really understand just how treacherous the English Channel could be, even to an experienced sailor; the currents and tides could change with astonishing speed, at any time of the year. He’d served at the small base near Felixstowe and understood the waters as well as anyone else in the Royal Navy, but even he knew to be careful; the slightest mistake could be fatal, even without the Germans out there to shoot at them. The navy had warned him that the Germans possessed night-vision gear and radars, but they’d drilled enough against the Royal Navy’s battleships to be fairly sure that they could sneak up on the Germans, unless the Germans had a new trick they hadn’t shown the British before the war. The war had old certainties falling everywhere.

He could hear faint sounds carried across the water due to clear weather. According to the briefing, the Germans hadn’t slowed their replenishment convoys at all. They were pressing British ships and even seaman into service to help move an entire army from Brest to Felixstowe. He’d been told that the German destroyers were more effective at hunting down British submarines than anyone had expected, but a night attack under cover of darkness might just allow the British to land a few punches before the Germans had time to react to their presence. If the MTB were seen… a single shell would blow the ship apart, if the Germans could hit it. That wouldn’t be easy for the Germans…

They’d left Grimsby as darkness was falling, allowing the currents to push them down towards Dover, refusing to use the engine for fear of being detected by the Germans ahead of time. Molesworth’s ears were sharp enough to make out more than just the sound of lapping water and the occasional echoes of gunfire from the mainland; he could hear, very definitely, the sound of ships moving in the night… and, as they drifted further down, he could see Felixstowe lit up in the cold white light of electric lamps, turning the night into day.

The sight sent a cold shiver down his spine; he’d trained in exercises that had assumed a landing against hostile forces, and the significance of the German lighting was not lost on him. The Germans weren’t bothering to exercise any light-discipline drills at all, which spoke volumes about their confidence that the British forces would be unable to interfere with them, either on the ground or in the air.

For a long moment, he was gripped by a cold sinking terror, and then he forced it to the back of his mind. The strange glow was allowing him a chance to view the sea and he could make out the shape of a handful of German ships. They were moving out to sea, heading towards France on a least-time course, relying on their powerful engines to keep them stable in the currents and tides of the area. The Germans had it easy compared to some other invaders in the past; unlike Caesar, or the Armada, they didn’t have to worry about transient conditions on the part of the weather. They could sail backwards and forwards until they had built up enough of a force to take the remainder of the country.

No, he thought, as he peered through his own night-vision goggles. The Germans had a small escorting force waiting for the three freighters, but while he was tempted to try to sink a German destroyer, or even one of their pocket battleships, he knew that he should concentrate on German shipping. If the Royal Navy sunk enough of their transports, the war would come to an end once the German forces on the shore ran out of supplies. If the Germans managed to keep control of the channel…

Molesworth’s radar-man hissed a warning as he picked up signs of a German radar sweep; Molesworth winced as the MTB came silently around, preparing for a high-speed charge at the German ships. No gunfire came their way, and no shells splashed into the water; he concluded, hopefully, that the Germans hadn’t detected them. It wasn’t easy to detect an MTB in darkness; the boat had been put through a rigorous blackout drill even before the Germans launched their invasion. He still didn’t understand how the Germans even managed to land on the shore and wreck so much of the Royal Navy, but he would do his piece to throw them back into the sea.

“One minute,” he whispered, as softly as he could. Whispers could carry a surprising distance over the waters. The crewman nodded as Molesworth took the helm for himself. He was younger than any of his crewmen, each of whom had forgotten more than he had ever learned about sailing. They were going to need his young man’s reflexes. “Get the weapons ready.”

The crewman nodded as Molesworth carefully took them after the German ships. He tensed as he braced himself for the first incoming fire from the Germans; this was the most dangerous part of their mission. The engine had been tuned and muffled to make it as quiet as possible, but that presented an additional problem; if the Germans built up their own speed too fast, they would be unable to give chase without revealing their presence. He would have preferred to engage them in the open sea, but the Admiralty were determined that the ships be engaged as near to British soil as possible, warning the Germans that they wouldn’t have it all their own way. There was another reason…

“Pearson?”

“I got as much of the information as I could, I think,” Pearson said, his own voice a whisper. The Royal Navy Intelligence officer frowned. “They’re not worried about showing off what they’re doing, either. They even made small landings on the other side of Felixstowe, near Harwich. If they continue to do that, they’ll be able to ramp up their reinforcements quicker than we believed possible…”

A roar split the air as a line of German aircraft flew overhead, heading right for Felixstowe; Molesworth took advantage of the noise to gun the engine and send them flying right towards their target. The engine sounded terrifyingly loud in their ears, but the Germans didn’t react until a destroyer snapped on a searchlight, scanning the water for the boat. Molesworth swept the craft from side to side as the Germans tried to draw a bead on them. He saw a flash on one of the German ships. Moments later, a shell splashed down in the water, extremely close to his boat.

The Germans had been caught out of position, but it wouldn’t take them long to place the destroyers between the freighters and the oncoming threat. They would also bunch up. He would be forced to dodge them physically rather than evading from a safe distance once he had launched his torpedoes. That would make escape more complicated. He counted to ten under his breath. “Fire!”

The torpedo was almost invisible in the water, a streak of water moving rapidly towards one of the freighters, targeted perfectly. Molesworth altered course sharply so he could blow right through the German formation as the torpedo struck its target and exploded, sending one of the freighters heaving over. It was a large ship and it would take time, maybe even hours with a competent crew, to sink. Even so, it was no longer useful. The Germans kept firing at the MTB as he raced through them. He cursed as he saw a destroyer, turning to block their path.

“Fire two,” Molesworth ordered, as he yanked the MTB around in a desperate course alteration. If they rammed the German ship broadside, the Germans would probably be unharmed, but the MTB would be smashed to smithereens. More gunfire rang out, some of it striking the hull of his boat, but it no longer mattered; the torpedo was in the water, aimed directly at the German destroyer.

Pearson flinched as the smaller gun opened fire, spraying shells towards the German ship and raking its decks with fire. The MTB didn’t carry anything heavy enough to make the Germans regret meeting it — apart from the torpedoes — but the gunfire would force the German shooters on the deck to keep their heads down, just as the torpedo struck the German ship broadside. There was an explosion… shattering the destroyer and sending a tidal wave of water towards the MTB. Molesworth swore under his breath and altered course sharply, racing right towards the wave and shouting a warning moments before the wave struck and washed over the hull. The water shook the boat, but Molesworth kept it under control and raced out into the ocean away from the Germans. A final hail of shellfire came after them, and then nothing; they had made it clear away.

“Safe,” Molesworth said after a quick radar sweep of his own. The German freighter was burning in the distance, but the MTB was alone in the waters, otherwise. The Germans would probably seek to adapt somehow but for the moment, they’d just blooded the German nose and gotten away with it. “Did you learn anything interesting?”

“Yes,” Pearson said. “Don’t do this again!”

Molesworth laughed as he guided the MTB back towards its harbour at Grimsby. It would take some hours to return to the port, and they needed to watch out for marauding German ships. As well as the possibility of running into a British ship that might mistake them for a German ship and open fire. It would be dawn by the time they docked. However, the further north they moved, the less likely it would be that they would have a hostile encounter.

From time to time, they heard aircraft in the distance but saw nothing until they neared Grimsby and saw the flames licking into the sky. The Germans had been pounding away at the Royal Navy installations regularly but it was the first time he’d seen it from the waters. He found it hard to believe that the war was only three days old. He’d spent the first day of the war trying to get back to his station and the second day patrolling the waters around Grimsby, in case the Germans tried a second landing. He hadn’t considered it anything but a waste of time, but the higher-ups had been nervous, and it was difficult to blame them.

He guided the boat into its docking slip and smiled bitterly as the next crew, already prepared for their mission, swarmed onto the ship and began to check everything, as well as loading more torpedoes and bullets onto the boat. It wasn’t really safe to operate during the day, not with the German aircraft watching everything they did, but the Royal Navy was desperately needed. If that meant risking a boat and her crew…

“I relieve you,” his counterpart formally said. Molesworth wasn’t a Captain and probably would never make captaincy of a ship, but on-board the MTB, he was as much a Captain as any other junior officer. “Did you get anything?”

Molesworth smiled. He was still very young. “One freighter and one destroyer,” he said, trying to keep the boasting out of his voice. “The enemy freighter should be sinking right now” — he was distracted briefly by the sight of a submarine heading out to sea — “and we blew the destroyer into dust.”

“You probably hit the ammunition magazine,” his counterpart said. “Get some sleep and we’ll see you tonight.”

“Don’t get a bloody scratch on her,” Molesworth warned, and then turned to leave before turning back. “They’re on the alert now, so watch yourself.”

He had been awed by the sight of the Royal Naval dockyard when he had first come to Grimsby as a young recruit. Now it was bursting with activity, thousands of men swarming everywhere, trying to repair the damage caused by the latest set of German air attacks. Grimsby served as a base for minesweepers and the occasional heavier ship. The Germans, who had been laying mines enthusiastically in the area, had a great interest in preventing the Royal Navy from sweeping them.

Everyone knew that when the remains of the Royal Navy mustered themselves, there would be a major naval battle for command of the seas. Molesworth had heard speculation that it might be the last battleship duel in the world. No one had fought a battleship duel since Admiral Cunningham had fought the Italians in 1943. As the Germans had proven at Scapa Flow, the face of war had changed forever.

The main office was a grand building, one that had impressed him when he had first come to the port, but now he wondered if the money that had been used to build it shouldn’t have been used on more ships instead. He heard and ignored the sounds of more air raid sirens in the distance as the German bombers swept towards their targets, just as he ignored the banging of the anti-aircraft guns closer to home. The Admiral had told him that he wanted a personal report when, if, he returned, and while Molesworth was desperately tired, he had his duty.

“Sir, Lieutenant Nigel Molesworth, reporting,” he said, as he was invited into the Admiral’s office. He blinked and straightened up as he took in the person sharing the office and then broke out of his semi-trance. “Sir, it’s a honour…”

“Thank you,” Winston Churchill said. “Please could you give us your report?”

Molesworth faltered as he spoke. “We slipped down into the waters near Felixstowe and found a German convoy,” he said, slowly, trying to capture the feeling for the Prime Minister. “We engaged them under cover of a German air raid and hit a freighter with one of our torpedoes before a destroyer tried to block our path. We sunk it before we escaped.”

“Excellent,” Churchill said “That freighter of yours; are you sure that you sank it?”

Molesworth frowned. “We hit it, sir,” he said, trying to remember. Everything had happened so quickly; even now, it was all a blur. “It was settling low in the water when we left the area, but we never saw it actually sink under the waves.”

“Good enough,” Churchill said. The warmth and admiration in his tone made Molesworth smile in pride. “We need heroes, young man, and the BBC will have a lot to say about your performance. What did you think of the German tactics?”

Molesworth blinked at the sudden shift. “Well, they weren’t really prepared for us,” he said slowly. “They should have had more destroyers or E-boats escorting their ships, and perhaps had them operating closer to the harbour than they actually were, but apart from that, they just weren’t able to draw a bead on us in time. Their destroyer captain made a fatal mistake by trying to block us, which allowed us to launch an attack on him as well…”

Churchill listened in silence until he had finished. “That does make a certain kind of sense,” he said as the wail of the air raid sirens came to a halt. “They’re bound to adapt their tactics after your success and some other hits caused by submarines, but we have to keep hitting them until they run out of freighters.”

Molesworth hesitated. He wanted to know… and yet, he wasn’t sure if he dared ask. “Sir, what happened at Ipswich?”

“They took the town,” Churchill said, slowly. Molesworth shuddered; he’d listened to the BBC and heard the tale of Tommy Atkins, who had been killed by the Germans after taking a shot at one of their officers. The BBC was officially discouraging private resistance activities, but Molesworth suspected that it wouldn’t discourage everyone from trying to find a way to hurt the Germans as much as they could. “Your service today might just have made it harder for the Germans to expand their level of control.”

He spoke on for a moment, although he was speaking more to himself than to Molesworth. “They landed there to outflank us, but if we can break their supply lines, we can crush them under the sheer weight of fire-power,” he said. Molesworth said nothing, hardly daring to breath, as Churchill spoke. “If we can hold long enough, we will win.”

He cleared his throat. “I believe that you will get a medal for this,” he said, and winked in an uncle-like fashion. Molesworth felt himself flushing; Churchill was, very much, the person who would decide who got the medals and why. “Try not to get yourself killed before we can pin it on your chest and make a hero out of you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Over Dover, England

“You have contacts directly ahead of you,” the controller on the radar plane warned. “Engage at will.”

Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt drew a breath as the British planes materialised in front of him. The first days of the invasion had been chaos personified; the British had been scattered, with the Germans hunting vainly to locate and destroy them before they regrouped, but now the British had regained their balance and were fighting in a coordinated manner. Their aircraft had been pulled back to bases in the west, ensuring that they would have plenty of warning of a renewed bombing offensive now. Since then, they had been operating against the German formations that had been pounding their country.

Schmidt checked his cannons and his antitank rockets moments before they engaged. The RAF was actually secondary to their objective, which was to prevent the British from massing the forces required to crush the invasion lodgement. Any airman with real experience of the air knew that air superiority, if not air supremacy, was vital to any military operation.

Goring had failed to grasp that, and because of the Iron Fatty, the Luftwaffe had been denied the military honours of having played a vital role in the conquest of Britain years ago. That planned invasion had failed because of Goring’s vainglorious boasting… and it had cost the Luftwaffe its position in Hitler’s eyes. That alone had almost broken the air force, with some of their craft being given to the Kriegsmarine, and the Wehrmacht being given control over autogyros and some close-support aircraft. Now they were back. The success at Scapa Flow had pleased Hitler and now were compelled to defeat the British in the air.

The radar traces closed rapidly. The British aircraft had proven themselves to be doughty fighters and, of course, their survivors were gaining as much experience as the pilots of the Reich. The RAF had bombed several ports at night, but a combination of radar-guided aircraft and radar-guided guns on the ground had managed to keep them from damaging too much of the port in their attacks. He’d feared that they would concentrate everything on hammering the invasion lodgement. The chaos of the first few days had given way to cold professional organisation as the Germans and the British strove to reinforce and advance towards their targets.

Now, he thought, and gunned his engine. His fellow pilots didn’t need any more orders; whatever kinks there had been in the unit, they’d been worked out by days of heavy fighting. The British jet he’d chosen as his target fired back, sending a line of tracer directly towards him which he evaded with ease before firing back with his own cannons. The British pilot evaded and swooped down towards Schmidt’s aircraft, firing a secondary burst that narrowly missed. Schmidt sniffed and buckled down to some hard fighting. The British pilot was good, almost as good as he was, with a slightly inferior aircraft.

The roar of the engines grew louder as he banked and tried to draw a bead on the enemy fighter. The Brit didn’t react in time, and Schmidt was certain that he had him, but the Meteor flipped at the last possible moment and came right at him. Just for a second, Schmidt was sure that the two aircraft were going to smash into one another before the enemy pilot rolled into a dive. Schmidt pulled out and watched as the British aircraft lanced down towards the ground, just before it was too late, the plane levelled out and raced across the English countryside. Schmidt was tempted to dive after him and finish him while he was still stunned, but allowed him to leave; the Englishman had been a valiant foe and deserved a chance at survival.

A second British plane appeared out of nowhere, and Schmidt gave chase. HE watched as the British aircraft jinked to and fro to avoid his fire, before he finally clipped one of the jet engines with an explosive bullet. The plane tilted and spun out of control. Flames were flaring from one wing, and the pilot barely managed to eject in time. Standing orders were to shoot at any pilots who managed to escape via parachutes, but Schmidt and the remainder of the Luftwaffe pilots had quietly agreed to ignore those orders; the British would only have started shooting Luftwaffe pilots after they fell out of the sky.

War wasn’t a gentlemanly sport but in the air, one could at least pretend. They could allow themselves the delusion that they were engaged in a joust, free from the dead bodies and devastation caused by fighting on the ground.

He checked his radar and found, to his relief, that the sky was clear of British planes. “Independent flying,” he ordered, as he banked his aircraft and headed down towards the English countryside. It really was a beautiful place, he saw, as he levelled out and started hunting for targets; it was green and pleasant in a way that touched him deep inside. It was also deadly; the British had spent seven years getting the Dover region ready for the German landing they had anticipated. If the briefing was to be believed, the British had created a massive network of bunkers, fixed positions and guns, all dug in and tightly camouflaged against the day the Germans landed. The area was woven with canals and bridges… and all of them had been prepared, creating a death trap for German troops.

He shuddered as his eyes scanned the ground. If the German infantry were forced to clear it, step by step, the death rate would be terrifyingly high, high enough to make an SS man blanch. The British wouldn’t repeat the mistake of the French…

Except they had, in a way, when the enemy forces had landed at Felixstowe. The French defences had been outflanked, caught out of position, allowing Rommel and his fellow Generals to stick a knife deep into France’s heart. The British had been surprised when the Germans had landed at Felixstowe, but if they could gather their forces, they would have a very good chance of beating the Germans on the ground and therefore crushing the invasion. Schmidt was realistic enough to understand that the efforts of the Luftwaffe would count for nothing if the British won against the army. So the orders had been given to harass the British on the ground as much as possible.

He altered course slightly as he flew over a ruined airfield. The British airfield had been hammered from the air on the first day of the invasion, the bombers utilising new weapons that dug up the runways and knocked the airfield out of action; the remaining British aircraft, he guessed, had been withdrawn to the west. There was a recovery crew on the ground, and he fired a burst with his cannons into their vehicle, but it wasn’t worth the use of his rockets. Somewhere around, there must be a more suitable target…

There, he thought, as he saw the train moving down the railway line. It was elegant, in its way, a massive steam engine pulling a line of flat cars, each one holding a British Centurion tank. The British railways were nothing compared to the massive railways and rolling stock that Speer had designed for the Fuhrer, but they would be able to handle their task transporting the tanks to their front-line staging areas against the German forces on the ground. An anti-aircraft gun on the train was swinging around to take a bead on him, but it was too late; he’d already targeted his weapons.

Should have moved at night, he thought, as the first rockets roared away from his aircraft and smashed down onto the tanks. The rockets had been designed to punch through tank armour — it was weaker on the top than at the front of the vehicle — but even so, it was touch and go how much damage they would wreak under normal circumstances. As explosions ripped through the train, sending it heeling over and crashing onto the ground, he saw the entire line of carriages derail, smashing into the ground with awesome force.

The locomotive exploded, and he saw flames racing through the troop sleepers. He yanked his aircraft away as a handful of British troops tried to shoot at him with their automatic weapons and swooped into the sky, leaving chaos behind him. There was no point in risking one of them making a lucky hit.

The remaining aircraft joined up with him as they fled for the safety of France as the British once again attempted to engage. He’d wrecked a train and damaged a railway line, something that would take the British a week to repair. By then, it might be too late.

“Time to go home,” he said, and led the way back to their new airbase. Once there, they would rest, rearm and then return, with plans for more destruction. The tempo of activity was actually surpassing that of any drill he’d ever taken part in. The pace of events was taking its toll on all of them. They’d scored big at Scapa Flow, but how long could they keep up their flight routines without making dreadful mistakes, maybe even collapsing under the pressure?

He shook his head as the blue sea replaced the land and the British aircraft broke off their chase. Their troubles weren’t that bad, compared to the British issues. He didn’t want to think about the people on the ground and how they must be feeling, knowing that their country was being invaded and they were powerless to prevent it.

* * *

“Fucking bastard,” Major Bloodnok exclaimed.

Alex DeRiemer said nothing as Bloodnok roundly cursed the German pilot, the German pilot’s presumed father, the German’s real father, his mother, and for good measure his brothers and sisters as well. Churchill had sent Alex to the coast to get a personal report as Churchill’s personal representative, but he hadn’t expected to be the target of a German bombing attack. It was naive of him, he supposed, but he hadn’t really understood the scale of German activity.

He forced himself to focus as Bloodnok turned to face him. “And now the Prime Minister wants a personal report,” Bloodnok complained. “What sort of report does he want?”

DeRiemer shrugged. Churchill was the sort of man who was either loved or hated, particularly in the armed forces and Bloodnok was one of the ones who hated him. Monty once told him that Churchill came up with twenty ideas a day, but only a handful of them were actually any good - and he wasn’t really able to tell the difference. Some of his ideas, with some capable staff work, had turned into excellent plans. Some of them, such as Gallipoli and the aborted Helgoland landing scheme, had turned into disasters.

“First things first,” he said. “How much danger is the defence line in from German bombers?”

Bloodnok shook his head. “There’s much less danger than you might think,” he said, almost cheerfully. The first line of defence for the British nation was dug into the rocks and cliffs surrounding Dover, running from the famed White Cliffs down towards Brighton, and it was almost impossible to see from the air. “The majority of our positions are so well dug in that even a direct hit will fail to move them, unless the Germans manage to hit them with one of their new bunker-killing bombs, but their accuracy with those is terrible.”

He laughed. “They took out radar installations and radio transmitters from the air, but they’re much less good at actually hitting a silent target, particularly one that is almost invisible from the air and requires a direct hit to kill,” he said. A line of explosions, in the distance, underlined his words. “They tried to dive bomb the complex up before Dover Castle, but we shot down the aircraft and they decided not to do that again.

His laugh grew darker. “The aircraft didn’t even manage to crash on the target.”

“Good,” DeRiemer said, after a moment. “Are there any problems?”

“They’re wearing down the men,” Bloodnok said, shortly. “The bombing and shelling doesn’t really do much damage to the bunkers, but the constant noise is having an effect on my men and the damage to our rear is growing annoying. We built up the transport network so that we could rush reinforcements into any threatened area, but the Germans are causing so much damage that our ability to reinforce is seriously hampered.”

He shook his head. “The Germans would be insane to try a landing here,” he said. “I have almost twenty thousand men, dug in and prepared to engage any landing force, and I have the guns to hit anything out in the Channel. They could send their battleships here to duel with us — hell, I’m hoping they will do just that — and we will sink them before they can wreck the defences.”

DeRiemer nodded. “And morale?”

“The men, like I said, are feeling the strain, but they want to come to grips with the foe,” Bloodnok said. “The War Office has already earmarked half of my reinforcements for the journey north to the defence lines, but there are others here who want to make the trip and join the fight. I have actually considered pulling some of them out of the defence lines and replacing them with reserve forces, but I know so little, day to day, about what’s happening that I cannot really make any preparations.”

“I’ll inform the Prime Minister,” DeRiemer promised. His eyes narrowed. “Do you believe that the Germans could land here?”

“They could land, but they wouldn’t get very far,” Bloodnok said. “Back in 1940, they would have faced awesome problems in landing, and now the defences are much, much more powerful than they ever were then. We’ve drilled endlessly under the worst possible conditions, giving the Germans every possible advantage, and the best they do is overwhelm the first defence line before being wiped out by the reinforcements.”

“Interesting,” DeRiemer said. He grimaced. The intelligence reports didn’t seem to quite match up to reality, which wasn’t unusual. “Do you believe that the Germans know that?”

Bloodnok gave him a reproachful look. “The Germans have some idea about the defences here,” he said, after a moment. “They may not know the exact details, but they have had ample opportunity to count some of the defences, so… I think they have a good idea what they’d be facing if they tried to land here. I don’t think that they could hope to soften us up enough to prevent us from stopping them landing, and… well, we’ll slaughter them like sheep. The defences here are the strongest in the world.”

“Thank you,” DeRiemer said, standing up. The ground shook for a moment as a German bomber unloaded its bombs somewhere in the distance. “The Prime Minister will be very pleased to hear that.”

“Of course,” Bloodnok said. He tapped the map — his finger touching an area shaded in red ink — and looked over at DeRiemer. “I think that the main angle of threat remains Felixstowe, unless you know differently…?”

“Intelligence suggests that the Germans have been preparing a secondary invasion to hit here,” DeRiemer said, “hence Churchill’s request for a personal inspection.”

“They’re out of their minds,” Bloodnok said. The confidence in his voice made DeRiemer smile; he hoped it wasn’t misplaced. “If they came here, it would be nothing, but a bloody slaughter.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Berlin, Germany

The Fuhrer was in a good mood. When the Fuhrer was happy, so was everyone else in his cabinet, sharing the faith that the Fuhrer wouldn’t have one of his fits or start ordering impossible military operations. Adolph Hitler might be growing older and weaker in front of them, but he still maintained a presence. He was still the absolute leader of Germany. Himmler caught the eyes of Speer for a moment and wondered what treatments were being used on the Fuhrer; he looked almost normal, save for the unkempt hair. Hitler’s survival was a concern of all three of the main power-brokers; none of them knew what would happen when the Fuhrer finally shuffled off his mortal coil.

“We have finally broken the power of the British Empire,” Hitler proclaimed as he waved one hand at the massive map of the occupied region of the British homeland. It had been blown up enough that Himmler, in a rare moment of whimsy, had wondered if the scale was actually one-to-one. The landing forces might have managed to prevent the British from trapping and crushing the lodgement, but they were far from having completely defeated the British. “This nation of shopkeepers and imperialists will be broken for all time!”

His voice rose higher. “I offered the British a fair and just peace, and they threw it back into my face,” he thundered. “I offered them peace and freedom within the New Order, and they rejected it. I offered them their crumbling empire, even the lands that rightfully belong to Germany, and yet… they refused me! The arch-imperialist Churchill has returned to power… and why was he not killed when Otto attacked London?”

His gaze swept around to focus on Himmler. “Why was Churchill allowed to remain alive?”

Himmler forced himself to think, ignoring the cold sweat that was forming on the back of his neck. Hitler loved Skorzeny; he thrilled to his antics as much as any young boy, reading SS Commando or one of the other glossy publications churned out by Goebbels, and any aspersions that Himmler might cast on Skorzeny’s character might not go unpunished. If he said the wrong thing, his career and his ascent to the post of Fuhrer might fall into doubt…

He couldn’t tolerate that. “Churchill wasn’t in Ten Downing Street at the time of the assault,” he said, silently cursing Hitler’s monomaniacal belief that Churchill had inhabited the centre of British power even after losing office. Atlee hadn’t impressed Hitler at all, and so it was easy for the Fuhrer to believe that Churchill had always been the secret power behind the throne, whatever was said in public. “He avoided the first assault for that reason, but the second assault will not fail.”

Hitler leaned forwards, his eyes glowing with a chilling degree of interest. “A second assault against the war criminal?”

Himmler nodded. “I have managed to discover, though my sources, that Otto remains alive in London and has gone to ground, in accordance with my plan,” he said. It was irritating, in a way, as Philby now knew the truth about who he’d been working for ever since Moscow had fallen. It allowed the SS to ask him more direct questions, but at the same time, it introduced a new and dangerous equation into play. Philby had followed communism with the dedication of a religious convert; what would he do now that he knew that he hadn’t been working for Moscow after all? “In fact, six men survived and possess the weapons to take out any target within London.”

Hitler looked as if Christmas had come early. “And you will order them to take out Churchill and the remainder of his corrupt body of men?”

“I will order him to remain under cover until we are in a position to take London, at which point they will strike and throw the British defences into confusion,” Himmler said, hoping that Hitler would agree with his plan. If the Fuhrer ordered him to send Skorzeny into action at once, Philby might not pass on the order, or maybe the English traitor would break and confess everything to Churchill. If that happened, even Otto Skorzeny wouldn’t be able to escape. “It is the best use of the asset he represents.”

“Excellent,” Hitler said, almost rubbing his hands with glee. “Now, where do we stand in the campaign?”

There was a brief exchange of looks among the military personnel, and then Generaladmiral Erich Raeder emerged as the first speaker. Hitler regarded him carefully. He had once been known to say that on land he was a lion, but at sea he was a coward. Raeder’s survival had surprised many, after the loss of several fine ships, but maybe Hitler was just comfortable with him.

“Mein Fuhrer, overall, the invasion has been a success,” he said. “We have lost five warships and three freighters so far to enemy attacks, but we haven’t suffered any major loss in our projected shipping rates as we were able to press into service British ships we captured in port, as well as French, Dutch and Danish shipping that we captured during the first war. Overall, we are exceeding our supply projections for the first week, with the main bottleneck being limited port space on the other side of the Channel.”

He hesitated. “The British have launched several attacks against our freighters at night and have inflicted some damage to them as well as to their escorts,” he admitted. “Although it may seem like defeat, I have decided to abandon shipping efforts after nightfall, therefore preserving the freighters for shipping during the day. As we have enough additional freighters to expand our shipping and diversify the resupply effort, we do not anticipate falling behind our supply projections.”

Hitler banged the table. “The British will struggle to cut the supply lines in daytime as well,” he thundered. “Can you meet your obligations or will the commanding officers have to be replaced?”

Raeder looked as if he would have sooner charged an enemy machine gun nest naked. “My Fuhrer, there are practical problems involved with defending a convoy in darkness that do not apply in the daytime,” he said. “The British can attack from the air, the surface, or underwater, with a different threat angle every time. Their larger ships have been destroyed or rendered isolated and therefore useless, so they must rely on smaller ships to launch their attacks and impeded our resupply efforts. At night, they can get very close to their targets without being seen. In the day, those smaller ships will be seen and engaged well before they get anywhere near a vulnerable target.

“The only remaining danger is submarines, but the British submarine technology is behind ours by several years,” he concluded. Himmler recognised the note of a man stalling for time and made a mental note to check out the exact situation for himself. He’d packed many spies and informers into the Kriegsmarine. “Therefore, we are able to keep British submarines away from the convoys and prevent any major disasters.”

Admiral Canaris coughed into the silence. “I have been informed that the other two main British fleets are heading towards a rendezvous,” he said. “If they can be defeated, our ultimate victory is certain, but we must work to weaken them before they engage our surface fleet. I have it on good authority that President Taft, while officially maintaining the neutrality of the United States, has privately agreed to allow the British fleet transit through the Panama Canal and has, furthermore, agreed to supply them with some essential supplies. We may also see them escorted by units of the American Navy, at least while they’re in the Caribbean, although I don’t believe we will see a resumption of the Phoney War.”

Hitler’s face contorted into a snarl. “Then should we not aim a strike at the canal and prevent them from passing through?”

“I would advise against it,” Canaris said, softly. Hitler eyed him maliciously. “There is no target within the United States more certain to draw a violent response from the United States than the Canal. We could bomb Washington and it wouldn’t provoke the Americans as much.”

“And what does that matter?” Hitler demanded. “Where do the Americans stand on the scale of pure power?”

“The Americans built up their fleet during 1940 and continued the program until 1944, when Roosevelt left office,” Canaris said. “They may not have quite our level of naval technology, but added to the remains of the British Navy, they would have a major advantage over our navy and would win the battle. In a year, we wouldn’t even have the technological advantage; Mein Fuhrer, it is not the time to poke the Americans.”

Hitler subsided slightly. “Once we have finished the British, we will turn our attention to the Americans,” he said, flatly. Himmler nodded in private relief. “What is happening on the ground?”

It was Manstein who spoke. “We have defeated the early British counter-attacks and captured enough strong-points to be fairly certain of holding the lodgement for the moment, and we are currently reinforcing in strength,” he said. “The British fought to hold Ipswich, but we punched through their defence lines and shattered them, taking several thousand British servicemen as prisoners in the process. Those prisoners have been well-treated and have been moved to a new detention camp near Felixstowe, although I suggest shipping them back to the continent as soon as possible.

“The British themselves appear to be establishing two defensive lines,” he continued. “One of them is being established in the direction of London, the other in the direction of Birmingham and the mid-lands We believe that the British intend to block us from any further advance and then evict us from their country; naturally, we do not intend to allow them to do that.”

“Of course,” Hitler agreed, dryly. “How do you plan to stop them?”

Manstein’s hand traced a line on the map. “We are currently expanding our lodgements and intend to make contact with their main defence line within a week, as much to ensure that we wipe out isolated Home Guard forces as to make our territory very clear,” he said. “Resistance, since we beat them at Ipswich, has been mixed; some of their units have been alert and not to be trifled with, others were disorganised and became easy prey. Once we come into contact with their main defensive line, we will mass our forces and engage as soon as possible, punching through the line and rolling it up before moving on London.”

He looked down at Hitler for a moment. “It has been suggested that we attempt to seize their industrial areas, rather than London, but as long as the British Army remains in being, our ability to guarantee the security of our conquests is limited,” he admitted. “Therefore, I suggest that we continue with the original plan and engage them on the way to London, smashing their army and convincing them that further resistance is useless.”

“But not all of them seem to have learned that,” Himmler purred, taking advantage of a brief pause to needle Manstein. “How else would you account for the incidents of resistance across the country?”

Manstein kept his face blank. “There have indeed been some attempts to resist us,” he conceded. “There have been a handful of incidents of young British men taking shots at our people, mostly missing, and they have been dealt with severely. The only incident that was not easy to deal with was someone who was actually a Home Guardsman who’d been ill and therefore wasn’t in uniform. The commander on the ground decided to believe him and sent him to a camp.”

Himmler snorted. “The security of the rear area, however, is in the hands of the SS,” Manstein concluded. “Perhaps the Reichsfuhrer would like to detail that?”

Hitler looked at Himmler, who nodded. “We have nearly two thousand trained and experienced SS security forces on the ground now, and that number is increasing all the time,” Himmler said. There are also several elements of the Waffen-SS Das Reich unit, but they are soldiers, rather than security forces. “We have been quick to secure our control over the occupied territories, but we have been unable to prevent a handful of incidents, most of them minor. One particularly odd set of minor incidents involved British police officers; three of them have been murdered within a day of our arrival.”

Hitler looked unconcerned. “Was that the result of one of our activities?”

“I don’t know,” Himmler admitted. “They didn’t kill themselves, but our forces have strict orders not to interfere with the local police unless they get in the way. It’s more likely that it could be someone settling a few old scores under the chaos caused by the invasion.”

He paused. “Apart from a handful of attempts to impede us, all dealt with swiftly and decisively, the British civilian population has been keeping its head down and trying to ignore us as much as possible,” he said. “Overall, we have some thousands of British working for us on the docks, and they’re being paid very high rates for their work, but I don’t think that they can really be considered enthusiastic supporters of the Reich. In the long term, they may end up with no option but to support us, but that depends on the course of the war.”

Hitler nodded. In Occupied Europe, the Reich had worked hard to cultivate groups that would have little choice but to support the Reich. The Vichy French Government was only popular compared to the Occupation Authorities in Occupied France; the French knew that Admiral Darlen was much kinder to them than any German would be. Hitler’s England might end up with a British puppet government running most of the country and only a few areas directly controlled from Berlin. That would, however, depend on the outcome of the fighting… and how much the British had left to bargain with when they finally conceded their defeat.

“In the air, we have air superiority over most of the important areas of Britain,” General Adolf Galland said, his voice confident and very controlled. He was aware that Hitler was watching the Luftwaffe like a hawk, looking for signs of the same failures that had forced the postponement, and then cancellation, of Operation Sealion. “The British RAF has taken a beating, and its efforts to interfere with the landing operations and the expansion of the beachheads have, so far, proven to be failures. Their main efforts have concentrated on breaking up our bomber formations and attempting to bomb the invasion ports in France, but I suspect that they are actually conserving their strength as much as possible for the main event.”

He smiled grimly. “They have to know that we will want to break out as soon as possible,” he said. “When that happens, they will throw everything they have into the air over the battle and try to keep the Luftwaffe off the backs of their soldiers. We are working to impede that in two ways, focusing our attention on their airfields and forcing them to react to our moves, rather than giving them time to catch their breath and launch their own attacks.”

“Good,” Hitler said after a long heart-stopping pause. “I expect you to focus your efforts on keeping them off balance. Albert, what about the deception plan?”

“In France, we have ten divisions, four infantry, six panzer with signal traffic warning the British of an attempted landing in the south of England,” Kesselring said. “I don’t know for sure if the British are taking the threat of a landing seriously, but under the circumstances, they have little choice but to move units north to confront us in the invasion lodgement. Churchill will have to decide what he wants to do quickly, under threat of us opening a second front.”

Hitler studied the map. “Why can’t your forces jump across the Channel?”

Kesselring and Speer shared a look. “The issue at hand, Mein Fuhrer, is that we do not have the ability to get them all over that part of the Channel without the British being able to tear them to ribbons from fixed positions,” he said. “It would be like the death ride of the 3rd Shock Army in Russia, without even the advantage of tanks like the Russians had; the British would be able to beat us, maybe even before we landed. At the moment, it remains better as a threat than as a real military operation.”

“Very well,” Hitler said. “I may add my own refinements to your future plans, but on the whole, I agree with them in principle.” Himmler smiled as the military men let out a collective sigh of relief. “I expect to see the British lines broken as soon as possible and the remains of the British Army shattered, do you understand?”

Kesselring nodded. “Yes, Mein Fuhrer,” he said.

Hitler looked over at Goebbels. “You will broadcast, tonight, an appeal to reason. You will inform the British public of their losses and make them an offer, a peace deal that I will design. If they choose to accept it and remove the arch-criminal from office, then we will have the grounds for a honourable peace with Britain, and then…”

Himmler listened with half an ear. Thanks to Philby and the others, he had a far greater insight into the strange world of British politics than anyone else, even Canaris and the Abwher. He doubted, somehow, that the British would accept Hitler’s offer, not after the Germans had launched their surprise attack. They hadn’t yet been convinced that they were actually beaten… and, as Himmler knew full well, without that internal surrender and submission, Britain would never give up the fight.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Felixstowe, England

The building had once been a school before the Germans arrived, and it had been converted into one of their reception centres where they registered everyone who lived in Felixstowe and the surrounding area. A police officer had told Gregory Davall that everyone in the area had been ordered to register within a week or face possible arrest and detention. The entire town had seen a handful of young men that were caught breaking curfew, marched off to the docks to assist with clearing up the rubble caused by the fighting. The message was clear. For the moment, the Germans were too strong to interfere with, so it was better to cooperate until times changed.

Davall listened to the BBC, although the SS had warned everyone that listening to them was a punishable offence; the Germans would have preferred them to be listening to Radio Berlin, which had an English language channel. Radio Berlin didn’t have much in the way of interesting news, reporting endless German victories, thousands of surrendering British soldiers, and even a report that Churchill himself had scuttled away under fire, abandoning his men just before the Germans captured them. The BBC was more inclined to report on the progress of the invasion, although it was long on heroic stories such as a young sailor who had torpedoed a German submarine, and short on actual details.

Davall had access to one of the hidden telephone cables, but he hadn’t wanted to risk using it until after the manhunt for the killer of PC Johnston had died down. The Germans didn’t seem to care, if they’d even noticed. They certainly weren’t tearing down Felixstowe to find the killer.

“I don’t want to go to school,” James said, struggling slightly. Davall remembered being that age and walking up the same steps, separated from his sisters by the strict rule that girls and boys were to enter separately and be educated separately. Kate might have gone to the same school, but they hadn’t met until after they had entered the working world.

“Don’t worry,” Davall said, hoping his son wouldn’t say anything stupid as they passed the German sentry standing guard on the steps. “I don’t think you’ll be coming back here for a long time.”

Inside, he was suddenly struck by a sense of dizziness. The scene was almost surreal; German soldiers were everywhere, while lines of British citizens wound into classrooms and even the headmaster’s office. Davall wondered what had happened to the headmaster before dismissing the thought. It hardly mattered at the moment. A German guard pointed them towards one of the queues, and they waited in line, watching as their friends and neighbours advanced toward a classroom. They never saw them re-emerge

A sense of hopelessness welled up within him, and he fought it down savagely. The Germans were tightening the noose around their necks, and it wasn’t even a noose that most of their friends and neighbours could see. The German procedure was always the same. First, they would register, then they would put people to work, and finally they would achieve complete control of the area.

The signs that had been hastily tacked up reinforced the sense of having stepped into a different world. the crying children, the mothers trying to shush them, the fathers watching helplessly… all had no place in Britain. He felt Kate’s hand squeezing his, hard, as the line advanced towards the door, each family beckoned inside… and then, presently, they were called into the room.

He’d been in the classroom before, studying geography under a teacher who had marched off with many of Davall’s classmates and fallen at Dunkirk, but it looked very different now. The child-sized desks had been pushed to one wall, while the teacher’s desk had been pushed into the middle of the room, with a SS officer standing beside it. Davall’s eyes went wide for a moment. The German was a woman, wearing a uniform that showed off her figure… and cold, dispassionate eyes. He almost didn’t notice the soldiers at the rear of the room as the woman pointed them towards the seats in front of her desk.

“Name, please?” Her voice, cold and unaccented, almost made him tremble.

“Gregory Davall,” he replied, and produced his British identification card for her. She took it, made a series of notes on a sheaf of paper in front of her, and then placed it to one side. She fired off a series of questions at him, ranging from innocent ones like when he and Kate had married to stranger ones such as who they were related to in the city, what relatives they had outside the area, and to his non-existent military service.

“You were spared from armed service because you were a skilled engineer,” she said, after a moment. “Good; we will be able to find you work fairly soon. Do you have Jewish blood in you?”

Her tone, the hint of disgust and contempt, made Davall shake. “None,” he said truthfully. He’d only met one Jew in his life, back when he’d been working in an electronics shed. “My family have always been Christians.”

“I must warn you that giving false information is a crime punishable by death,” she said, her voice politely crisp. “Do you have Jewish blood?”

“No,” Davall said shortly, trying to keep the anger out of his tone. He’d thought that some of the teachers he had known were bad, but this woman was worse than any of them… and, he guessed, she could have them all shot on a whim. “There’s no Jewish blood in my family.”

She made a few more notes and then held their eyes. “You have been registered as a citizen of Occupied Britain under the jurisdiction of the Greater German Reich,” she said, formally. It was the first time he heard a hint of emotion in her voice. “As of now, you are subject to the laws and regulations of the Reich and any breakages will be handled in accordance with German law. You will be expected to be loyal to the Reich and work towards its interests at all times; any attempt to impede those interests will be treated as treason and punished accordingly.”

She nodded towards the rear entrance. “Take this slip,” she said, passing them the sheet of paper she’d been writing on. It was covered in German words that even Davall couldn’t read. “Present it to the soldiers there and they will give you a new ID card and some rations for the week, as well as a booklet of Occupation Regulations and Laws. Ignorance of the law does not constitute an excuse.”

Davall led his family out of the room and down into the side room where a pair of Germans took the slip, read it quickly, and worked a small device that Davall didn’t recognise. One of them held up a camera and quickly snapped shots of all three of them; the other took their fingerprints, before waving them into a corner and passing him a copy of the booklet to read.

Davall skimmed it quickly, finding the pamphlet to be almost as he had imagined; the Germans intended to supervise them in almost every detail of their lives. No large gatherings, no parties without German permission, workers to report for work with the Germans if they had no other work to do, German currency to be the only legitimate currency… the list went on and on, with dire warnings of heavy punishment if they were caught doing anything against the rules. The overall tone was all-too-clear; anything not specifically permitted was forbidden.

“Davall,” one of the Germans said. He passed Davall a set of three ID cards; one for him, one for Kate and one for James. Davall examined them quickly, noting the picture of himself, a terrible image that was nonetheless easy to recognise. “These are your cards; keep them with you and present them whenever they are demanded by a German patrol. If you are caught without the card, you will be detained and perhaps sentenced to serve in a work gang.”

He passed them a small box of rations and pointed them out of the school; Davall left quickly before he vomited The fresh air cleared his head, but he knew the Germans had made certain that everyone would be registered, which just added another problem to the Grey Wolves’ growing list. They would all be registered, which meant that if they left fingerprints anywhere, the Germans would be able to identify them and come after them and their families. The female SS officer and those like her was building up a composite picture of who was who in the village, something that would make hiding a stranger very difficult indeed. He thought about it as they walked home slowly, passing some of their neighbours on the way; the Germans would have to be shown that there was still fight in the British, but how?

The German rations weren’t very good, but as Kate examined them, she pronounced that they should last for at least a week, particularly when they were added to what they’d stockpiled. Davall spent the afternoon thinking carefully and wandering around the town, watching the Germans as they sent their patrols out of Felixstowe towards the farms. A plan slowly began to form in his mind.

That night, he kissed Kate goodnight and slipped off into the shadows. He’d practised remaining unseen under the cover of darkness before, but this time he had to be much more careful. The Germans were enforcing a strict blackout regime over Felixstowe. They would be all-too-likely to shoot first and not bother with the questions. The scene was eerily dark but he had little difficulty in finding the paths up to the forest and through the trees to their meeting place, where he encountered two other Grey Wolves, Rupert McAllister and Barton Rigby. The former was a dockyard worker; the latter a farmhand at a farm to the west. They were also the most experienced people in the Grey Wolves.

He listened as they quickly compared stories about what had happened to them at registration and afterwards. The Germans had informed McAllister that he would be continue to work at the docks for the moment, while Rigby might have to work longer hours at the farm in preparation for the harvest in a few months.

“They work us hard, Greg,” McAllister said, finally. “They just rounded us all up and made us work long hours to unload all their shit. They’re bringing in thousands of men and hundreds of vehicles; I saw dozens of those grey tanks of theirs and some support vehicles today, moving west. I don’t know what they have in mind in the long term, but for the moment they’re using us as slaves, with no exceptions for injuries, and locked up the Union Boss when he tried to complain.”

Rigby snorted. “What, all that happened and you didn’t go on strike?”

McAllister glared at him. “The Germans shot the first person they caught dawdling and since then, no one has dared to oppose them,” he retorted. There was bad blood between the two of them. “That’s why we have to hit them now!”

“That’s something that will have to be passed up the chain,” Davall said, after a moment. He didn’t entirely trust the telephone cable; if the Germans located it, they could use it to set a trap for the Grey Wolves, but there was no other way to signal the British authorities. A radio transmitter would be detected at once, while someone travelling cross-country might well be caught and interrogated. “Did you bring your weapons?”

They nodded. Both men had been armed with assault rifles, while Davall himself carried a sniper rifle with a night-vision scope. He briefed them quickly on the target as they walked, reaching one of the roads and taking up their position as they waited for the German patrol. Davall had observed them making semi-permanent patrols of the area over the last few days and had noticed that the Germans sent one of the small troop carriers on a rotating patrol, probably aimed at preventing anyone escaping from Felixstowe. Rigby worked quickly to set up his own surprise for the Germans while they waited. They heard the sound of aircraft high overhead, heading in to land at the airfield Davall had raided, so long ago. Had it really been just over a month?

“Lights,” McAllister hissed. Davall could hear the faint sound of a German engine, slightly quieter than a British design. The Germans made better cars than the British, something that had always galled Davall, whose brother had used to work in a car factory before it had begun churning out tanks instead. The Germans had sold some of their cars through Felixstowe, something, he saw now, that had cleared the way for the invasion. “Sir…”

“I see them,” Davall hissed back. The two German vehicles looked crude and unfinished, but he knew from his briefings that they could be very dangerous. He targeted his rifle on the German manning the machine gun at the rear of the second vehicle and waited patiently as the Germans rolled into the kill zone, until they stuck the mine. The first vehicle exploded in a dazzling shower of sparks, while he squeezed the trigger and sent the machine gunner falling off the second vehicle. The other Germans spilled out of the vehicle, some of them falling prey to McAllister and Rigby, who poured fire onto their ranks.

Davall sucked in a breath as he peered through his scope. The Germans, despite being completely surprised, had managed to get into a position to fire back at them, sending bullets cracking through the night. The four remaining German infantrymen kept moving forward, but he guessed that they were really trying to pin the British down while they called for help. The German commander would have a quick-reaction force ready for any trouble, and it was anyone’s guess how long it would take for them to get enough infantry into the area to search for the Grey Wolves. By then, they needed to be well away.

Rigby pulled the trigger on the second mine, hidden in the undergrowth. It detonated, pushing a hail of ball bearings down towards the Germans. The Grey Wolves fled, keeping low as they vanished into the woods. The Germans couldn’t match their local knowledge, Davall hoped; they would have to be insane to come in after them, not when they had reinforcements on the way. He heard the noise of a set of German autogyros in the air and took the risk of glancing up, but they didn’t seem to have any idea of where they were in the darkness.

They couldn’t head back to the main ammunition store, but they’d prepared secondary locations to hide their weapons, before fanning out and returning to their homes. Davall could hear the Germans in the distance, their weapons cracking out from time to time, but they never came anywhere near him. He didn’t know what they were shooting at, maybe hares or foxes, but they weren’t shooting at the Grey Wolves.

The crack of gunfire rose and fell as he listened, and the sounds of something moving in the wood almost made him jump out of his skin, but the Germans were still well away from him. He could see a sharp glare in the distance now, some of it being shone down from autogyros in the air, providing a perfect target if he had had a heavy machine gun. The thought made him smile as he found the path down towards the town; there was a heavy machine gun in the ammunition dump, something that could be used to hurt the Germans. There was no way to get a report out to higher authority, but that didn’t matter; one way or the other, the Germans would be hurt.

Their alert hadn’t reached Felixstowe yet, so it was easy to slip into his house, strip off his clothes, and climb into bed beside his wife. Kate hadn’t slept a wink, as far as he could tell, but she was very, very, relieved to see him. Davall held her in his arms until she drifted off, but it was a long time before sleep claimed him; he remembered, far too clearly, the screams of the Germans as they burned inside their vehicle. The German leaders were going to be furious.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Felixstowe, England

“This will not stand,” SS Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl said as he surveyed the burning wreckage. The sun was rising under protest, the first rays of heat burning away the early morning mist and revealing the wrecked patrol vehicles. They had been designed for service in relatively peaceful occupied France, rather than somewhere more extreme like Russia, and their design had been based around that expectation. A heavy armoured car wouldn’t have had so much trouble, or been so easy to disable…

Although heavier armour didn’t guarantee survival. It was easy to disable any vehicle, or destroy it, assuming that the person responsible had enough high explosive at their disposal. It wasn’t that hard to disable a Panther tank with a mine, although actually penetrating the crew compartment and killing the crew would be a different matter; Stahl could tell that it had been a mine that had destroyed the lead vehicle. The second one hadn’t been seriously damaged, although four of the soldiers mounted on it had been killed and two more seriously injured.

“We have swept the forest, Herr Standartenfuhrer,” Hauptsturmfuehrer Grauer Wulfenbach said, as he emerged from the trees. Stahl doubted it was thorough. The forest was large and far too easy to hide in, particularly for an experienced man. He’d seen it happen in Norway as well. The insurgents, the remains of the original Norwegian Army, had appeared, attacked, and then vanished back into the trees. “We have located no sign of the enemy.”

“Indeed,” Stahl said, examining the remains of the first armoured car. “What would you say caused this, eh?”

Wulfenbach wasn’t a particularly experienced man, as SS officers went, but he had some counterinsurgency experience, although it had been in France rather than somewhere more exciting. The French had, by and large, surrendered to the New Order. Those who wanted a life without the Germans sailed to Algeria, or tried to get to America. The Russians, who knew full well what fate the Reich had in mind for them, fought back and tried to hurt the Germans whenever they had a chance.

“It looks like a mine, Herr Standartenfuhrer,” he said. “Do you think we are dealing with an escaping Home Guard force?”

“That was my first thought as well,” Stahl said. “It was not, however, an escaping force caught behind our lines, as they set up the ambush and waited. It could have been an encounter made through sheer chance, but judging by the way they attacked and their position” — the SS team had found discarded shells where the insurgents had positioned themselves — “they wanted to head back towards Felixstowe. Why would they do that?”

Wulfenbach frowned. “Because they live there.”

“Perhaps,” Stahl said. He clicked his fingers, and his driver motored his small vehicle over to the pair of them. “I think it’s time to remind our second-class citizens that accepting citizenship in the Reich carries its obligations as well as its rights, don’t you?”

He smiled as the small convoy drove back towards Felixstowe. The attackers didn’t know it, but they had driven a knife in the SS’s back. The SS was charged with rear-area security, and that security had been very good ever since the invasion had begun… until now. The advancing German supply convoys were only lightly guarded as they advanced through occupied lands to the front. The insurgents ought to be dealt with, quickly, but how could they be found?

Felixstowe looked innocent as he drove though the town, and he felt a cold hatred shimmering in his heart. The townsfolk didn’t know what had occurred, but they knew that something had happened. He was sure that some of the men were exchanging smirks behind his back, celebrating the deaths of German soldiers. They didn’t yet know the benefits of the Third Reich, and if they weren’t as broken as they seemed, he was required to break them before the insurgency spread out of control. He had seen it happen, in Russia, where one act of desperate resistance mushroomed in a colossal disturbance and required extreme measures to quell… and Russia belonged to the Reich. The insurgents might win a few battles, from time to time, but their overall command of the country was never in question. In Britain…

His imagination filled in the details. The war for Britain was far from over, and already, he would have to assign more security forces to escorting the supply convoys as they left the docks and drove west. If the invading forces were pinned down by insurgents in the rear, they would be easy prey for the British forces when they launched their counter-attack and… the entire invasion would be on the verge of failure. If that happened, then he would be blamed for the failure. If he survived, he would end his days in a concentration camp or penal unit.

“Carola,” he barked, as he marched directly into the former Home Guard barracks. He’d thought about taking over the Town Hall, but it was better, or so he’d been told, to allow the Mayor to continue to run his town from his more normal haunt. Stahl hadn’t actually seen the Mayor do much more than chat to a few people — the town seemed almost to run itself — but the principle had seemed important. “Carola, where are you, girl?”

“Herr Standartenfuhrer,” Carola said. She was one of the SS’s ever growing army of bureaucrats, the men and women who ran the SS’s private empire, controlling the destinies of thousands upon thousands of souls caught within their grip. Her bland face, handsome rather than pretty, hid a razor-sharp mind and a devotion to duty that was fully the equal of any man. If she had been male, she would have been a threat to his position. As it was, he could use her talents to their fullest extent. “What can I do for you?”

“We have insurgent problems,” Stahl snapped, passing her his coat as he took his seat in front of his desk. It had belonged to the person who had used to use the office, but that Home Guard officer was now in a camp, until the war ended and his fate was decided. “I want a way of finding them, quickly.”

Carola was very still for a moment as her encyclopaedic mind reviewed the registered citizens in her head. She supervised the registration process and examined all of the cards as they were added to the files, cross-referencing them all to ensure that their picture of who was who was as complete as possible. The files were extensive, but thanks to the filing methods, easy for anyone to use.

“There are a handful of men in town with military experience,” she said finally. Stahl nodded. The men who had attacked the patrol had shown some training in their tactics, and they had definitely fought with modern military weapons. In his experience, insurgents tended to be armed with older weapons, or one stolen from their occupying forces. “We could start by searching their homes for weapons and ensuring that if they do have weapons, they will hang them for their crimes.”

“True,” Stahl agreed, mentally reviewing his thoughts. There might be an ammunition dump around, somewhere nearby, but if there was, it was well hidden. They would search for it, but there was no guarantee that they would find it, not with seven years or more to prepare. They’d heard rumours about stay-behind units hidden within Britain, but how could they be identified? “Find me their details.”

“Jawohl,” Carola said.

Stahl watched her leave the room, allowing his eyes to follow her rear, and then he keyed his radio. “Wulfenbach, I want you to assemble two companies of security troops,” he ordered, shortly. “I have some work for them to do.”

Carola returned with a map of the area and a set of personnel cards taken from the central registry in the barracks and pointed out a set of houses. Stahl was already starting to dislike Felixstowe and its odd layout, so different from the ordered towns that had been founded in the east. There, the towns were neat and orderly, with everything and everyone in their place.

“There,” she said. “That’s where the four men with the most recent military experience live.”

“Good,” Stahl said, hoping that they would put up a fight. “Let’s move.”

* * *

Gregory Davall had slept in late and risen at eleven o’clock. He ate a small breakfast and a made a quick check through the house for any clues of his night-time activities. The Germans would certainly react, and while he was sure that they couldn’t wipe out all the Grey Wolves, it was quite possible that they would unknowingly sweep up some of the Wolves in a random sweep of the town. He was on the way out of the house when he saw the first German military vehicle. It was an armoured car like the one he’d destroyed, followed by two lorries packed with German soldiers wearing the black uniform of the SS. He froze for a moment, wishing that he’d kept his weapon with him, but then he saw the Germans surrounding one of the houses on the other side of the street.

There was a crash as they broke down the door and ran inside. Moments later, they shoved out Mr Davidson, his grandfather and his twin daughters, both on the verge of adolescence. Davidson’s son was in the army. Davall whispered a silent prayer that he was alive and still fighting, but the Germans didn’t seem interested in the missing son. Rounding up the entire family, securing their hands, and left them kneeling in the middle of the road as they searched the house. Kate came up behind Davall and clutched his arm, watching as the Germans searched the house with a speed and brutality that impressed Davall.

“That’s horrible,” Kate whispered, too quietly for anyone but her husband to hear. He followed her gaze and saw the two crying girls as they knelt in front of the Germans, who kept their guns firmly pointed at the family’s heads. “What did they do?”

Davall knew what was happening, but said nothing as more Germans arrived, securing the area and watching the British civilians. The noise of the search was falling now, but as one of the Germans emerged, the crowd let out a loud gasp. The German was holding a Lee Enfield rifle. Davall suddenly remembered that Davidson had fought in the last war with Germany. Had he kept the weapon, despite the German demand that all weapons be surrendered, or had the Germans planted the weapon somehow?

One of the Germans stepped up to Davidson, waved the weapon under his face, and demanded something. The reply was too quiet to be heard, but the German shouted angrily and waved to two of his soldiers, who grabbed Davidson and his family and forced them into the lorry. The crowd moved forward and the German soldiers levelled their guns. There was a long tense moment before the crowd fell back, glaring malevolently at the Germans in helpless fury. Kate buried her face in Davall’s back as the lorry turned and moved off. Just then three shots brought their attention back to a German who had just fired into the air.

“The Davidson family was caught in breach of three laws relating to Occupied Territory,” the German said, calmly. There was a sense that he was neither aware of, nor cared about, the simmering hatred coming from the crowd. “He possessed a weapon he failed to declare, he listened to anti-German propaganda, and he took part in anti-German activities. As a result of his crimes, he has been charged with treason, third-class, and will be sentenced accordingly after his interrogation. The remaining members of his family will be interrogated and their fates will depend upon the information in their possession.”

He paused to allow that to sink in.

“It is impossible for you to defeat the Greater German Reich,” he said. His tone was absurdly pleasant, without any hatred or rage or even amusement at seeing Britain brought so low. “Accept your place or face the consequences.”

Davall watched as the Germans slowly loaded into their vehicles. They left the Davidson house empty and open for anyone to take what they liked. Some of the townspeople would do that, he knew, and become complicit in the German crimes. Others would try to preserve what they could for when and if the family returned.

He knew what had happened; the Germans had jumped to the wrong conclusion and arrested the wrong family… and it was all his fault. He watched as Kate went back into the house, her face streaked with tears, and then he looked back at where the family had been forced to kneel, remembering, fixing it all in his brain.

The Germans would pay for their treatment of innocent children.

* * *

“I don’t think he knew much,” Wulfenbach said as Stahl examined the body of former Sergeant Davidson. The interrogation had been brutal but the former Sergeant had been tougher than they’d expected. He’d died in the interrogation; Stahl was starting to suspect that they’d only picked up someone who’d kept his army-issue weapon, not a real insurgent at all.

“He’s dead,” Stahl confirmed, irritated. The failure would look very bad, even though it had probably intimidated the real insurgents, assuming that they had watched as the various houses had been searched. Three of them hadn’t had any weapons or anything connecting them to the insurgents. “Have the interrogator disciplined for his failure and have the dead man’s wife and grandfather transferred to a detention camp for the immediate future.”

“Jawohl, Herr Standartenfuhrer,” Wulfenbach said, snapping a perfect salute. His tone became a cross between a leer and a sneer. “What would you like done with the girls?”

Stahl considered it. One of the darker secrets of the Russian insurgency was that some truly horrible things were done to Russian women, in the name of the Reich, and some members of the extermination groups — the Einsatzgruppen — possessed tastes that could never be satisfied in a civilised society. In Russia, no one would have thought anything of him throwing the girls to the men, or at least those who had a taste for such young girls, but Stahl considered himself a civilised man. He had never been forced to use such measures in Norway, and the very thought of it made him sick.

“They’re both of sound racial stock,” he said, after a moment. “The secretaries can look after them for a few days until I can make arrangements to have them shipped back to the continent and given to a foster family to be raised as good German girls. It will give them the chance at a much better life within the Reich than they would have here and eliminate any tendencies they might have to defy us later in their lives.”

Wulfenbach protested.

“There are prostitutes here!” Stahl snapped, remembering that the prostitutes had just switched to servicing the Germans. “This is not Russia, and if anyone breaks the rules on proper conduct towards the local population, I will have him shot, understood?”

Stahl didn’t want to think about what Rommel would do to anyone stupid enough to defy the edict. The Field Marshal, for all of his military competence, had a strange idea of war as a gentlemanly sport. The British admired him as well, something that might have played a role in the Führer’s decision to order Rommel to take command of the invasion force, but that wouldn’t last if the SS carried out some real atrocities without Rommel punishing them for their crimes. If that happened, Himmler would take it out on Stahl, and his career would come to a screeching halt.

“I want additional patrols for the next week or so,” he said, forcing his mind back to the business at hand. He’d done something that would cause ill feeling within the British town, so he was pushed to capitalise on it and prevent the British from using it as either a cause for unrest or simply forgetting that it had ever happened. “I want them to know that we are here and that we are watching them, so have the soldiers politely, but firmly, check everyone’s cards when they meet them. I want them feeling that we are watching them everywhere, understand?”

He issued more orders as he sorted though his thoughts and priorities. He would need more men, but that would be a problem, even with the expanding shipping capabilities; the army had most of the shipping reserved for their use. They wouldn’t take kindly to a request for more SS security forces, or even a request that a few of their infantry battalions be added to Stahl’s forces for local security. Not with the British Army out there and still very dangerous. It would have to be handled by higher authority, and that meant Berlin… and Himmler.

“Yes, Herr Standartenfuhrer,” Wulfenbach said. He knew nothing of Stahl’s concerns. “I will issue the orders at once.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

London, England

Alex DeRiemer stepped into the underground Cabinet Room and dropped into one of the chairs against the wall as the principles took their seats before the meeting began. His status was uncertain at the moment, much to his concern; Churchill had ordered him to act as a personal assistant, but also to handle some of the intelligence and assessment work for MI6, so that Churchill could have access to up-to-date information. DeRiemer’s correct prediction of a German attack had made an impression on Churchill, but he wasn’t sure if he was actually qualified to do some of the other work that Churchill wanted. The Prime Minister, it seemed, didn’t always trust his own people.

The politics were a tangled web. Churchill had trounced the faction that had wanted to co-exist with Nazi Germany — and Hitler in particular — after the attacks on London and the invasion, and that particular faction was keeping its heads down, well aware that they could be blamed for the invasion. Other groups, however, weren’t too keen on Churchill, such as the party that distrusted him personally, or the clique that wanted to make a compromise peace with Germany. Churchill stood against any such peace and, so far, had the votes in the Houses of Parliament to remain firm in his conviction, but if there was a major disaster, his position could change very rapidly. The question was simple. Did Churchill understand that?

DeRiemer shrugged as the room filled up. Churchill hadn’t hesitated to sack a few dozen people he’d called appeasers, but there were others whose views were more hidden even from Churchill. They watched and waited, hoping for victory, but prepared to sell out for the best terms they could get if the Germans won the war. Somewhere in the darkness, knives were being sharpened; DeRiemer didn’t want to be there when one of the factions finally made its move. It would be disaster.

Churchill tapped the table and the room fell silent. “Stafford, I believe that you were in direct communication with President Taft,” he said. It had been hard for Sir Stafford Cripps, temporary Foreign Secretary, to convince Churchill to leave matters in his hands, rather than talking to the Americans directly. Churchill didn’t like him much, as he had been working to stabilise Churchill’s beloved India before independence, and DeRiemer suspected that the feeling was mutual. “What is the American position on the war?”

“President Taft remains strongly convinced that isolation is the best policy for his country,” Sir Stafford said, his upper-class voice echoing around the room. “Regardless, he has agreed to allow our ships transit through the Panama Canal — which technically he shouldn’t allow as a neutral player in the conflict — and, in addition, the United States Navy will be providing us with some additional escort in the Caribbean, officially because of American concerns about a conflict breaking out there. The French islands remain a constant concern to the Americans, and they have actually considered demanding that the French demilitarise them and submit to American oversight.”

He paused. “He has also agreed to extend us lines of credit regarding the purchase of weapons and ammunition within America itself, and to raise no objection to Americans travelling to Britain and joining our armed forces,” Sir Stafford continued. “There are actually several hundred volunteer units being formed now, although those units are of questionable quality, and there may actually be several hundred thousand Americans coming to join the defences. We have a particularly high rate of volunteers from the American Jewish Community, which is the most vocal in support of us and against the Germans.”

The American Jews had made the Germans an offer back in 1944; they’d offered to pay a bounty for Jews if they were allowed to leave the Reich and travel to America. The Nazis had driven a hard bargain, but in the end, several hundred thousand Jews, many of them Russian or French, had been permitted to leave the Reich with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Their tales of horror, from the concentration camps to the massive slave labour gangs as the Germans built their empire, had shocked America; it had provided most of the impetus to keep the United States Navy strong and active.

“Regardless, unless the Germans do something very stupid, I don’t think that the Americans as a whole will join the war,” Sir Stafford concluded. “I do not believe that Taft would seek to ask Congress for a declaration of war, unless the Germans actually attacked an American ship or American interests in a blatant act of war, and even if he did, it would be hard to convince the American people to support the war.”

Churchill’s great face scowled and DeRiemer could almost follow his thoughts. In 1941, there had been rumours that Japan considered attacking the United States and Hitler might have been dragged in, as an ally of Japan. The thought of the vast, largely unrealised, potential of the American industrial machine was enough to make any British statesman salivate. If Japan had attacked the Americans, they would have joined the war and it would have been over. Instead, Japan had struck north, taken a terrible beating from the Russians, and lost all enthusiasm for further military adventures. The Japanese were locked in a permanent struggle with China, trying to subdue the ruins of the Chinese state. They wouldn’t come boiling out of their Home Islands towards British or American territory now.

Sir Stafford coughed. “The good news is that both Canada and Australia have pledged their support, and the first army units should be on their way within the week, but it will be several weeks before we get anyone from Australia now that we cannot use the Suez Canal,” he said. “I have suggested that the Australian troop ships meet up with the Eastern Fleet and allow them to escort them to Britain, while the Royal Canadian Navy and the remains of Home Fleet will be providing cover for the Canadians. It will take longer to add Canadian air units to our order of battle here, but they have been pledged and we will have them here as soon as they can be shipped across the Atlantic.”

Admiral Cunningham coughed. “We can expect the Germans to make an attempt at sinking them,” he said. “It would be an easy way to remove the Canadians from the balance sheet, and it will take the Canadians far too long to build up a replacement army, assuming that they actually can build up a second force. Canada doesn’t allow conscripts to serve overseas against their will, so the Germans will certainly try to influence Canadian public opinion through slaughtering their soldiers.”

“True enough,” Churchill said. “Sir Stafford, what is your opinion of South Africa’s stance?”

“They’re conflicted,” Sir Stafford admitted. “They have quite a large German element within their population, mainly Germans who were considered too unsuitable for the Reich and exiled to South Africa, and that population is not keen on fighting the Reich. They also have their own internal troubles with their black population. Smuts believes that he can hold the state together, but he may not be able to secure a declaration of war. They’ll give us what support they can, short of war, but they may never join the war formally.”

“I see,” Churchill rumbled, his face unreadable. He’d been in South Africa during the Boer War, DeRiemer remembered; what was he thinking now? Did he remember how the Boers had resisted the British Empire and held out long enough to earn the respect and admiration of the world? “Christopher, how do we stand for war stocks?”

Christopher Parkinson, the Minister for Industrial Production, stood up. He produced a vast sheet of notes and glanced down at it from time to time as he talked. He had the incredibly dry voice of the committed bureaucrat and a face like a pinched rat; he wouldn’t have been given a Cabinet post normally, DeRiemer knew, but his senior had been killed by the German raid. Churchill was given no option but to promote him, but it was only a temporary promotion. Parkinson lacked the ability to inspire or lead anyone.

“The reserve of war stocks has been badly eaten by the war,” Parkinson said, his voice as dull as ditch-water. “We built up a massive reserve for the expected war, but the fighting has drained it faster than we predicted, with the net result that we are experiencing shortages in some areas, mainly heavy artillery shells and bombs. Our factories were switched over to war production by order of the Prime Minister the day after the war began, but it will take time to adjust everything to producing war stocks, even though we had plans for a rapid conversion worked out over the years. The Germans have not yet begun to bomb factories, although we expect that will change in the very near future, but the damage they have caused to the transport network is causing shortages and bottlenecks right across the country.”

He paused long enough to wipe his spectacles. “The other major shortage is petroleum,” he said. “The Germans hit one of the main fuel dumps at Scapa Flow and burned most of it off before the fire could be extinguished, while one other fuel deport has actually fallen into German hands. Again, the damage to the transport network has had a major effect on our ability to supply fuel to where it’s needed, although we have had some success in commandeering supplies from petrol stations and some civilian industries that are not war-essential.

“Regardless, oil remains one of our major weaknesses,” he continued. “We normally get oil supplies from Iraq and America, but with the Iranians spoiling for an attack into Iraq, we may lose those oil terminals soon. Once that happens, we will be dependent upon oil coming from America, while German submarines will certainly try to hammer those links. Overall, Prime Minister, we may have enough fuel supplies for six months, but frankly I feel that that is far too optimistic.

“The situation regarding food is actually fairly similar,” he concluded. “We built up our farms as much as possible over the years since Hitler tried to starve us out the first time, but we still import considerable amounts of foodstuffs from around the world. The secondary problem involves damage to the transport network, which means that some areas of the country have more than enough food to eat, while others are continually on the verge of starving. The rationing system remains in place, but it has started to fray as people realise that there may not be enough food to go around. The word on the street is that the rich have enough to eat and the poor… can starve for all they care.”

DeRiemer watched Churchill’s face carefully. There had been abuses of the system and Atlee’s Government had ordered an open investigation, revealing dozens of abuses that could, with some imagination, be blamed on Churchill and his Government. It had poisoned the minds of the citizens in some parts of Britain. Now, with a war on, such distractions could be fatal to the country as a whole.

“I want the system to be as open and fair as possible,” Churchill said, finally. He must have felt some of the taunts that had been directed at him in the past. “Are there any other major problems?”

“The refugees,” Parkinson said. His nose managed to pinch still further. “We ordered people to remain at home, but several tens of thousands were able to leave and escape the German noose; unfortunately they’re now draining resources from wherever they ended up. What exactly are we going to do with them?”

Churchill eyed him. “I expect you to treat them as you would any other British citizen,” he said, a dark tone in his voice. “I do not feel that we can blame people for retreating from the Germans, not after the rumours of German atrocities spread, and you will not penalise them for their actions. Find them something useful to do if you can, but you are certainly not to drive them back into the arms of the Germans, understand?”

Parkinson started to say something, caught Churchill’s eye, and fell silent. “Now,” Churchill said, “Admiral; what is the current status of the fleet and the convoys?”

Admiral Cunningham frowned as he answered, “We have taken most of Home Fleet’s destroyers and assigned them to convoy protection duties. The Germans didn’t launch any major U-boat attacks for a few days, which was lucky as we didn’t have any convoys organised and scrambled to put an escort system together. The Germans are attacking convoys now, but we’re hitting U-boats as well and some of our ships have been using American flags, just to provide some measure of protection. Overall, however, we have had some serious losses, and it will only get worse despite the high degree of protection. We don’t have enough convoy escort ships, and if they send one or more of their battleships on a raiding mission, they’re going to blow through convoy defences and annihilate the convoy.”

He paused. “We have continued to raid their supply lines at night and even risked a night bombardment of their positions, but they’re cutting back on their night time convoys, so that’s going to be less effective as time goes on,” he said. “Until we get the reinforcements, we’re just going to be able to hold our own against the Germans and preserve as much as we can of the remaining fleet.”

Churchill stood up.

“The situation looks grim,” he said firmly. “Regardless, the night always looks darkest before the dawn, and we must not despair. They too have their problems; they too have issues with the inflexible laws of supply and military logistics. They can be beaten, gentlemen, and we will defeat them. We will burn them out of England and show Hitler’s enemies that though he is evil incarnate, he can be beaten.”

On that note, the meeting ended. “I need a word with you, Prime Minister,” Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies said. The Director of MI6 leaned closer. “This concerns Percy and Alex as well.”

Churchill waited until the room was cleared of everyone but the four of them. “This had better be important,” he said, shortly. “I’m due to address Parliament in an hour and then inspect a Guards Brigade before they leave for the front.”

“I have a source within Hitler’s inner circle,” Menzies said, without preamble. “Actually, he’s connected to one of the inner circle members, so while we hear some things, we don’t always hear everything. The warning about the invasion plan reached us a day after the invasion began…”

“How very useful,” Churchill sneered.

“And we just received another update,” Menzies said, ignoring the Prime Minister’s jibe. “There are two components to the warning, sir; one is good news, and the other is extremely worrying.”

“This air of mystery is becoming tiresome,” Churchill said, annoyed. “What’s the good news?”

“The good news is that the feared invasion at Dover is a German decoy rather than a real attack,” Menzies said. “The Germans intend to force us to keep one eye on them, but they don’t actually intend to establish another beach head, particularly into the teeth of the Dover defences. The bad news… is that Otto Skorzeny is still alive and is hidden somewhere within London.”

“I see,” Churchill said. DeRiemer wondered how he managed to remain so calm; a man with Skorzeny’s reputation was nothing to laugh at, not even in the heart of British power. If he had organised the assault on Downing Street, no wonder it had worked so well and killed the Prime Minister himself. “How reliable is this source?”

Menzies considered for a long moment before he said, “We’ve had indirect contact with him for almost ten years. He sent Belgium a warning about the German invasion, but Hitler changed the date and his second warning was actually ignored until it was too late. He made contact with us later, and sent us information that proved to be accurate although always limited. After the war, he supplied us with information from time to time, but always kept himself firmly to himself.”

“I see,” Churchill said. He looked down at the table, and then back up at Menzies, holding him prisoner with his eyes. “Where is Skorzeny now?”

“We don’t know,” Menzies admitted. “Himmler has a secret source within Britain and that source is helping Skorzeny, but we don’t know who it is or why they’re helping him. Himmler is apparently playing this one very close to his chest.”

“We thought that we had wiped out the German spy networks within hours of the hostilities opening,” Sir Percy Joseph Sillitoe said. The Director General of MI5 looked worried. “The warning of a network so well hidden that we cannot find it is rather… worrying. We thought that we had wiped out the remains of the German force that attacked London, but if some of them survived and managed to escape detection…”

“Yes,” Churchill said, dryly. “I want you to find Skorzeny, whatever it takes, before it’s too late. If there is any truth at all in the superman Radio Berlin claims he is, he will not have gone to ground forever.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

London, England

The sound of a front door key turning in the lock brought Otto Skorzeny to his feet. Pistol in hand, he swung his legs over the sofa and stood as the door swung open. They’d been forced to allow the Englishman to leave his comfortable house to go to work and check the dead drops for messages but it held a danger for the commandos. If Philby had had anything resembling daring, maybe he would have tipped off the British authorities and vanished somewhere within London. That would have been… inconvenient, although Skorzeny had taken Philby’s measure and concluded that the Englishman no longer had the courage to try anything clever.

The thought made him smile. Philby, the communist who had spied for the regime that had stuffed senior communists into gas chambers and junior communists into work gangs, was in a mess. He couldn’t even tell his own people what had happened, because if they took Skorzeny alive and he testified against Philby, the British Government would know just what Philby had been doing for the last ten years. The British people would never forgive him for the invasion, and Skorzeny intended to make sure that Philby got all of the blame for that even though his intelligence had only played a small part in helping the Germans to formulate the invasion plans.

He stepped out of cover as the door closed. Philby was just standing there with a distant gaze. Skorzeny coughed gently, and Philby looked up, noticing him. The spy’s face twisted into an astonishing series of emotions; hate, fear, worry… but ended up with a kind of blank mask that reminded Skorzeny of some of the slave gangs he’d seen in the east. It was the face of someone who had accepted his fate.

“So,” he said, enjoying the chance to practice his English, “how was your day?”

Philby didn’t see the funny side. “The office was trying to determine if there was any way that Beria could be convinced to launch an attack into the rear of the Reich,” he said, shortly. His tone, too, was defeated; Skorzeny stepped forward and picked up one of the shopping bags. It hadn’t surprised him to discover that Philby had somehow acquired additional ration stamps from somewhere, enough to keep him in food for years, or feed six hungry German commandos. “They wanted someone to go to Russia directly and speak to him.”

Skorzeny snorted rudely.

“I know,” Philby said. The Red Army had been cut back sharply after their defeat. He was there at the time. The only remaining Red Army divisions were infantry, all equipped with weapons that dated right back to 1941. They weren’t supposed to have any tanks or aircraft, and while Russia was large enough to hide an entire army, Beria wouldn’t risk any secret forces to save Britain. It wouldn’t matter, anyway. There would be enough German soldiers in the west of Russia to defend it against anything Beria might field, without draining soldiers from the invasion of Britain. Adolph Hitler possessed over two hundred divisions, after all, and not all of them could be committed to the invasion of Britain.

Philby carried the other shopping bag into the living room and unloaded it under the table. Skorzeny’s eyes tracked it carefully; sealed tins of beans, corned beef, some fresh vegetables and some chocolate. Philby pulled out a large loaf of bread and Skorzeny sniffed it, noting that it didn’t smell as nice as the ones he remembered from Berlin, although that had been after food had started to pour into the Reich from the east. “They just think that Beria has a motive to go after Hitler, and if Beria should happen to be destroyed, so what?”

Skorzeny laughed at the bitterness in his tone. “You do know that Beria doesn’t even know your name?”

Philby flushed angrily. “I know that,” he sighed tiredly. “I know… I just don’t want to give up what I’ve been!”

“There’s no room for communists in the Reich,” Skorzeny said. He smiled coldly. “We defeated the communists back in 1941 and then we chased them to the east until they finally submitted. Doesn’t that show you something about communism?”

He leaned closer. “I was with SS Adolph Hitler,” he said, referring to the brigade-sized division that had once served as Hitler’s personal bodyguard and had then been upgraded to a fighting formation that earned honours in Yugoslavia and Russia. “I remember how we were welcomed by Ukrainians, who had been treated like dogs by the Commissars and even by Russians. They learned quickly that they had made a mistake, of course, but what would have happened if Stalin hadn’t treated them like that?”

Philby scowled. Skorzeny wondered just how he was holding up, inwardly; somehow, he had justified the fall of the Soviet Union as something other than communism being nonsense. Skorzeny had little time for traitors, but Philby puzzled him; the man had betrayed his country over… what? His faith in communism, every bit as deep and true as a religious conversion, had kept him loyal to the Soviet Union; he hadn’t even questioned it when the contacts had been reopened and he had been ordered to resume sending information.

Himmler had said that Philby was a true believer and looking at him now, Skorzeny suspected that he was right. Philby had believed in World Communism and the Dictatorship of the Workers and Peasants with all of his heart, using it as the justification to put a keen mind and a vast range of contacts at the disposal of the Soviet Union, an intelligence coup that had awed Himmler when he had first learned of it. Skorzeny’s forte was special operations, not intelligence work, but he understood both the value of good intelligence and the need to keep a careful eye on his people, just in case they cracked under the pressures of their work.

“Stalin was a mistake,” Philby said finally, with a desperation Skorzeny doubted he could hear in himself. “He was someone who should never have been allowed anywhere near a place of power.”

“I see,” Skorzeny said as Philby took the food into the kitchen. Skorzeny’s men were upstairs, some of them sleeping while the others kept watch. The smell of food would bring them downstairs soon enough. They now knew who Philby was and why he was helping them. It was something that worried Skorzeny. He’d agreed to kill himself, rather than be taken alive, but the others had made no such commitment. “And what did you find in the dead drop?”

Slowly, unwillingly, Philby reached into his pocket and pulled out a small matchbox. Skorzeny took it and opened it, finding a small sheet of paper, folded over time and time again, which he unfolded and placed on the table. The message looked perfectly innocuous, without anything that would arouse suspicion, but he picked out the code phases easily enough; they had been embedded within what looked like a piece of a novel. Philby’s communications with his handlers had mainly been one-way; it had always been harder to send messages from Germany or Moscow to an agent. If something occurred that code phases didn’t cover, a meeting would have to be arranged, and that would be almost impossible with Britain at war.

“We’re to remain here and prepare for a mission,” he said, after a moment. He cocked an eyebrow. “I trust you won’t mind if we stay for a week longer?”

Philby eyed him murderously. “You can stay here as long as you like, provided you have a way of getting me back to the Reich,” he said, after a moment. Skorzeny didn’t miss the submission in his tone; stripped of everything but himself, Philby had finally abandoned his cause.

Skorzeny shrugged. “When London falls, we will make contact with the German forces and arrange for extraction,” he said as if it wasn’t important. It would have been a personal defeat for him personally; he didn’t want to remain in London passively until the city fell to the advancing Germans. “If the city doesn’t fall, we may have to make our way to Ireland and travel from there to the Reich or maybe steal a boat and sail across to France.”

He threw his hands in the air and grinned at Philby.

“It hardly matters, anyway,” he said. “If we are called upon to perform a mission, we will carry it out whatever it takes, and then we will make our escape.” He frowned. “Or do they have some reason for believing that we might still be alive?”

“There have been some reports of Germans hiding in the streets,” he said after a moment. Skorzeny lifted an eyebrow, wondering. Could it be that others had survived from his unit? They had all had orders to leave the city as swiftly as possible and go to ground, but the British counter-attack would have caught most of them before they could escape. “There have also been other reports of German spies and infiltrators dropping from the skies.”

Skorzeny shook his head, dismissing the rumours. “I don’t think that they would send additional paratroopers into London,” he said after a moment. The Reich didn’t have that many paratroopers, and those they did have would be needed to secure territory in the path of the main advance. “It might be one of those rumours that has gotten out of hand and expanded a bit.”

“They used to have rumours of nuns in hobnailed boots dropping from the sky,” Philby said, as he returned carrying a vast pot of steaming stew. “Do you want to call your men down to eat?”

Skorzeny nodded and summoned the other paratroopers. He was worried about them, even though they all had experience remaining concealed in enemy territory; this Englishman’s home wasn’t some forest hideaway in the middle of insurgent Russia. The experience was almost surreal in its implications; they were in a pleasant home, but if they were caught, they would almost certainly be shot out of hand. The British uniforms might just give any investigator a moment’s pause, but he doubted that it would last long enough for them to react and escape. The bizarre combination of normality and being in the heart of enemy territory would affect them, sooner or later, and if they broke…

“You first,” he said. Philby wasn’t much of a cook and normally ate out, but Skorzeny had insisted on him eating everything he prepared just in case it occurred to him to try to poison the commandos and bury them somewhere in the garden. Now that they’d made contact with Himmler, someone in Berlin would know who had betrayed them and burn Philby from a safe distance, but that wouldn’t stop him taking precautions. Philby couldn’t be trusted even if he only wanted to save his own skin.

The food tasted slightly strange to Skorzeny’s mouth, but Philby ate without hesitation; he’d explained that some British foods included different cooking oils or substitutes caused by the food shortages. He’d then gone off on a rant about how he’d seen the rich obtaining all the food they could possibly want or using their status to gain other advantages or exemption from war duties, something that had made Skorzeny laugh. The rich of Britain might have betrayed their duty, but Philby had betrayed his entire country and he used the black market. He was little more than a hypocrite who would probably have been liquidated had he ever arrived in Moscow.

“So,” he said when the uncomfortable meal had ended, “did you manage to find a way of getting us identification cards?”

Philby considered for a moment. “I believe I could get you some cards,” he said after a moment. “There is a filing clerk who owes me a favour, and I could ask him to present me with some cards for you, but they wouldn’t be very useful. The ones that would allow you into secure areas aren’t available at his level of clearance.”

“That will be fine,” Skorzeny said, after a moment. He didn’t want to keep his men cooped up in the flat much longer and besides, sooner or later they would have to leave London in a rush. “What will we be in their eyes?”

“Labourers,” Philby said. “They’ve been issuing the cards to refugees fleeing the occupied areas, all strong men, who are then working on the defences of London and other places. You might end up being asked to help with some of the construction, but at least you would be able to move freely without too many questions, as your normal papers would be inside the occupied zone.”

Skorzeny shook his head in awe. The Reich prided itself on the massive records it had collected on each and every one of its citizens, regardless of their social class and racial value, and a group of British soldiers would certainly not be allowed to walk around behind the lines without being stopped. If details couldn’t be checked against the records, the refugees would have been placed under strict supervision, if not placed in camps, until their identities were confirmed. The British lacked the concept of real security, or even basic paranoia; they’d allowed Philby, and Himmler alone knew how many other communists, to operate at the heart of their world for decades.

“That will be excellent,” Skorzeny said, thinking of the chance to get a look at the defences from the inside. The British would have learned to use camouflage by now, hiding as much as they could from the spying German planes, high enough to see everything and yet escape anti-aircraft fire. He’d heard the sound of British guns, from time to time, and he hoped that the apartment wasn’t bombed. They couldn’t go to an air raid shelter, whatever happened. “When can you have them ready for us?”

Philby looked nervous. “Maybe in a couple of days,” he said. Skorzeny suspected that he was only guessing; normally, he sounded more confident. “They’re issuing hundreds of them at the moment; I’d just have to have my friend snatch a few of them, enter them into the central records, and then take them out of the building.”

“That should be no problem at all,” Skorzeny said. “How much else have you taken out of that building over the years?”

“This is wartime,” Philby said icily. Skorzeny lifted an eyebrow in wry challenge. “It will take some time to move even a few cards out of the building without being detected, unless you want to be found…?”

Skorzeny didn’t bother to come up with a sharp reply. “Get them as soon as you can,” he said shortly and stood up. He was tired, and besides, there was only so much of Kim Philby that anyone could take. He didn’t understand how he had been allowed to operate for so long. “I’m going to get some sleep, and I suggest that you do the same; we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”

* * *

Alex DeRiemer looked down at the report and rubbed his eyes bitterly. He had worked for MI6, spying on Germany, Italy and Japan, but he hadn’t really focused on the business of enemy intelligence activities within Britain itself. That was the responsibility of MI5, but at Churchill’s orders, he was making an overview of the situation… and it astonished him. There were too many ways for the Germans to get someone into the country, and while most of the German spy networks had been wiped out in 1939 and again a week ago, there might well be others — were others, if the report from Germany was to be believed.

He re-read the message from Germany again. Himmler had a source, someone fairly high up in the British establishment, maybe more than one. He was keeping those details to himself but the British now knew that he was out there. For all DeRiemer knew, the agent might be someone who only supported Himmler’s operations and didn’t have any major role within the British establishment.

He shook his head. It would have to go to MI5, who would put together an investigative team that would discover who the spy was and what they’d sent back to Berlin, before it was too late. If the spy was a deep-cover agent, he or she could be anyone from the director of a government department to one of the cleaners, someone with much more access than anyone understood, or suspected. If…

If the spy had known anything about the Omega Project, they might have warned Germany that certain aspect of science that were considered Jewish were far more important than they had guessed, and if that happened, with all the German technical skill and the vast resources of the Reich focused on the problem…

The war might be within shouting distance of being lost.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Near Felixstowe, England

I really shouldn’t be here, Gregory Davall thought, as the woman at the door waved him towards one of the smaller rooms. He was a committed Christian, a husband and a father, and a month ago, he had wanted to be one of the voices demanding that the building be burned to the ground. He had said nothing, largely because he knew what interest the Grey Wolves had in the building, but being anywhere near it sickened him. It was all he could do to walk inside, past the German guard, and request a particular girl.

The German guard had even winked at him as he walked past. It had been the first sign of humanity he’d seen from a German, but he was sure that the guard was quietly laughing at him or thinking that there was something wrong with his relationship with his wife. Why else would a married man patronise a brothel?

He glanced around, purely for tactical purposes, of course, as he walked through and into the private room. The building had started life as a small hotel, but had been bought by a madam and turned into a brothel, which was quietly ignored by the mayor and the police. Johnston had once told him that the cat house would have been closed down were it not for the Grey Wolves. They had a very real interest in keeping the place open. Even the Germans, he’d joked, would respect a lady’s time with a client. They’d wait and arrest him afterwards. The door opened at his touch and he stepped into the small room, closing the door behind him.

“Woof, woof,” the girl said as she looked up at him. Davall took one look at her and felt the heat rising to his cheeks. She was young, very pretty, and naked. He could see her pert breasts peeking out from under her long dark hair and his eyes fell downwards to the neat dark triangle between her legs. She sprawled in perfect relaxation with an easy smile, an invitation to any man who saw her. “Aren’t you going to enjoy the view?”

Davall tore his eyes away from her breasts with an effort. Kate was hardly a shrinking violet, and she enjoyed sex almost as much as Davall himself did, but Janine, the prostitute, was far less inhibited. If Johnston was to be believed, she had been born in France and had actually started life as a prostitute there before moving to Britain and working for British Intelligence. She hated the Germans, he’d been told, and yet… she opened her legs for them all the time. If McAllister was to be believed, the German workers spent the most time in the brothel. Perhaps, he’d joked, even screwing in step.

“No,” he said, shortly. Janine didn’t look offended. She just lay back and turned slightly, her hair falling down to cover her breasts completely. “How long do we have?”

“I specialise in the long happy time, so we have around fifteen minutes,” Janine said. “Take your clothes off and sit next to me, if nothing else; you don’t want to be here with your clothes on, do you?”

The correct answer to that one was that Davall wanted to be naked and forget his priorities, but he kept Kate’s face firmly in his mind as he shook his head. Janine shrugged, stood up in one easy motion, and gently pushed Davall onto the bed where she began to massage his neck. Her touch was rougher than expected, perhaps to avoid arousing him more than necessary, but as she whispered in his ear, it began to take an effect on him anyway. Janine could make the most businesslike conversation sound like an invitation to bed.

“I have some clients from the Panzer units that pass through here,” Janine said, her voice a breathy whisper. The reminder that she had slept with the Germans made it easier for Davall to remember that he was married, and that he didn’t really want her. “They were quite keen to chat about their careers and their plans for the future. Some of them were quite boastful after they got some alcohol in them.”

Davall blinked. “Alcohol?”

“I was hired to work for a group of officers for a night as a hostess,” Janine said. “I don’t know what they were thinking; they wanted me to serve them naked, and then each of them had a turn with me or one of the other girls, and then… well, some of them had some odd tastes, but they paid well and they didn’t actually hurt me, and well…”

Her voice trailed off for a long moment. Her breasts brushed against Davall’s back. “They talked, as men will do when they’re under the influence of drink and a woman, and they all believed that there was a major assault being prepared,” she said. Davall stiffened and her hands pushed him back down again.

“In a week, maybe less, the Germans are going to launch a major offensive against the British defence line. They’re a Panzer unit and are determined not to allow any British soldiers to escape them.”

She shivered and said, “I heard one of them talking about how they’d strung up a British boy for shooting at them. I don’t know if they meant it, but…”

Davall scowled. “The BBC was reporting that someone had indeed been hung for firing at the Germans,” he said. The BBC wasn’t really proving very informative, although it outdid Radio Berlin; according to the latter, the entire British Army had been wiped out several times over. He understood that providing honest information would lead to the Germans listening to it as well, but it was still annoying, particularly when he needed the information to plot his next move. “Do you know which one did it?”

“No,” Janine said. “He was pretty drunk at the time and really needed some help to get it up. He almost had a go at me because of his own failure. He might just have been boasting, but everyone I had inside me that night agreed that there was a massive operation being planned.”

“I see,” Davall said. Despite himself, when her breasts touched him again, he felt a tingle of lust passing through his body. He wanted her, and it was hard to remember that Kate existed. She would allow him to take her, too. He could feel it in her body. “Do you know the target?”

“It was the British defence line,” Janine said, leaning closer to him. “I don’t know exactly where, but the dockyard workers were grumbling about having unloaded thousands of artillery pieces and some funny-shaped weapons they didn’t recognise, as well as tons and tons of supplies. I think there isn’t much time left.”

“I guess not,” Davall said, gently pushing her off him. “Do you know anything else?”

“They don’t let me pump them that much,” Janine protested mildly. Davall smiled at the tone in her voice. He desperately needed a cold shower. “They’ll boast and brag, because that’s what men do when faced with a pretty woman, but they don’t usually give me specifics. I can’t ask too many questions without them wondering if there’s a reason why I’m asking them…”

“It’s all right,” Davall said. He gave her a perfectly chaste hug and was surprised to see tears in her eyes. Janine had always seemed so hardened against the rigours of her life, accepting that she would be nothing more than a leman to men, when she was smarter and much more capable than most of them. It would be more dangerous with the Germans, now; the worst any British client could do would be to beat her up, but the Germans would have a worse fate for her, particularly if they caught her spying on them. “I’ll see you soon, all right?”

“You’re a good man,” Janine said. She pulled a robe around herself and hid her body. Davall found it something of a relief. His life was complicated enough without sleeping with her, no matter what he had to do to maintain his cover. “Just make sure it gets out where someone can use it.”

She pointed him out of the room, towards a shower, and beckoned in a German officer. The German was already unbuttoning his trousers as the door closed. Davall felt a moment of rage, wanting to charge back into the room and kill the German before he touched her. He closed his mind, shared the showers with several burly dockworkers who were chatting in loud voices about how good some of the girls were — he was amused to notice that British and German had come together in shared sexual experiences — and then walked away from the docks before anything else could happen.

“Papers, please,” a voice said.

Davall looked up. He’d been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed the German patrol until he’d walked right into it. The four Germans were all focused on him; he struggled through his pockets, pretending not to notice the rifles that were levelled at his chest, and produced the identification card. The Germans examined it and then waved Davall on without even a backwards glance. They’d been doing that all week, sometimes carting off someone unlucky enough not to have a card, including a pair of young boys playing away from home. Those two, at least, had been returned an hour later. The others had been sent into a camp where they worked for hours under the watchful eye of German guards.

Bastards, he thought, as he reached his house. The Davidson family’s house was still empty, although he suspected that the Germans would billet someone there soon enough. The bodies of the two men were still hanging in front of the Town Hall, pour encourager les autres, but no one knew what had happened to the women. He’d been worried that he would run into Davidson’s wife in the brothel but he hadn’t seen any sign of her. He cursed his mistake under his breath; he should have asked Janine, and hadn’t thought to do so.

Kate was out shopping, so he changed rapidly and read one of his technical journals until she came home. Then told her that they were going out for a walk. James joined them as they set out towards the forest, but they didn’t get very far up the road before encountering a German sentry, who checked their papers and curtly ordered them back into Felixstowe. Davall suspected that he would have been a great deal less friendly if Kate hadn’t been there; the Germans would have been more suspicious of a single man on his own. Family walks in the countryside, it seemed, were now out of the question; he felt the noose closing around his neck.

“You’re going back tonight,” Kate said, once James had been dispatched to a friend’s house to play. It wasn’t a question. “Do you have to take such a risk?”

“Yes, I do,” Davall said and kissed her hard enough to make her blink. He made love to her, before holding her for a very long time. It was only when James came home that they separated, ate tea together as a family, and waited until darkness had fallen. He waited another hour after that, watching through the window as the Germans picked up curfew violators, and then slipped out into the night.

He didn’t take the same route this time. He kept very low and well hidden, watching as the Germans patrolled. He wished, for a moment, that he had his sniper rifle with him, but that was back in the secondary arms cache, too far away to recover quickly. The Germans didn’t notice as he slipped past them, into the forest, and moved quickly along a different set of paths.

The Germans had been exploring the forest in the daytime, and he listened carefully for any sign of their presence, but it was all as cold and silent as the grave. In the distance he heard the hoot of an owl, but there was no sign of human life. Even the other Grey Wolves should have remained home tonight.

The moon was shining down when he found the clearing and uncovered the wire and box. It had been carefully sealed, long ago, but he didn’t dare trust it too much; he checked everything carefully before attaching it to the wire. In one of the films he’d seen about spies in Occupied Europe, or in the Security Zone in the east, he would have attached up a speaker, but that was far too dangerous in the woods. Instead, he attached a battery and sent a simple signal down the line, his heart pounding as he waited for a reply.

Gubbins had promised him that someone would be monitoring the secret cables at all times, but if Davall couldn’t get through, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He might have to strike out cross-country and hope he could avoid the Germans, but he knew almost nothing of the area west of Ipswich, and he had no idea where the Germans might be basing themselves. If he ran into them outside Felixstowe, no amount of bluffing would get him out of their clutches. They would know him for what he was…

A light flickered on and off on the small system, and he sighed in relief. He’d learned Morse Code during training, and it was fairly easy to use without making a sound, sending electric pulses down the cable that would appear as a light at the other end.

He’d already composed a short simple message. He informed the listener that the Germans were launching an attack within the next week to ten days. He didn’t know what would happen afterwards, but there was just a chance that they would want to send out additional instructions, asking him to do something else for them, or… maybe even trying to assign him a target. Gubbins had told him to be certain that he could take on a particular target before agreeing. The Grey Wolves had too much at stake to spend themselves needlessly.

The light blinked on and off again, flickering enough for him to read the message as it repeated itself twice; GATHER MORE INFORMATION. He snorted under his breath, although he understood their concern. He’d been briefed on some of SOE’s more embarrassing failures when communications equipment and operators had fallen into German hands. Gubbins had apparently had someone shot for failing to notice that two captured operators had been signalling that they had been captured for weeks, using a covert signal, and therefore allowing several dozen more operatives to fall into German hands. Davall had used the proper codes, but with the German interrogation techniques, that could mean nothing. They didn’t know for sure who he was.

He sent back an acknowledgement and packed up the small device. He returned it to its hole and buried it under enough soil to make it impossible for the Germans to find it by accident. He listened carefully, hearing only small animals and night birds in the distance, and then slipped back towards the town.

Just before he reached the edge of the forest, he heard vehicles and ducked down as a German convoy swept past him, brilliant lights shining through the forest and creating an eerie effect that chilled him to the very core of his being. He could hear voices chatting in German as an infantry patrol marched up the road, some of them clearly barking orders to the others. He kept low, watching as they marched onwards. They didn’t seem to have seen him, but they might have been trying to act as beaters, driving him into the arms of a different German patrol.

A policeman was standing near a house, watching for curfew-breakers. Davall felt a moment’s pity for the officer, before reminding himself that the police had been forced to help the Germans. In order to protect the remainder of the town from reprisals, the police would give up the Grey Wolves if they knew who they were. Rumour had it that police families had already been taken as hostages. There was no way to know if that were true, but it might provide useful information if it could be confirmed at a later date.

He kept low as a second German convoy raced off into the distance and then slipped into his own garden. Kate had left the house completely dark, as he had instructed her, and it was easy to open the door and slip inside.

He considered his orders as he undressed and climbed into bed besides a warm and welcoming Kate. The higher-ups wanted more information, but unless Janine took a senior officer to bed and somehow got more information from him, he couldn’t see how the Grey Wolves could obtain such information, unless…

The idea grew in his mind. It was risky, almost crazy, but it might just work.

Chapter Thirty

Near Manningtree, England

I must be out of my mind, Captain Harry Jackson thought, as he watched the Germans from his position, just outside Manningtree. There wasn’t much to be said for the German occupied town. It contained a handful of buildings, a small marina for the tourists and a pair of railway lines running through the town and down towards the south. Manningtree stood almost at the exact point where someone would walk from Felixstowe to London and, as such, was a vitally important location.

It had been defended by its local Home Guard, which had fought for an hour before the Germans had finally broken through the defences and taken what was left of the town. The population had largely fled, apart from a handful of people who had chosen to remain and make the best of it, but most of the facilities were still intact. That wasn’t something to gladden the minds of the defence planners down south.

Jackson had watched as the refugees were debriefed and understood the situation. The Germans, in their lightning attack on Harwich, had captured quite a bit of rolling stock, all of which was being pressed into service for transporting their troops down to the front line for the attack that everyone expected. The British forces had tried to disable some of it, but the German engineers and mechanics were very good and had clearly managed to bring most of it back into service with the use of British railway drivers to control them.

The Germans took families hostage, or simply handcuffed the driver to the controls, and then forced them to work, secure in the knowledge that any treachery would mean certain death for the traitor. It reflected oddly on the German mind. Having declared British citizens German subjects, they believed that it gave them the right to make them do as they wanted, whatever happened. Jackson had never been to Germany, and suspected that he would never have the chance, but if the Germans were willing to use British citizens like that, what would they do to their own people?

He knew part of the answer already. The Germans had effectively enslaved everyone who didn’t meet their racial criteria. He’d heard from French refugees that the Vichy French had ended up rounding up thousands of Arabs and shipping them to Germany, giving them to the Germans rather than having young Frenchmen rounded up and sent to Germany, whereupon the Germans had made them slaves. He’d watched protest rallies and even small riots in India, where independence was always just around the corner. What would the Germans do to the Indians if they won the war and marched into India? They certainly wouldn’t tolerate Indian politicians trying to tell them what to do, that was for sure; Hitler had once asked, on Radio Berlin, why the British didn’t simply shoot a few thousand Indians to make the rest shut up.

Because we like to think we stand for something better, Jackson thought, as he gazed around the railway line. There were tens of thousands of miles of railway track in Britain, a network that had only been expanded over the last ten years to cope with the prospect of a German invasion, and even the Germans couldn’t hope to guard it all. Jackson had taken part in a drill with the Home Guard, focused on the suggestion that the Germans had landed paratroopers and that the paratroopers had cut railway lines, and the ‘German’ side had won, easily. He’d been able to defend the most vulnerable locations, but there was just too much track to easily patrol; it could be cut at any point and hours could be wasted. The irony didn’t fail to amuse him; if he had known that he was going to be tasked with wrecking a British railway line, he would have insisted on playing the aggressor in the exercise.

“Here,” Wilt muttered. The Sergeant had refused to remain behind when his commanding officer was going into danger, something that Jackson had found touching and worrying in equal measure. Wilt passed him one of the shovels and the two quickly dug a small hole in the railway line, just under one of the tracks, placing the mine underneath and burying it again almost completely. Wilt set the detonator, wrapped the wire around the railway track, and then smiled in the darkness.

“That’s the trap set, sir,” he said, grimly. Jackson moved away from the railway lines and headed back to where the remainder of the platoon were hiding. “They drive something across those lines and they’re going to regret it.”

Jackson nodded once. They’d watched the Germans for over three hours, and the Germans had sent a train through, every hour, at almost precisely the same time. It had impressed him, ruefully; he had wanted to try to locate the spot where two trains would pass each other, but there hadn’t been time. The Germans might have kept this part of the country lightly occupied, but they would certainly have the town itself under very tight control. As soon as the mine detonated, they would come pouring out of the town, ready for blood, and Jackson’s men would be in position to ambush them.

“Sir,” Wilt said. “It’s coming.”

Jackson could hear it long before he saw it. The railway lines were starting to sing, humming to themselves as the train approached. He wondered if the mine would be detonated long before the train actually ran over the detonator. He kept his face perfectly composed as the light of the train appeared in the distance, rounding the corner and picking up speed as it settled in for the long trip toward the front lines. It had some miles to go before it reached the nearest station to the German lines, but it was certainly faster than anything else; he stared at it though his night-vision goggles, confirming that it had over five coaches and several cattle trucks attached to the locomotive. It seemed almost a shame to blow up the locomotive — he had wanted to be a steam engine driver as a boy — but there was little choice. It was serving the Germans.

“Get ready,” he hissed, as the seconds ticked away. The locomotive would detonate the mine within moments. “Prepare to…”

The explosion was deafeningly loud as the mine detonated and the locomotive’s prow disintegrated, sending the remainder heeling over and smashing straight into the ground, the carriages smashing into the suddenly derailed locomotive and folding up like a concertina as their inertia carried them on. He heard metal screeching as it broke and tore under the impact, imagining that he heard the locomotive screaming like a living thing as it died and caught fire, flames licking through the carriages as they fell, smashing into the ground themselves.

A moment passed before a broken peace settled as the wrecked train stopped it’s motion… and then the first German soldier appeared, staggering from the wreckage and utterly stunned. He saw the German clearly through his goggles. His face was broken and torn. Others were emerging and…

“Fire,” he ordered, and the machine guns opened up. He heard the shouts and yells of the Germans below as they died in their hundreds, caught in the bullets and torn apart before they had a moment to defend themselves, some of them ducking for cover and drawing their own weapons. The crack of German rifles echoed out in the darkness, but the Germans were only shooting blind. The machine gunners walked their fire the length of the train, pouring bullets down onto the broken carriages, and the Germans wilted under their fire. Some would survive, Jackson knew, as they didn’t have time to search the train and make sure that all of them were dead, but the German morale would take a beating merely from having been caught so badly with their pants down.

His radio buzzed once, a warning. “We have company inbound,” he barked, hoping that the soldier who had volunteered to watch the main road had been able to escape all right. The Germans maintained rapid reaction units in each of their conquests, hoping to get a shot at British insurgents. They also knew to watch out for cut-off units of the army or the Home Guard, but most units that had wanted to escape had been able to make it to British lines. “Get ready…”

The noise of the German autogyro rose over the burning train as it swooped down, firing its machine guns down towards the woods. The German hadn’t seen them clearly, Jackson deduced. Most of the bullets were going in the wrong direction. Wilt didn’t wait for orders. They’d planned for when the German aircraft arrived, and he fired a long burst of machine gun fire at it. The Germans had armoured the autogyro aircraft as much as they could, but the aircraft couldn’t lift that much weight, and there were too many vulnerable spots, particularly to armour-piercing bullets. Sparks lit up the sky and then the bullets punched through a weak spot and sent the autogyro falling out of the sky. It crashed near the remains of the train, further damaging the German reputation, and Jackson smiled; so far, they’d accomplished their mission without losing a single man.

“They’re coming,” Wilt said, as lights appeared in the distance. Jackson peered towards the German vehicles with his night vision goggles and saw German infantrymen, completely hidden in the darkness, advancing as well. “Sir… we can’t stop that many!”

“I know,” Jackson said. “Joe, you’re up. Everyone else, it’s time to fall back.”

Corporal Joe Boyd nodded and lifted his sniper rifle to his shoulder, sighting through the night-vision scope and snapping off shot after shot towards the advancing Germans, who fell to the ground and returned fire. The heavy machine guns on the armoured fighting vehicles tore massive tracks through the foliage, completely ruining what had once been a popular spot for people to bring their families, but most of their shots were too high. Jackson kept his head down and covered his ears as the noise of the bullets zinging through the air grew louder, praying that the Germans would keep firing long enough to prevent them from sending in their infantry after Jackson and his men. He wasn’t worried about the armoured vehicles but the German infantrymen would probably be able to chase them all the way back to British lines.

The reports of gunfire dwindled suddenly, and he cursed. The German commander had realised that he was wasting ammunition and ordered the infantry into pursuit. The British platoon had established a good escape route, but the Germans certainly had more than a platoon of men, as well as more autogyros, if they were willing to risk them.

The trees gave way to fields and the platoon took a moment to check that the Germans hadn’t thought of moving some of their vehicles around to block them, and then ran up the railway line towards Ipswich. The Germans would probably expect them to head south towards the British lines, but Jackson had already decided that they would follow the railway lines north for a while, before recovering their vehicle and escaping before sunrise.

“Sir, Private Jenkins is wounded,” Wilt said. Jackson took a moment to examine the wound and swore. The young soldier had been shot in the shoulder and he’d lost his weapon somewhere back in the forest. That was a disciplinary offence but he could hardly be faulted under the circumstances.

Jackson’s only concern was more practical. “Can you make it back to the autogyro?”

“I think so, sir,” Jenkins said, his voice oozing pain. Wilt bandaged the wound as best as he could, but Jenkins really needed a proper doctor, and the closest friendly doctor — at least, the closest they knew about — was miles to the south, behind British lines. “I can still walk, it just hurts and…”

Jackson took his pack, ignoring the young man’s gasp of pain, and slung it over his own shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, wishing that they had something they could give him for the pain. “Just run!”

The noise of pursuit was growing louder as the Germans sent in more vehicles, including more autogyros and ground units, but they stayed in the railway trench. Jackson hoped that they would encounter a second train heading towards the wreck, one that might crash into the wreck and make the devastation worse, but they were out of luck. He glanced at his watch and frowned to himself.

It wouldn’t be long until daybreak and if that happened, they would have to find somewhere to hide — a barn maybe — and hole up for the day. That had its own dangers. The Germans would certainly blame whoever owned the barn for allowing them to stay there and take it out on them, assuming that they chose to honour the British uniforms at all. His platoon had singed the Germans so badly that their commanding officer was probably bent on revenge.

“Nearly there, sir,” Wilt said, keeping one eye on Jenkins. They left the railway tracks and struck out across the country, heading right towards a small copse of trees in the middle of a field, one that he’d seen before, but never imagined a practical use for until the war. The farmer had planted it for some reason that had made sense to him, but the army had found another use for it, one that had amused Jackson when he’d seen it. They ran into the trees, using a path that had been trodden by the farmer’s children, and piled into the autogyro waiting for them.

“Good to see you,” the RAF pilot said. They didn’t even know his name; General Barron had said that he had experience with sneaking small groups of people behind enemy lines and left it at that. The deafening roar of the engines echoed through the autogyro as it rose into the air, leaving the small patch of trees far below, and headed off towards the south-west “Did you have a successful trip?”

“Yes,” Jackson said, peering back towards their target. The darkness obscured everything, but he was sure that he could see flames in the distance. It was possible that the locomotive had caught fire again or something else had happened. Maybe the Germans still thought that they were in the woods and had set fire to it in hopes of catching them. There was no way to know. “Are you sure we can get through the air defences and escape?”

“Hey, the Germans don’t really have any way of telling us apart from one of their aircraft,” the pilot said, as they swooped low over the countryside. “The real danger is being shot at by our own forces, but we can slip through a gap and avoid any danger with ease, as long as I fly the proper course.”

Wilt snorted. “Isn’t there a danger that the Germans could fly the same course?”

“Not unless the Germans knew precisely what course to fly,” the pilot assured him. He yanked the autogyro through a quick change of course and headed west for ten minutes before turning back to the south. “If they just flew over the gap, they would be identified as… well, not being us, and the radar-guided guns will try to engage it. That would be fatal for them unless they were flying a fighter, but as a fighter isn’t an autogyro on the radar screen, the defences will engage it anyway.”

The remainder of the flight lasted nearly thirty minutes before they put down on a field, which was being used as a makeshift airbase. “Good luck, chaps,” the pilot said as a lorry arrived for them. The tired platoon boarded the lorry and waved goodbye. The lorry was uncomfortable and smelled as if it were used to carry farm animals — which was actually possible as a great deal of vehicles had been commandeered by the army — but it was heaven to the exhausted soldiers.

The pilot didn’t understand. “Don’t forget to bloody the German nose when they attack,” he called, and ignored the angry looks from some of the soldiers. The soldiers on the ground didn’t think much of the RAF, regarding them as effeminate fly-boys who couldn’t handle service on the ground and were sometimes accidentally responsible for bombing British trenches instead of German trenches. “They cannot take this airbase or all of England shall fall.”

Jackson laughed as the lorry drove off and carried them back towards General Barron’s headquarters. He’d make his report, inform the General of just how much damage they had wreaked upon the Germans, and then go find somewhere to sleep. The entire platoon needed to get some rest, or they’d be completely wasted by the time they would be required to go patrolling again. The Germans, having touched the British lines, had decided to pull back a little and content themselves with some aggressive patrolling, until they had prepared their attack. Everyone knew that it was coming…

Slowly, Jackson drifted off.

Chapter Thirty-One

London, England

“Thank you for coming, Mr Ambassador,” Winston Churchill said.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Ambassador Harry Truman said. Up close, it was easy to see why Roosevelt, before he died, had liked the old Englishman; he was a very personable figure indeed. Dressed in a suit, with a cigar puffing away between his lips, there was no mistaking him for anyone else. “I understood from your message that it was important.”

He leaned forward as Churchill puffed away contentedly. Truman hadn’t expected to be offered the post of Ambassador to the Court of King James — the formal title for any Ambassador to Britain — but he had attempted to carry out the duties of the post with one eye towards the benefit of his country and one wary eye on Nazi Germany. Roosevelt, before he died, had warned Truman that Hitler wasn’t going to go away; sooner or later, he would either come to attack the United States or interfere with American interests in another part of the world. Roosevelt had even gone so far as to predict that Hitler’s forces would lunge into Saudi Arabia and snatch the oil wells. Or maybe trouble would spread from Iran into Saudi Arabia, and with Arabian oil increasingly important to the United States, it could mean war.

Truman silently cursed that missed opportunity. The build-up of American forces and fire-power had thrust America forward into being one of the most powerful nations in the world, but that fire-power had been allowed to atrophy as interest in overseas affairs had faded and Japan had fallen in the wake of their experience with the Russians. If the Germans hadn’t forced Beria to surrender chunks of his own territory to the Japanese, their positions on the Chinese mainland would have been completely eliminated and they would have been reduced to a minor threat, rather than spending years trying to beat the life out of China. Truman doubted, from the handful of reports from Americans in the occupied zone, that the Japanese would succeed any-time soon, but as long as the fighting went on, China would eventually bleed to death. The only question was how long Japan could keep up the effort without collapsing itself.

If they had struck in 1941… but there was little point in worrying about what might have been. The Japanese had taken Indochina off the French and bullied the Dutch in the East Indies, and by doing so, they had solved many of their problems. It wouldn’t save them in the long term — Truman was sure that China was just too big for them to digest completely — but they weren’t looking for any more trouble. The fear of the Japanese had faded as Japan got deeper and deeper into China and the United States Navy had become vastly more powerful than anything Japan could hope to muster.

He grimaced. Germany was a different story. He had listened to Roosevelt’s fears, and even shared them to the extent he put aside Party loyalty and worked in London as President Taft’s Ambassador. The role had surprised him, and he suspected that Taft was trying to get him out the way. However, Truman had taken to the role, as well as a secondary role that Taft might not have really understood, or approved. Truman was working to build up an American consensus that action against Germany was needed, sooner rather than later, before it was too late.

Truman liked Germans — he had Germans in his family — but he loathed the Nazis. They were the only real threat to America and dangerous, very dangerous, these days. Nazi Germany, perhaps the most advanced nation in the world, held effective control over nearly a third of the world, and as the German economy expanded, so did the scale of the threat..He had seen intelligence reports that predicted the Germans would have a fleet to match the US Navy within ten years. They were facing a battleship and carrier war that would have terrified the British and German admirals who had fought in the early years of the century. If America lost control of the seas, it would be very difficult to prevent the Germans from landing an army on American soil. They would have problems winning, but as the British had learned to their cost, it was all-too-easy to make a surprise landing, and American security made the British look perfect. Truman and a handful of others had been warning America for years, but so few seemed to care.

Or to understand the scale of the threat. Truman, like all dedicated anti-communists, had little time for Russians, but what the Nazis had done to them was terrifying. The very face of the Russian nation was being reshaped, as was Africa and the Middle East, all at the behest of one man; Adolph Hitler. Those rated inferior were treated as slaves or simply exterminated; how long would it be before Russia was completely broken? It was impossible to be certain one way or the other, but he suspected that resistance had been falling for years. Beria’s refusal to talk to the United States, under threat of German punishment, made collecting accurate information impossible.

“There is much we have to discuss and very little time,” Churchill said into the silence. “I trust you will understand if we put aside formalities for the moment?”

“Of course,” he said, relaxing slightly. The noise of German bombs could be heard in the distance, but London itself hadn’t been seriously bombed since the first terrifying day when Otto Skorzeny and his men had landed to tear the guts out of the British Government. “It’s always a pleasure to cut the crap.”

Churchill nodded slightly, understanding the underlying message. Churchill was popular in America, although like so many others he sometimes overestimated the scale of that popularity. Roosevelt had once commented that while every American loved a hero, they didn’t love people who forced them to make hard choices. Churchill was both. He was also an ardent imperialist, something that had made it easy for Dewey to slander him during the 1944 election campaign, the campaign that had broken Roosevelt’s heart. Dewey might have done much for the country, including a bitter attack on racism and pro-Nazi feelings in the country, but he had done very little for the overall cause of defeating the Germans.

“The position is grim, but not desperate,” Churchill said, looking over at the map he’d hung on one wall. Truman studied it with considerable interest. It was hard to collect reliable information from the front. The Germans had seized a vast amount of British territory, and yet he knew from his own experience that there was a vast difference between taking the territory and controlling it. British lines, marked on the map, looked strong… but any military force that attempted to defend every possible location was asking for disaster.

“It looks as if the Germans are going to advance against your lines,” Truman said, finally. It showed no real insight. “When are you expecting them to move?”

Churchill shrugged. “We suspect that they will attack as soon as they feel able to do so,” he said. “We have some vague intelligence reports that suggest that they intend to commence within the week, but reports are confusing and… in any case, moving an entire army isn’t really easy. They may well intend to hit us within a week, but there will be delays that will force them to halt and wait.”

Churchill glowered. “You have seen the reports of German atrocities?”

“Yes,” Truman said. The list was short, compared to Russia, but the BBC was trumpeting all of them as examples of German beastliness. There had been several young men shot for shooting at Germans, several children taken as hostages and transported to Germany, and one known case of rape. He also knew that the Germans had shot the rapist themselves and assisted his victim to flee to British lines. That was Rommel’s influence, he suspected, an influence that would not last once the SS got its claws into Britain. “I’ve also reported on them to the president.”

His expression darkened. America probably wouldn’t really care. The country had seen the pictures of what was happening to the Jews, but while there had been shock and outrage, it hadn’t always translated into action. Some Jewish groups had been purchasing Jews from the Germans, trying to save as many as possible, only to be accused of literally buying and trading in slaves. It was disgusting, in Truman’s opinion, but there had always been a streak of anti-Semitism running through American politics.

“We need your help,” Churchill admitted after a long moment. “I have hopes that we will defeat the German offensive when it finally attacks our lines, but whatever happens, it will cost us dearly. The longer the Germans wait, the more time we have to prepare, but the more time they have to ship supplies into Britain and reinforce their own forces.”

His hand traced a location on the map. “We’ve been raiding them as much as we can and there have been all kinds of skirmishes along the lines, but we haven’t been able to prevent them reinforcing their divisions,” he said. “When the storm breaks, they will hit us as hard as they can, and that will shatter the forces we have built up over the years. We could win the battle, drive the Germans back into the sea, and still lose the war.”

Truman’s eyes narrowed. “What- exactly — does that mean?”

Churchill picked up a second map and unrolled it in front of Truman. “We have reports that the Italians are finally working up the nerve to cross the Suez,” he said. “The Germans have been pressing them to do it since they launched their invasion, but Mussolini is being balky. For some reason, he feels that Hitler should have provided him with advance warning of the invasion. It’s a shame he didn’t, because if that had happened, we would have had more warning ourselves, but…”

He tapped the Suez Canal. “The Italian have enough firepower to close the canal, and they have threatened to open fire on any warship trying to pass through there. If they decide to force a crossing, we will bleed them — make no mistake about that — but they will probably succeed. Hitler gave them thousands of former Russian tanks and weapons and they will have the fire-power to defeat our lines. Once they get over the canal, they will probably drive into Palestine and Iraq.”

Truman saw the implication at once, as Churchill had intended. “They’ll also threaten Saudi Arabia,” he said. “What about the Turks?”

Churchill shrugged. The Turks had gobbled up Cyprus and Syria — taking the latter from the Vichy French, who were in no position to complain — and were eyeing the oil wells in Iraq with growing interest. They were trying hard to stay out of the fighting, but Germans on two borders were a powerful argument in favour of coming to some accommodation with the Reich. The Turks were proud, tough fighters, but they lacked the ability to stand the Germans off. The Germans also provided almost all of their imports and a market for their exports. In short, Truman knew, the Germans had the Turks by the balls.

“We have some links on a very private level with their government,” Churchill said, slowly. He held Truman’s eyes, reminding him that was not to be shared further, whatever the reason. The Turkish Government had long historical reasons to hate the British. However, there were factions that preferred the British to the Germans. The Germans might, one day, try to exterminate the Turks. It didn’t help that the British were the main suppliers of weapons to the Turks, leaving the Germans permanently suspicious of British meddling in the region. “The Germans are pushing them to invade Iraq and Palestine.”

“Ouch,” Truman said. He studied the map for a long moment. “Don’t they have the Iranians for that?”

Churchill smiled. “They’re not too keen, we suspect, on the Iranians being in too strong a position, vis-à-vis the Reich,” he said. “The terms of their deal with the Iranians were that they would build up the Iranian Army to a point where it could stand us off and even allow the Iranians to take a role in the New Order. If Iran was to gain control of Iraq, they would become much more powerful and perhaps even inclined to start looking for other ways to improve their power base. Hitler would prefer for them to be heading east, into India, but that won’t be anything as lucrative as hitting Iraq.”

Truman considered. “And what happens when — if — Hitler gives the order and your defence unravels?”

“The Italians will come over the Suez and into Palestine,” Churchill said. “They will meet fanatical resistance from the Jews, but we suspect that the Arabs will rise up to support the Italians, despite how they have treated independence aspirations in Egypt. The Nazis will probably insist on delegating the solution of the Jewish Problem — as they call it — to the radical Arabs, who will slaughter and get slaughtered…”

“Therefore weakening them for when the Germans come,” Truman agreed.

“At the same time, the Turks and perhaps the Iranians will invade Iraq,” Churchill said. “Most of Iraq is unimportant to us, but Mosel — in the north — and Basra — in the south — are very important. It will be very hard to defend them. We will hold them as long as we can, but in the long term they will fall. Once they do, our sources of oil will dwindle down to nothingness, apart from what we get from you.”

He hesitated. “They will also be in a position to overawe the Saudis,” he added. “It would be easy for them to push the Saudis into rescinding the contracts they signed with American oilmen, or even taking the oil fields and daring you to do something about it. You don’t have anything there apart from a naval station and that pair of destroyers won’t be a deterrent to the Iranians, not with the ships they purchased off the Japanese. That would be a direct shot across your bows.”

“And an unclear one,” Truman said. Roosevelt had hoped for something so dramatic, so violent, so unprovoked — at least publicly — that it would unite the country behind the cause of crushing the Nazis and their Japanese allies. If the Germans and their allies only intimidated the Saudis into refusing to accept future American contracts, how could anyone use it to unite the country for war? “What do you want from us?”

Churchill sighed. “Two things,” he said. “Ideally, we would like you to dispatch reinforcements to Saudi Arabia, something that would make them think twice about doing anything that might irritate you…”

“The Panay incident didn’t work out too well,” Truman reminded him. The Japanese had sunk an American ship back during their rape of Nanking and had gotten away with it. Maybe Roosevelt should have tried to use it to unite the country, but it had only been a few lives, and the Japanese had sworn that it had been an accident…

“The second thing we need is supplies,” Churchill said. “We built up a massive stockpile of weapons and vehicles, but we are already facing shortages due to the tempo of modern war. If we run out of the more critical items, we will be unable to continue the fighting and will have to sue for the best terms we can get.”

Truman gritted his teeth, remembering Roosevelt. He had worried until his dying day that the Royal Navy would fall into the hands of the Germans. The Germans already had access to the French and Italian navies; what would happen if they combined what they had with the British fleet and sailed against America? Roosevelt had known that Britain would be needed as a base for the war he had thought was inevitable. Dewey hadn’t agreed and when it became obvious that the British couldn’t pay for their supplies, he had cut the supply chain. That betrayal had almost caused a second depression; it had certainly led to Dewey being told by his Party that they wouldn’t stand for him seeking a second term.

“I can take that to the President and ask him to try to get you some more support,” he said, looking for the right words. How could he convince Churchill that something would be needed from Britain… and did he even have something that could be offered in payment? “Can you pay for it?”

“No,” Churchill said flatly. Truman nodded; he had expected as much. The hint of bitterness in Churchill’s tone surprised him. “The only payment we can make will be in blood, toil, tears and sweat… while we die to save America from the coming war with the Nazis.”

Truman looked into the future and didn’t like what he saw. He knew some things about German science. They were looking endlessly for ways to achieve world domination. Rockets across the ocean, newer and better weapons, training and exercise standards far better than anything the Americans could match… if war came, now, it would be far easier to win than if war came ten years in the future.

“I see,” he said, knowing that his President was not going to be happy. “What do you need?”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Over North Sea

A cold air blew across the landing field as the pilots marched out to their aircraft. The fires might have been put out a fortnight ago, but the airfield still bore the mark of the German assault, with blackened buildings and ruined outposts where the German bombs had fallen.

Flight Lieutenant Stanley Baldwin had flown over the wreckage of Home Fleet when his Gannet aircraft had landed at Scapa Flow and he had been awed by the sheer scale of the devastation. It would be years before the ships could be recovered, repaired, and pressed back into service… if they could be salvaged at all. The remainder of Home Fleet had departed to the Clyde. In their absence, the base seemed somehow smaller.

It still thronged with activity. Thousands of repairman and engineers had flooded into the base after the German raid, trying desperately to repair as much as possible. The airfields had been one of the first priorities, and while the original aircraft had been destroyed on the ground or killed in the air, the heavy Fleet Air Arm force had landed and was primed to respond to the German assault. The Germans hadn’t given them an opportunity to take revenge, however, until now. The pilots, lost in their own thoughts, barely noticed as they boarded their aircraft.

The briefing had been surprisingly clear. “The Germans intend to send a raiding force into the Atlantic,” the Group Commander had said. “Our job is to put them off the idea.”

The pilots had laughed then, although they knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. The RAF and the Royal Navy had fought a series of political battles, every bit as intense as actual fighting in the air, over who should command the maritime aerial strike force until the Prime Minister had ordered the command be given to the Royal Navy. The FAA existed, at least in part, to provide support to the Royal Navy, and Atlee had ruled that the Royal Navy would therefore have primary command, although some of the FAA’s facilities were shared with the RAF.

They’d trained endlessly for assaults against shipping and had practised as best as they could with the RAF, but attacking a single German ship wasn’t easy. There were five large German ships in the fleet they were expecting… and one of them was a carrier. The Germans had copied Japanese designs and it showed. Their carriers held more aircraft and were regarded as being more fragile than British designs.

Baldwin’s lips quirked. That piece of wisdom would be tested today, along with the mettle of the squadron. The Germans were known to have powerful radars mounted on their ships and, unless the attack was timed precisely, they would have the support of land-based aircraft as well. He ran through his check-list as the propellers began to spin, before watching the first of the RAF Meteors leaving the landing field and climbing into the sky. He didn’t like the Meteors — the FAA didn’t have many jet aircraft and wouldn’t until someone produced a jet aircraft that could launch from a carrier — but there was no doubting their prowess in the air.

The Germans had developed a habit of timing their own raids in hopes of catching tired British aircraft landing on their airfields. If they tried it this time, they would run into a full flight of Meteors, all out for revenge. It wasn’t too likely. However, as time had ground on, the Germans had switched more and more to close air support missions, preparing for the assault against the British lines that everyone knew was coming.

His radio hissed and crackled. “Red Three, go,” the Group Commander ordered.

Baldwin released the aircraft and it lunged down the runway, before slowly nosing into the air, staggering slightly under the weight of the weapons it carried.

“Form up on lead and maintain radio silence.”

Baldwin looked down at the Orkneys below as his plane rose higher into the air. They looked so peaceful, so untouched by the modern world, from his height. They would have been perfect were it not for the Germans. As it was, they were in a great position for a harbour, allowing the Home Fleet to sail out and intercept their German opponents whenever they came past Denmark, a piece of wisdom that had fallen when the Germans launched their air raid. He knew, now, that they needed to prove that there was still bite in the British armed forces… and hopefully scale the German fleet back a few ships.

The plane rocked slightly as one of the escorting meteors flew past. The jets had topped off from the orbiting tankers, something that the RAF had been experimenting with for the past few years, before racing ahead towards the German ships. The flight would still take a long time, but unless the Germans had changed course at once they were on a direct line towards the German ships, or, in theory, where the German ships would be when they arrived.

It was easy to see what the German ships had in mind. They would vanish out into the Atlantic, intercept and sink a few dozen freighters and then escape before they encountered anything powerful enough to stop them. They were more modern than the remaining battleships in Home Fleet and, perhaps, more powerful as well. They could escape, or fight, at will.

He remembered his brother, a Midshipman onboard one of the sunken battleships, and silently promised Peter a bloody revenge. The Germans would pay for what they had done to his family whatever it took. He was already determined to sink a German ship or die trying. His mother had cried on the telephone, but his father, an old soldier himself, had merely told him to go get them. This time, Baldwin hoped that Churchill was right, and the mad dog Hitler would be put down once and for all.

“Enemy fighters rising from the enemy carrier,” the radio squawked. Baldwin frowned as he considered his position. The Gannet was probably slower and less nimble than the German fighters, even if they were supposed to be no match for the Meteors. Any smart enemy commander would order his planes to ignore the Meteors and go for the torpedo-bombers; if all of the bombers were shot down or chased away from the task force, the Germans would have won. “Advance fighters are engaging the enemy.”

He peered into the distance, wondering if he would see anything, but all he saw were columns of smoke and aircraft trails as the British Meteors engaged the German carrier-borne fighters, hopefully clearing a path for the bombers. He’d listened carefully to the survivors of the British carrier aircraft at Scapa Flow — those who had made it into the air and fought the Germans — and he’d deduced that it was actually possible to take out a jet with a propeller-driven fighter, assuming that one was careful and lucky. The Germans, like the British, would only allow the best pilots to fly from a carrier; the odds were that they were as good as the boys who had engaged German fighters and lived to tell the tale. That wasn’t good news…

The German fleet appeared, four battleships and one carrier escorted by a spread of destroyers. According to his elder brother in one of his infrequent letters, the destroyers were regarded with particular dread by British submariners. They were far too good at detecting and destroying a submarine trying to slip into attack position. Rumour had it that the Germans had some kind of homing device for their torpedoes, something that allowed them to fire with only a vague contact, but no one had been able to prove or disprove it so far. The fleet was bunching up as it turned, firing all of its anti-aircraft guns into the air and trying to shoot down or drive away the British aircraft before it was too late.

Baldwin laughed as he altered course and fell in with the remainder of his squadron, slipping down into attack formation. The Germans surely knew that wasn’t going to work very well. It rarely did; the Germans and the British might have deployed radar-guided guns and proximity fuses, but unless the explosion was very close to the aircraft, it wasn’t often enough to bring it down. Their fighters were in just as much danger as the British fighters. It would be amusing if the Germans lost an aircraft through their own ground fire, which was something of an occupational hazard in any air force.

“Red Squadron, engage,” the Wing Commander said. The wary excitement in his tone made Baldwin smile to himself. “Your target is the carrier.”

Baldwin didn’t say what came to his lips; they had all known what their target was, the only ship that posed a real threat to the land-based aircraft. He saw out of the corner of his eye a German fighter trying to take a bead on him before covering fire from one of the Meteors blew it apart, shaking his aircraft like a leaf. The lead aircraft tilted and dove towards the carrier; a moment later Baldwin followed, feeling the sudden loss of gravity as he plummeted down towards the German carrier, and smiled as he reached for his lever.

The German carrier looked little different from any British carrier; he could see a handful of aircraft on the deck and men scurrying around like mice, all-too-aware of the flight of British aircraft falling on their position. The German guns were still trying to shoot at them, but it no longer mattered; if one of the British aircraft lost control and smashed into the carrier, the result was likely to be the same as if the bombs had hit and the aircraft had escaped. At the last possible moment, he yanked back the stick and pulled the bomb release cord, sending the bombs falling down towards the carrier’s deck. A few seconds after they were released, a rocket ignited on each of the bombs, forcing them down towards the enemy deck. In theory, they would punch right through the deck and detonate inside the ship.

The aircraft fought him as he struggled to pull out of his dive, almost as if it wanted to crash into the ship or take him down into the waters. In the space of a full second he pulled right out of his dive and flew right at one of the German battleships. It was one of their older ships, he saw now, the Deutschland or… he couldn’t remember the name of the other ship. He came close enough to the enemy ship to see the bridge crew staring at him, and then he was away, rising up into the air to avoid any fire from the German ships…

A flash of light caught his attention as the German carrier went up. Carriers were uniquely vulnerable, even the armoured British designs, because by their very function, they stored vast quantities of fuel and ammunition, far too close to the deck. If only one bomb had smashed into the carrier’s deck, it might well have been fatal… and each aircraft had intended to release three bombs. The German ship literally disintegrated.

His aircraft hopped now as he rose higher, no longer held down by the weight of the bombs. He fell in with the rest of his squadron, noting the loss of four of his friends with a corner of his mind. There was no way of knowing what had killed them, or even if they had made a mistake rather than been shot down by the Germans, but he knew what he would have preferred to believe. The second flight of Gannets was approaching now, flying low and preparing for torpedo attacks, and he saw the German battleships trying to evade. They knew what the primitive Swordfish aircraft had done to the Bismarck and what their countrymen had done to Home Fleet. One by one, the aircraft made their attack runs, concentrating on the largest German battleship, and Baldwin whooped as it slowly heeled over and started to sink.

“All aircraft, return to base,” the Group Commander ordered. Baldwin nodded; without any weapons, but their cannons, there was little point in remaining around and strafing the surviving German ships. They would reload and perhaps head out to engage the survivors again, but if the Germans managed to get back within range of land-based air, the RAF wouldn’t risk massive losses to get the remaining ships. Besides, a few British submarines might be lurking along their path now. The Germans would have to run the gauntlet to get home.

He checked his instrument panel again before relaxing slightly as the flight returned to base. The handful of surviving German aircraft harried them for a few moments, and then lit off towards the east, hoping to reach a German controlled airfield on Denmark or Norway before their fuel ran out and condemned them to a watery grave. He hoped they would make it, surprisingly; the odds of them getting picked up in the cold sea were very low. Coastal Command did try to pick up RAF pilots who had landed in the drink, and the Germans didn’t shoot at the seaplanes as long as the RAF left their rescue aircraft alone, but the odds were still very much against their survival. Out so far from German bases, or British bases for that matter, they would be lucky to last an hour before succumbing to the cold and fading away.

“All aircraft, be advised that we have a major raid inbound,” the Group Commander said, suddenly. His voice broke into Baldwin’s thoughts as they approached Scapa Flow. The Germans had clearly decided to take a break from pounding at the defences to destroy as many as possible of the FAA’s aircraft. Baldwin checked his fuel gauge and cursed; the Gannet had quite extraordinary endurance, but he had only a few minutes before his fuel gage slipped into the red. The Meteors could top up from the tankers but that wasn’t an option for the Gannets. “Prepare for orders.”

There was a long pause. Someone down on the ground would be working out what to do next. “Red and Blue Squadrons, land at once on your airfields and taxi immediately into the hardened shelters,” the Group Commander ordered finally. Baldwin couldn’t argue with the logic, or with the determination to preserve as many aircraft as possible. “Fall into emergency landing pattern and land at will.”

He watched as Red One dove towards the airfield, followed by Red Two, and then Baldwin slipped into his own position. Emergency landing routines were rarely required outside a few drills each year; they involved each aircraft landing within seconds of each other, carrying the risk of a collision and damage to the runway in the explosion. Red One descended down… down… and touched the runway; Red Two followed a moment later, flying through where Red One had been, just as the leader moved towards the revetment. The revetments had been built during the first blitz on Britain, back in 1940, and should withstand anything short of a direct hit. Baldwin caught his breath as he landed, bounced down the runway, and finally came to a halt. There was no time to waste. He gunned the engine gently, moving along the taxiway as Red Four landed behind him, and he steered directly for the revetment.

A flash of light caught his eye as the Germans raged over the harbour. The RAF, in an attempt to lock the barn door after the horse had bolted, had moved several more fighter squadrons into Scapa Flow, but they didn’t present the Germans with enough problems to prevent them from strafing the runways as the FAA aircraft tried to land. Baldwin found himself gasping out a prayer as he concentrated on driving right into the hanger and getting under cover away from German cannon fire. The Germans behind him were intent on completing the destruction of the airfield and the remaining facilities in the harbour. Too drained, too emotionally spent to go on, Baldwin sat back in his aircraft and waited patiently for the bombardment to end.

He smiled, suddenly, as he realised what they’d done. They’d sunken a German aircraft carrier and a battleship, all done at the cost of only a few lives. However they looked at it, it was a victory by anyone’s standards and one that would resound with the best traditions of the Royal Navy. In these darkest days, he felt, it was a symbol of hope.

They needed all the hope they could get.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Felixstowe, England

The sun beat down upon Gregory Davall’s back as he took the box from the person in front of him and passed it to the person behind him, and then the next, and then the next, passing the boxes in what felt like an endless stream. He hadn’t been into the dockyards proper for years — even when visiting Janine, he hadn’t been allowed into the dockyards themselves — now, standing on the docks, he silently cursed the Germans under his breath. Hot sweat poured down his back and he wished, silently, for the drink of water, but their hour wasn’t over yet. The boxes were passed on to the rear, where German quartermasters loaded them onto lorries that drove off into the distance and then went off, he supposed, to the front lines.

The Germans had bagged him yesterday, sending one of the policemen around to people on a list who didn’t have anything to do on a day-to-day basis, rounding them all up and ordering them to help with the unloading. They had been very polite, but very firm, in a manner that had given Kate chills. They had told him that he had a choice between working for them or being shipped off to Germany to a work camp, where he would be punished for failing to uphold his responsibilities as a German citizen. Davall had seen no choice but to comply, and joined nearly two hundred other men working to unload the boxes from the pallets, all the while trying to see how the experience could best be used to hurt the Germans.

If he could have destroyed the port and its facilities, he would have done so in a second, but there was nothing like enough high explosive in the cache to inflict more than a little damage. The docks were meant to have been sabotaged by the Home Guard and everything important removed or destroyed, but he’d heard enough chatter from the Germans to be certain that they had taken the docks almost completely intact. It irked him that it had been so easy for the invaders — the guards seemed to think that the English had been asking for it or that the defenders had been betrayed — but there was little that he could do about it until nightfall.

The whistle finally blew, and the workers gathered around the German sergeant. He passed out payment in German occupation script. They had been promised it was only temporary until Britain was completely conquered and brought into the Reich. Davall didn’t like the printed notes, with a neat image of Hitler himself on the back. The Germans had made it clear that it was occupation script or nothing. They’d informed the shopkeepers and farmers that the script was legitimate currency in the occupied zone and pasted up exchange rates, setting the script at a slightly higher value than British money. Davall suspected that the Germans were trying to bring them all into their monetary system, but there was no choice. Without it, how could he feed Kate and James?

“You will report back here tomorrow,” the German sergeant finally said and dismissed them. The Germans had more warm bodies than they really knew what to do with, although Davall suspected that it wouldn’t be that long until they had the entire population working for them full time. Now, however, they had the working hours divided up into sections and distributed them fairly evenly among the non-working population. “No work, no pay.”

“Thank you,” Davall murmured with the rest of them, as unenthusiastically as possible, and slowly followed the others out of the secure compound and into the outer dockyards. He knew who he needed to see but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to see her. His body was aching and in very real pain. He hadn’t been pushed like that since he had gone though the Grey Wolves training program and the Germans had pushed him right to the limits.

He passed a group of Germans and turned right into the entertainment street. The usual cluster of bars greeted him, along with a babble of happy conversation, most of it in German. The Germans had flooded into the area, and most of them were trying to have as much fun as possible during their leave periods. They danced, enjoyed some feminine company, and went back to their units feeling much happier with the world. Davall would have liked to have shorn some of the younger girls of their hair — some of them had husbands or relatives in the army or Home Guard — but he could think of nothing more likely to provoke a German reaction.

The brothel looked to be doing a roaring business as usual. He wasn’t surprised to see some of his fellow workers in the lines, waiting for their chance at a girl. Some of the men were married, and it was on the tip of his tongue to rebuke them before remembering that he was going to see a girl himself, and to all eyes, he was doing the same as them.

“She should be free in a moment, ducks,” the madam said, as she expertly relieved a bunch of Germans of their money and pointed them all into one room. Davall caught sight of a naked girl on her knees before the door closed and shuddered inwardly. The pleasures of the flesh, his father had told him, were a snare for the soul; that was doubly true when the slightest mistake could cost him his life. The door opened and a German, buckling up his trousers, exited in the direction of the showers.

“She’s all yours, my dear,” the madam said, and winked at him.

Davall kept his face carefully blank as he opened the door and stepped inside, careful to close the door behind him. Janine was sitting on the bed, as she had before, but this time there was a nasty bruise on the side of her face. Davall was over to her side before he was aware he had moved, examining the bruise and shaking his head. It looked as if someone had punched her.

“Janine,” he said, barely above a whisper. The noise of male shouts and catcalls rose up from the next room, and he flinched, despite himself. “What happened to you?”

“That one wanted it rough,” Janine said, as she pushed him away and fingered her wound. He was suddenly, devastatingly, aware of her — not of her nakedness, but of her vulnerability. She was nothing to him, or certainly she was supposed to be nothing to him, but he cared about her. He would have extracted her from the brothel if he could have done so, but where could he take her where she would be safe? Her hands touched her breasts and he saw more bruises against her pale flesh. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

The pain in her voice betrayed her words, but there was nothing that Davall could do. “You wanted to see me?” he asked softly. He didn’t want to talk business, but maybe she would take comfort in finding a way to hurt the Germans. “Did you find out a date for the attack?”

“I found someone who might know, as you requested,” Janine said. Davall felt his blood run cold; he had proposed it, when he had had the idea, half in jest. “There’s an SS officer, one of a group assigned to oversee this port, charged with providing security to the convoys that transport supplies from here to the port. He came here a week ago, chose me and…”

She smirked. “Very unimaginative man, for which I should be grateful,” she admitted. “He didn’t want much more than for me to lean back and think of Germany at first, but then… well, let’s just say I didn’t know SS men were allowed to be lazy.”

Davall felt his face blush red and half-covered his face with his hand. “I see,” he said, drawing his own conclusions. “How does this allow us to get him alone?”

Janine flashed a grin that would have done credit to a tiger. “The bastard likes his times with me so much that he’s actually hired me for the coming weekend,” she said. “He’s taken over a cottage just outside of town and has staffed it with a cook, but no one else as far as I could determine; he wants me there for a private party.”

Her breasts shook as she giggled. “I don’t know why he bothers,” she said, through quiet chuckles. “He never wants anything he couldn’t get right here.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like the thought of sloppy seconds,” Davall said, shook at the thought. It, more than the fading memory of Kate, reminded him that he didn’t really want Janine as anything more than an ally and a fellow Grey Wolf. “Did he ask you to bring anything with you?”

“No,” Janine said. She leaned closer. “You’re going to have to act like you’re not with me, so remember; you’re going to have to treat me as a possible enemy, understand?”

“Yes,” Davall said slowly. He leaned forwards and gave Janine a hug. “I understand.”

“Good,” Janine said, her hands gently touching his crotch, “Could I tempt you…?”

Davall understood the underlying message — she didn’t want to be alone or go back to customers who didn’t really think that whores had feelings — but he couldn’t stay with her much longer. If a German soldier decided that he had taken long enough and burst in on them, how could they explain him being fully clothed? The risk was just too great.

He kissed her on the forehead, but shook his head. “No,” he said, softly. “I’ll see you afterwards, when all this is over.”

The outside felt hotter than ever when he left the brothel and walked back towards his house. Life was returning to something like normality now that someone had cut down the bodies of the two hung men and buried them in the graveyard, but the permanent presence of the Germans was a constant niggling reminder of their position in the Reich. Davall was stopped and asked for his papers twice on his way home. The sight of five men and three women who had forgotten their papers, clearing rubble under German supervision, reminded him of the fate of anyone who showed the slightest hint of defiance. They were the lucky ones; they, at least, were still in Britain. He’d heard from other Grey Wolves that a line of British prisoners, taken in the war, had been driven in from the front lines one night, loaded on-board a German ship, and sent over to the continent. God alone knew what was happening to them there.

His real place of employment had been closed down for the moment. The Germans had visited with an SS squad, interrogated the owner — they’d found something really suspicious about the fact that it was a communal ownership — and ordered it closed down, along with the local newspaper and several other businesses. It had puzzled Davall at first, and in fact it had been Kate who pointed out that the supply shop for electronics could be quite useful if someone wanted to build a radio or a bomb.

He guessed that they were lucky that the Germans hadn’t rounded up everyone who worked there on suspicion, but for the moment they had inadvertently given him an excuse to go walking in the daytime. If he had no place of work, he’d argued, when the Germans had asked pointed questions, his wife wouldn’t want him around the house all day, would she? So far, it was working, provided he didn’t try to go out into the countryside. That was still off-limits.

The Bramble Cottages were right on the edge of town, a set of five cottages that had been built by a developer keen on hiring them out to families for a week, each one the very model of what a countryside house should be like. As far as Davall knew, they had all been empty when the invasion began, and therefore they had all been marked down as commandeered by the Germans. They hadn’t even won the war yet, he saw, and they had already begun to distribute the spoils of victory, including giving each of the cottages to a particular SS officer. Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl didn’t seem to merit a cottage, or maybe he hadn’t bothered to try to claim one for himself, but Brigadefuhrer Franz Deininger, logistics officer, certainly had. It was convenient, perhaps too convenient, and Davall was seriously tempted just to pass up on the chance to interrogate the SS officer.

He grimaced to himself. The Germans had relaxed slightly after they’d shot the Davidson family and a handful of others, but unless they were fools, they probably knew that the Davidson family hadn’t really been involved with the Grey Wolves. They had shot the wrong people and heads would roll in Berlin — if Berlin cared — and the Grey Wolves remained intact… and the Germans would know that. Had they decided to create a fake Brigadefuhrer — a Brigadier General — and dangle him in front of their noses, in hopes of taking a Grey Wolf prisoner? That would mean that…

His mind ticked over the possibilities as he walked away from the cottages. The behaviours of people under occupation, he’d been warned, could be unpredictable; some of them might even betray their fellows just for a crust of bread, or some favour from their occupiers, or maybe even for revenge. The British Intelligence Service had studied, carefully, the behaviour of Frenchmen and Danes under German rule and had noticed some strange trends. Those who the Germans considered to be Aryan and treated better than the non-Aryans tended to respond well to their treatment, sometimes even falling completely into the German orbit. That was unsurprising…

But it didn’t stop there. Ordinary Frenchmen, people with little to look forward to but permanent subordination to the New Order, collaborated at will. Not just at gunpoint, which would have been understandable, but seemingly without any compulsion at all. Their world-view had been altered to the point where German supremacy seemed to be permanent. Those Frenchmen who disagreed either spent their lives in futile acts of rebellion or left for Algeria. Davall wondered, as he passed yet another German patrol, if that would be Grey Wolves’ fate as well. Would James, one day, betray his own father? Had one of the Grey Wolves already broken and betrayed them?

He saw a line of children emerging from one of the houses and felt his insides clench. If the Grey Wolves failed, if the Germans completed their conquest, if resistance was broken… those children would grow up in the knowledge that they would be permanently subordinated to Germany. The Germans hadn’t altered the school curriculum much - apart from an insistence that they all learn German — but that too would change; soon, the children would be saying Heil Hitler and informing on their parents. The Grey Wolves were fighting for the children’s future, even though they would never know the Grey Wolves’ names.

German soldiers appeared around the corner, marched through the children as though they weren’t there, and continued on past Davall. There was an entire line of German infantrymen marching into the distance; he turned his head to see them walking out of the town and up towards Ipswich. They acted like conquering troops, he saw, and wished that he had had the time to mine the roads before the Germans had marched over it and headed out. They would be going to the defence line… and he still had no idea when the attack would take place.

No, he thought, coldly. They needed that information, and there was only one way to get it. He pushed down all of his feelings and concerns. The Germans had moved beyond the pale when they had executed his friends for the actions of the Grey Wolves. If they refused to play according to the rules, such as they were, he refused to play as well. He would find out what he needed to know, whatever the cost, and ensure that the information was transmitted to the people who needed it.

With renewed purpose, he strode back to his home. There was much to be done before nightfall and then he must convince the others that he was right. That wouldn’t be easy.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Felixstowe, England

Brigadefuhrer Franz Deininger ignored the acid-like disapproving look of his driver, not quite concealed enough for the perfection the SS demanded of its newer recruits, and helped the French girl out of the car. Janine — such a lovely name — had been a surprising discovery in Felixstowe; he’d sampled almost all of the whores in the brothel and most of them, like most English girls, were ugly. The girls who had attached themselves to members of the invasion force weren’t that bad, but they required care and attention on their terms, and Deininger just wasn’t the sort of man to give it. He wanted much more from his girls and none of them would be suitable. It was much easier to go with a suitable whore.

He relaxed as his driver departed, taking the car with him, and smiled. He’d done everything he could to ensure that the SS’s part in the forthcoming operation would succeed, and now it was time for a little rest and relaxation. The driver might disapprove, but then, he had been a child during the last war and a person who had grown up never knowing anything but Hitler and the Brotherhood of the Death’s Head. The SS was his mother, his father, his brothers… and like all of his kind, he had little tolerance or understanding for those who had been born in the dark years before Hitler. He was a good soldier in an organisation where strict adherence to orders, however insane, was commendable, but his very lack of imagination would condemn him to remain at a low rank for the rest of his life.

Deininger suspected that that was an inevitable effect of SS training. Deininger himself had joined because he’d liked Himmler’s young confidante and had heard that the SS was a quick route to promotion, assuming that one survived the early years. He had no real liking for fighting, nor did he have the eternal hatred for the Jew, the Communist and the Slav that Himmler demanded, but he had a talent for organisation and creative thinking that had earned him his rank and position within the SS. He’d organised the slave labour camps, the creation of an entire private SS economy, and much more besides, all without really believing in Himmler. The little schoolmaster, as some of the older men called him behind his back, could have his dream of an Aryan elite, but there was no need for them to share it. They were too important and they knew it.

“So, what do you think?” He asked as the whore looked around. “I had it secured for my person and it is my pleasure to share it with you.”

Janine looked doubtful. “But it doesn’t belong to you,” she protested, after a moment. Deininger almost smiled at the thought of a whore having any concept of property rights, not when she belonged to any man who could make her price, but felt the urge to indulge her. “It belongs to the person who owns it.”

Deininger laughed as he opened the door. “That person fled and left it here, and to the victors go the spoils,” he boomed cheerfully. It was almost night, but under the blackout curtains, the cottage glowed with light. The British had withdrawn too quickly to sabotage most of the area’s infrastructure, much to his private relief, but he had limited most of it for the citizens. He hadn’t done anything of the sort with his people. “Shall we have dinner?”

Her face lit up as she saw the table. His cook, who knew his tastes, had set it up well with a small cold salad and a pile of bread, which smelt wonderful. Janine wouldn’t have eaten so well in her life, certainly not since the invasion had begun. The English population were on low rations for a reason. He’d ensured that the brothel got a small amount of additional food — they would need to keep their strength up for the soldiers, sailors and dockyard workers — but the madam had sold most of it onwards on the black market. If she had been anyone else, she would have been enjoying life in a penal camp, but for the moment, Deininger could only watch her. She was performing an essential service, after all.

She ate carefully, her puzzlement showing on her face as she ate; her mind was conceiving all kinds of nightmarish scenarios for her weekend with him. She didn’t know why he was in the mood to celebrate, or why he had even been allowed a weekend’s leave; she didn’t understand what he had in mind. Deininger could guess at her thoughts and was tempted to reassure her; if he had had the darker tastes of many SS men, they could have been satisfied in one of the secured camps. He wanted a weekend with a pretty girl, almost a wife, something that he had never really been able to obtain on his own. He had never married — despite an SS rule that all senior officers were to be married and have at least four children — and he wanted to enjoy the good parts of married life, without the bad parts. How could he have explained that to her?

He kept up a constant stream of chatter about nothing as they ate, telling her about some places in Berlin and Albert Speer’s latest project for a city built on the ruins of a Russian city. The slave labourers had already been assembled to clear the remains of the city; all that mattered now was finalising the plans and starting work before the dreaded Russian winter interfered with the construction. Hitler had added his own touch to the city — Deininger allowed himself the private thought that Hitler wasn’t a designer any more than he was a painter — and so it would be built exactly as he had specified, working millions of Russians to death in the process.

“They say that once this invasion is over, the panzers will roll east and put an end to Beria,” he said, cheerfully. She showed little reaction. If he believed her story, she was the daughter of a wealthy French family that was pushed to escape France and sell her into prostitution. He didn’t believe her, but as that was part of the magic, he hadn’t poked at it too closely. “What do you think of that?”

She considered. “Doesn’t the Fuhrer have enough land?”

“That’s not the point,” Deininger explained dryly. He took another sip of his wine; Janine had barely touched hers at all. That was understandable; she didn’t really understand what he wanted and didn’t want to render herself helpless, although she was in no real danger. “National Socialism is a jealous god and demands that all rivals are to be crushed. In the next few years, the new lands in the east, already almost completely free of churches, will become the breeding ground for a new religion, designed by the Reichsfuhrer himself. The Panzers will roll into Italy and burn the Vatican to the ground, taking it and building a new temple to the superman on the rubble. There will be many more changes in the face of Europe in the years to come.”

He smiled. Perhaps the wine was going to his head, but it hardly mattered; he wanted a chance to boast to his ‘wife.’ “And much of that will be organised by me,” he said, shaking his head. “In forty years, perhaps, no one will remember that there was such a man as Jesus Christ or that the Vatican stood at all. Himmler’s religion will dominate the world.”

It made him wink at her. He’d seen enough of Himmler’s religion to know that it hearkened back to the old days, before Christianity had appeared in Europe or Islam in the Middle East; it called upon the old gods and the concept of the superman in a haze that bemused anyone who had the background knowledge to understand what was actually happening. That kind of knowledge would be sparse in Himmler’s Europe; the SS would be the new Knights Templar, with their own rituals, sacrifices, holidays as well as punishments for infidels. He’d seen them sacrifice a Jewess once, deep below the ground on a spot that a charlatan had claimed was an ancient place of power, but then… Himmler had always been credulous when such tales came to his ears. He had even dispatched entire missions to Tibet looking for ancient lore…

“And everything will be very different,” he said and stood up, pulling her to him. Her clothes came off at his touch and he gazed on her beauty. Someone had marked her and that man would be flogged when he found out his name, but she probably wouldn’t know; whores rarely knew the names of the men they serviced. His hands ran down her back and stroked her gently. “I think that…”

He saw the shadow and froze just before a man stepped into the room, a pistol pointed directly at Deininger’s head. He opened his mouth as Janine turned and stiffened in his arms, her mouth going very wide as she was motioned away from him and over to the sofa where she crossed her legs, covered her breasts with her arms, and looked terrified. Deininger watched the newcomer carefully, noting the mask and the black clothes, almost German in their design, and wondered; who was he, really? Three other men arrived and one of them went over to Janine, pointing a gun at her. He forced her to turn over, before tying her hands and legs, gagging her, and carrying her off into the bedroom. It was all-too-easy to imagine her fate.

Deininger’s mind raced as the other men secured him to a chair. They carried German pistols, but the more he looked at them, the more certain he was that they weren’t actually Himmler’s Purifiers. They’d all heard rumours of a secret group charged with enforcing proper decorum for an SS officer, one of the many secrets within the secretive SS, but the four men didn’t seem to hold themselves like any SS man. Their weapons were older, as well, dating from 1940… and that suggested that someone merely wanted him to believe that they were Germans. That meant that they were British…

“Listen carefully,” the leader hissed in accented German. “We know you’re a powerful German and we don’t care. Shout for help, scream… make any noise at all, and we will kill you, understand?”

Deininger nodded. “Good,” the leader said. Deininger struggled to place his accent, but couldn’t, which added to the theory that they were British. “When we ask you questions, answer them quietly and completely, or we will hurt you, understand?”

“Yes,” Deininger said softly. Terror was making it harder to speak, but as he started to understand what was going on, it became easier to focus his mind and concentrate on limiting what he told them. “I understand.”

“Good,” the leader said. He held a knife to Deininger’s throat. “What time is your driver due back here?”

Deininger wanted to lie, but knew that if they had been watching the house, they would have a good idea of his routine. They didn’t look sloppy, and so they might have asked the question, just so they could find out if he was lying or not. If he lied, they would hurt him and… Deininger had watched enough torture to doubt that he could hold out when — if — they went to work on him.

“He’s due back at eight tomorrow morning,” he said, in English. The leader didn’t seem surprised by the sudden switch in language. “What are you going to do with Janine?”

“Your wife will be fine as long as you cooperate,” the leader said. Deininger almost laughed; only the certainty that laughing at the wrong time could get him killed kept the smile from his face. Janine had been hired to play the role of his wife for the weekend, not to actually be his wife… and if that got out, he would be a laughingstock. “How many SS men have you moved into Britain?”

Deininger considered the question for a long moment. If he knew for sure how much his opponent knew, he would have risked trying to provide them with false information, but it would be too dangerous without any clear idea of where he would be caught. Torture worked, he knew, when the information could be verified… and the SS were masters of torture. He’d seen nightmarish tricks used to make Russians and even Frenchmen talk against their will, from a combination of powerful drugs, beatings and precisely modulated pain. He had no illusions as to how long he could hold out under such pressure; unlike the men of the Waffen-SS, he couldn’t embrace pain or tolerate it for a long period.

“We shipped in ten thousand,” he risked, finally. It wasn’t entirely truthful, but it wasn’t that inaccurate. It would have to do. “They’ll find you and take you prisoner, and you will suffer.”

“If they come here, you’ll be killed as well,” the leader said flatly. Deininger smiled inwardly as he realised another truth about his captor. He didn’t have quite the right mindset for torture. The SS torturers were men who gave Deininger the creeps. They cared nothing for the pain and humiliation they heaped their victims, they didn’t even take a sick pleasure in it. They had no feelings at all… and his captor had them in spades. “What happened to the Davidson girls?”

Deininger nodded inwardly. The leader would come from nearby, either in Felixstowe or somewhere close, maybe one of the farms. If he cared about a family that had been swept up in a sweep, then maybe he was even related to the family, or even just friendly to the family. That was information the SS could use to track him down.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t…”

One hand covered his mouth while the other broke three of his fingers. Deininger felt pain welling through his body and wanted to scream. Only the pressure on his mouth kept the scream inside, where it could never be heard. His entire body shook in desperation, but the bonds refused to break and the leader held him down without much effort.

“You have five fingers and two thumbs left,” the leader said, his voice cold, but not perfectly dispassionate. Somewhere in there, there was a man who cared and was shocked at what he was doing. “I can break them all, and then we can get started on your other bones, or…”

He leaned closer. “Is it really such a state secret?”

“They took them to the continent,” Deininger said, through his gasps. Tears were streaming down his face. He was ashamed of himself for his weakness, but knew that the information wasn’t that important, really wasn’t worth fighting to hide… the self-justification kept rolling through his mind, reminding him that he had broken. “They took them… good Aryan stock… they weren’t going to waste them just because of their parents.”

The leader squeezed his hand around Deininger’s jaw. “What’s going to happen to them?”

Deininger fought for breath. “They’re going to become Germans,” he gasped. “They’ll be found a new family, taught German and raised German, to the point where their origins will be forgotten, even by them. They’ll marry Germans, have German children; their foster parents won’t even know the truth.”

“How can they not know when all the girls speak is English?”

Deininger shook his head. “It’s been done before, time and time again,” he said. “The foster parents don’t really know much and are generally told that the children were orphaned or that their parents sent them into the Reich in search of a better life and…”

“Well, they got that part right, didn’t they?” The leader asked. “You orphaned them.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that decision,” Deininger said. He forced himself to relax, despite the growing pain from his hand. “What are you going to do now?”

The leader asked a question. “How many soldiers have been landed on British soil?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you,” Deininger said. “I handled over two hundred thousand soldiers myself, but Felixstowe is no longer the only port and I don’t have any authority at Harwich or…”

“I don’t believe you,” the leader said. His voice darkened, suggesting violence and mortal danger. “You’re a high-ranking SS officer, and you don’t know?”

“I could find out for you if you let me go,” Deininger suggested. “I would swear on the honour of an SS officer…”

The leader belted him across the face. “Do you think we’re stupid?”

Deininger was careful to keep his face blank. As long as the British insurgents were being distracted, there would be a chance to prevent himself from giving away any really important secrets, or… a distant rumble of thunder in the air caught his ears. The leader glanced around, one hand reaching down to clutch his gun, but he didn’t know what the noise was. It certainly wasn’t a group of armed SS men creeping up to free Deininger from his clutches.

“I need the answer to one final question,” the leader said, as a second rumble of thunder echoed through the air. Deininger looked up, into the blue eyes and black mask, and silently promised himself that there would be a reckoning. They certainly wouldn’t be too kind to Janine. “When does the attack against the British lines begin?”

Deininger couldn’t help himself; he burst out laughing. “You don’t understand,” he said, fully expecting the leader to shoot him at any moment. It was worth it; he only wished that he could see the look on the man’s face. “Do you hear that noise in the distance, carried by the wind? The attack has already begun!”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Near Colchester, England

“Heil Hitler,” the assembled men roared. “Heil Hitler!”

Hauptmann Johann Bothe watched as Rommel, standing on the back of a small vehicle, returned their salute. The men of the 7th Panzer acclaimed him with their voices, each one holding himself ramrod straight, arm out-thrust in the Hitler salute, chanting their devotion into the air. It made him proud to be one of them, watching as the Panzer division prepared to attack the English in their positions; they would have lived and fought for the Fuhrer, but they would have died for Rommel. It wasn’t something that could be explained to a civilian, or perhaps to an SS officer, but it was something that all soldiers would understand. A good officer was worth his weight in gold.

Or maybe the SS men did understand. Rommel had been given most of the oversized SS Panzer Division Das Reich and its men were cheering him with the same enthusiasm. The regulars didn’t always get on well with the SS, who were regarded either as glorified firemen or overpaid soldiers, but he was forced to admit that most of the Waffen-SS units were tough and capable fighters. They also provided a surprisingly high degree of social mobility for their soldiers, although that too was changing in the regular army as the Nazi regime dug deeper into the foundations of the German state; the class warfare that had plagued the Germans would soon be a thing of the past. It barely existed in the 7th Panzer anyway, mainly due to Rommel’s influence; everyone knew that his subordinates had been chosen personally for their abilities and competence, not for their families. Hitler’s favourite General, and later Field Marshal, had taken what he’d been given and forged a mighty weapon from rough clay.

“Tonight, we march against the foe,” Rommel said, his voice ringing out over the lines of gathered men, watching as they relaxed and stood at ease. He wouldn’t have made them hold the salute for his speech, even though some SS commanders had been known to do just that; Rommel was a soldier who respected and trusted his men. “Tonight, we will assault the enemy and punch through their lines, heading to London and allowing no man to stop us.”

His voice echoed in the air for a long moment. Rommel tended to treat an entire army as a storm division, something that had worked out well in France and the Western Desert, but less well in Russia and England. He’d been everywhere at once during the advance against Ipswich and beyond, flying around in his own personal autogyro and landing wherever there was a problem. It had almost killed him or gotten him captured twice, but it had worked; he had driven the soldiers on relentlessly, extending German control as much as possible.

Bothe scowled to himself. One lesson they’d learned from Russia was that an area that had been charged through by the Panzers wasn’t actually pacified, something that the British seemed determined to remind them of at every opportunity. The isolated British Army units, Home Guard soldiers who had refused to leave their homes, isolated British civilians with weapons and the will to use them — the haunting memory of the teenage boy hanging from the tree danced in front of his eyes for a long moment — all of them had fought to delay or stop the German advance.

The Panzers had waited for infantrymen to clear the encircled British forces, but there was really no such thing as a peaceful border between British and German territory. It had been haemorrhaging men and machines for days as small units of British soldiers attempted to delay the Germans from building up their offensive and the Germans had sought to harass the British defence lines and force them to keep their heads down. The British probably had vast quantities of tanks now, hidden in the distance in the direction of London; Bothe was quite looking forward to such a major clash. The best efforts of the Luftwaffe notwithstanding, it was unlikely in the extreme that the British would have failed to reinforce to the greatest possible extent.

“We will comport ourselves within the limits of the finest tradition of the German Army,” Rommel concluded. He’d had four men hung for rape and three others sent to a penal unit for looting; no one thought for a moment that he was bluffing and unwilling to carry out sentences on his own soldiers. It was something that endeared him to them; Rommel’s view of war was something that had infected the entire army. Even the SS men understood; Britain, a country that had been defined as Aryan, wasn’t a place for them to play their games. “I expect each and every one of you to do his duty. Fur das Reich!”

“Fur Das Reich,” they shouted back.

Rommel stepped off the vehicle, signalling the end of the formal speech, and most of the crowd dispersed. Others clustered around Rommel, taking advantage of the opportunity to shake the famous man’s hand. Still others saw it as a chance to get a final few moments of rest before the advance began. Bothe smiled to himself and walked back towards the massive parking area where the division’s vehicles were waiting, and ordered the final checks. They were to take part in the first major armoured thrust into English territory… and he didn’t want to leave a single Panzer behind. They were all going to be needed and coordinating them all was going to be a bitch. They’d practised at the training schools and then in endless exercises, but no training exercise, even the live fire ones, could come close to matching the experience of battle. There were soldiers who had faced nothing but exercises and done well in them who had come apart when they had seen the face of battle.

“You have done well,” a voice said, from behind him. Bothe turned to see Rommel and snapped to attention automatically. “I need a report on your unit.”

“Herr Feldmarschall,” Bothe said, suddenly finding his mind blank. Rommel was too much of a presence to disappoint, but he found himself struggling for words. “The Panzers are completely ready for action, along with the rocket launchers and the supporting elements. The men are fit, healthy, and ready for action.”

“Good,” Rommel said, as he inspected a selection of units and soldiers. He contented himself with a handful of minor comments, some of them more important than others, but there were no major problems with the unit. The 7th Panzer was an elite unit and perfectly prepared to execute a major assault, as Rommel had ordered; Bothe felt himself swell with pride as Rommel finally pronounced himself satisfied.

“I expect you to be through the lines within hours and challenging the British tanks,” he said, after a moment. “Our intelligence” — they shared a look of wry amusement at the thought of the intelligence officers actually being correct — “suggests that you will be facing the 1st Armoured Division with perhaps Montgomery in command, although Churchill seems to have boosted him up to a higher rank. Still, whoever is in command probably has experience from the Desert and some of the smaller campaigns the British have fought to maintain their empire.”

In other words, don’t get cocky, Bothe thought coldly. The last war had been marked by stubborn British resistance, but not by experienced and adaptable British Generals. Those who had shown a surprising amount of innovation had often fallen prey to internal politics rather than German fire, while others had proven themselves to be unprepared for the face of modern war. That would have changed; the commanding officers, now, would understand modern war — they might even have drilled to the same extent as their German counterparts. The coming battle was going to be on a scale not seen since the headlong rush into Russia, nine years ago.

“I understand, Herr Feldmarschall,” he said, softly. Rommel was probably feeling his age; as a younger man, he could have taken personal command of the division and led it in combat against the British. He’d always tried to lead from the front, and that, too, had endeared him to his men. “We won’t fail you.”

* * *

Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck watched dispassionately as Rommel and the Panzer Division officer discussed the precise role of 7th Panzer in the coming offensive, and tried to keep the worry off his face. Rommel didn’t really understand the magnitude of what the Reich had accomplished, and because of that lack of understanding, it was all-too-possible that he would push the Reich’s forces beyond their limits. He’d studied Rommel’s campaigns in the Western Desert, as well as his later fighting in Russia, and knew what Rommel was like; his concern for his logistics was minimal.

Baeck looked down at the map and glowered. It didn’t look that big on the map, but they had taken a reasonable bite out of Britain. The British themselves had formed defence lines to the south and west of the German position, but they’d taken care to ensure that the Germans were always bleeding. The Reich was used to insurgent attacks from Russia and sullen non-cooperation from Frenchmen, but the British were sitting right on top of the most important — and most fragile — supply line in the Reich’s history. Their attacks, often launched with a degree of local knowledge that far surpassed anything the Reich possessed, had struck at the supply lines time and time again, and Rommel didn’t understand that. In the Western Desert, it had barely mattered; in Britain, it could be disastrous.

He kept his face totally blank as he mulled over what he knew. They had strained every sinew to reinforce Rommel, and they had done a magnificent job. Thousands upon thousands of Germans had landed in boats or transport aircraft and had been dispatched to the front lines, each one making the conquest of Britain that little bit easier. As new units had arrived, they had been quickly worked up and slotted into their position on the order of battle, but there was no way that they could match the British numbers. They required a stunning success, one caused by breaking through the British lines and marching to London, and that wasn’t going to be easy.

Their intelligence sources had been surprisingly quiet on the subject of the British defences, but Baeck had seen enough of them from recon pictures and the reports of probing German commandos to know that the defences were tough. The British Army was dug in and waiting for them, with hundreds of guns and aircraft in support… and, behind them, thousands, of tanks.

The British did have a major problem — once their lines were broken, they would have real problems putting them back together — but they had enough reserves to move them up to any threatened section and close the gap. 7th Panzer would have to be very good, and very lucky, to make a breakthrough… and that worried Baeck. There was much more to logistics than merely moving Panzers and guns around. They transported shells, bullets, food, and many more items just to keep the army going. If the link was broken for any length of time, they would lose… and Rommel’s reputation for infallibility would come crashing down.

He grimaced as Rommel moved on to a small storm-trooper detachment and shared a few moments with their commanding officer. Rommel should have waited for longer, until he had more supplies in place, but Berlin had been pushing at him. Someone had seen the red area on the map, marked with a little Nazi flag, compared it to the much larger area held by the British, and demanded an offensive. Rumour had it that the Fuhrer was fading fast, his every breath expected to be his last, and that he wanted to walk into London as a conqueror before he finally died. He was confident that the Reich could beat the British, but if the battle went badly, Rommel might not be able to recover in time to save the invasion force.

Finally, Rommel separated himself from the admiring soldiers and led the way over to the command building. It was a school before the Germans had arrived to discover that almost all of the population had fled before them. They had taken it over, using the school as a makeshift command post. Rommel had set up his maps, communications equipment and a cot in the basement; his personal autogyro was parked under one of the bike sheds, hidden from the sight of any prowling British aircraft. The Luftwaffe swore that any British aircraft that stuck it’s nose into occupied airspace would have it shot off, but Rommel tended to assume that there would be British recon missions that might succeed. He’d seen the value of the Luftwaffe’s promises before, and that hadn’t always ended well.

He scrutinized the map for a long moment before looking up. The task was daunting for him. The further south they probed, the more built up the area became. Street-fighting on such a scale would decimate the German infantry as well as level most of the buildings, and Rommel didn’t want that. He wanted to present the country to Hitler as intact as possible, and if there was a war through British streets, it would cause untold devastation. It was another worry for Baeck as well; the British would regret the damage to their cities, but they would certainly want to lure the Germans into brutal house-to-house fighting in order to slaughter as many young German soldiers as possible.

“So,” Rommel said, finally. “What do you think of the preparations?”

Baeck forced himself to compose his words carefully. “I think that the different units are as ready as they will ever be,” he said after a moment. He wanted to express himself, but given all the pressure on Rommel, he might not understand or be able to share Baeck’s own feelings. “I think, however, that we will have significant problems with our logistics.”

Rommel frowned. “That depends,” he said. “If we crush the British Army here, and part of the reason for this battle is to lure them onto grounds of our choosing, the long-term supply situation won’t matter. If we destroy their ability to take the offensive, we will win once we have repaired our own damage and push on. If we fail to do so, we will fall back into the lodgement and hold until we are reinforced.”

It sounded good, Baeck admitted, but he still had his doubts. “What happens if our own armoured spearheads are broken?”

“If it’s like Tobruk, we’ll seal off the enemy positions and carry on around them,” he said. Baeck remembered Tobruk and grimaced. The tough Australians there had held on to the fortress for nearly three years before it had finally fallen and surrendered. It was the largest black mark on Rommel’s record. “If not, we’ll have to adapt and improvise, which is our advantage over the British or the Russians.”

Baeck wondered, grimly, just how long that advantage would last. He’d seen the SS training methods and not all of them encouraged initiative. The SS much preferred robotic obedience to orders, something that was fine in a rear-area unit, but downright dangerous in a front-line unit facing the enemy. The commander on the ground knew much more about what was happening than the commander at the rear; it hadn’t been unknown, during the Russian campaign, for Russian tanks to just keep charging at the German lines despite the fact it was suicide. The handful of prisoners had known that, but they’d been more frightened of their own leaders than they had been of the Germans. Would that happen to Germany?

Night fell slowly, broken only by the sound of hundreds of muffled engines and barked orders; the armoured columns were preparing to advance. The engineers were already out, clearing minefields and traps they’d laid only a few days ago, and ensuring that the Panzers could move up to their jump points in time for the offensive. There was a pregnant moment of anticipation… and then the guns opened fire, this time augmented by rocket launchers in an attempt to hammer the British and clear the way for the Panzer units.

Baeck stared into the distance as the horizon began to glow and said a silent prayer under his breath. The noise of shellfire and explosions was growing louder as more and more guns opened fire. The decisive battle was about to begin.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Near Colchester, England

The ground shook violently as German shells erupted and struck the ground some miles to the north. They were out of harm’s way, unless the Germans decided to expand their bombardment, but even so, Captain Harry Jackson could feel the ground trembling under the impact of the German shells. The Germans knew how to put on a bombardment, all right; the noise of the shells was deafening even at this distance, and as for the noise of the little rockets…

He shuddered. He’d seen young soldiers shocked by the noise of the rockets when the British had used them in exercises and the howl of the German rockets was even worse. The Germans had designed them to make a terrible shriek while on their way to their targets, and what they lacked in accuracy, they made up for in sheer intimidation. He’d thought he’d known what they were facing, but the Germans had started to hammer the lines… and as he looked to the north, even in the darkness, he could see flashes of light that indicated that shells had detonated. The British troops were dug in and well-prepared for war, but if the Germans kept shelling at their current rate, Jackson feared that they would crush the British forces before the Germans entered engagement range.

I should be there, he thought, as the noise of the bombardment grew louder. They were several miles back from the lines, guarding Handyman Hall… although against what, General Barron had been unable to tell them. He thought highly of Jackson’s ability to create a new Company from scraps of old military formations — or, rather, the handful of survivors from previous battles — and after the guerrilla raid on the German-controlled railway line, he’d been sent back to the Hall with orders to train up a new unit. He’d dedicated himself to the task as best as he could, but he had wanted to be back up with the lines and join the defence.

The Germans would either punch through or be defeated, but either way, he wouldn’t be there to take part in the fighting. The sounds of combat faded for a moment before returning, louder than ever. A star-shell exploded high above, bathing the area in an unholy glow. He saw, briefly, the dark shapes of German bombers heading south before the explosions began to echo out again, some of them closer to home.

He turned as Sergeant Wilt came up behind him. “The men are in position, sir,” he said. Jackson was, as senior officer, de facto commander of the defences, even though there were only four companies of soldiers near Handyman Hall. “They’re also ready for a quick retreat if that should be required.”

Jackson nodded. He’d learnt the value of having a quick line of retreat beforehand, and it had stuck with him. It wasn’t likely that the enemy would break through the defence lines and hit them before they were warned, but it was quite possible that the Germans would try to slip an assault force through the lines or even launch a parachute raid on his position. What had happened at London had convinced him of just how dangerous the German paratroopers could be. They could catch him with his pants down at any time.

“Good,” he acknowledged. “I’ll be along in a moment.”

He looked up at the massive shape of Handyman Hall. The caretaker had told him that it had been designed by a member of the family who had been terrified, not without reason, of the French. Later, he had been gently relieved of his responsibilities and placed in an asylum, but by then Handyman Hall was large, ugly, and very difficult to attack. The family had apparently wanted to destroy it or rebuild it, but had been deterred by the cost and the War Office’s interest in the building as a possible redoubt for an invasion. They were making a pretty penny charging the War Office and the Army for the use of the building; personally, Jackson would have volunteered to do the demolition for free. He’d seen much nicer-looking buildings in India.

The thought made him smile as the explosions of the bombardment grew louder. The building was solid stone with ugly gargoyles looking down from every floor, and the caretaker had sworn blind that there was a secret passage somewhere within the building. The only ones the soldiers had been able to find was a passage leading from the main house to a summer house out in the woods, and a second one leading to the servants’ building. It hadn’t surprised him to discover that the soldiers had been billeted there; General Barron, at least, shared their discomforts. The main building was being used by his staff.

He strode across the lawn and down towards the bunker. It had been dug during the large war, but one of the conditions of the retainer the War Office had paid the family was that they kept the bomb shelter up to date and large enough to house a large staff for a commanding officer. The caretaker had thought that the War Office had gone mad or someone had used a great deal of influence to convince them to invest in a house they didn’t want, but that foresight was beginning to pay off. He slipped inside, covering his eyes slightly to shield them from the glare of the electric lights, and walked over to General Barron.

“Yes, we have at least four major areas of shelling,” the General said, talking through a telephone. It didn’t take much imagination to know who he was talking to; only one man could talk to a General in the middle of the fighting. “No, we don’t know yet which one is the real thrust and which ones are decoys. We’re just holding the line for the moment. The men are under cover and…”

He listened as the Prime Minister spoke. “Air cover, a splendid idea, sir,” he said. “Tell the RAF that this is it; I need the German attacks broken up, and we’ll tell them where to send their ground attack aircraft, in fact…”

He put down the phone after a long discussion. “The Prime Minister wants to know what’s going on when I don’t know myself,” he said, to no one in particular. “Monty is supposed to be taking command personally, but there’s no sign of him at the other command post and…”

Jackson followed his gaze to the map as it was updated again. The Germans were concentrating their bombardment on four separate sections of the line, as well as shelling some of the heavier sections of the line that ran through more populated areas. Jackson knew enough to guess that the Germans would be focusing their main effort on one of the bombarded areas, but which one? Advancing the reserves too quickly could mean the difference between victory or defeat.

Another telephone rang and the general picked it up. “I see,” he said after a long moment. “I’ll take care of it personally.”

“That was Monty,” he said after he put the phone back down. “He’s with the 1st Armoured; he’ll direct that part of the battle from there.” He shook his head. “Did you want to say something, Captain?”

“We’re all dug in and ready,” Jackson said. He’d asked Barron for a combat command, but Barron had refused, citing the need to keep his company refreshed rather than either sending them up to the front lines or transferring Jackson to another company. “If the Germans attack here, we’re ready for them.”

Barron nodded. “Good work,” he said. “In fact…”

He was cut off by one of the operators. “Radar has detected enemy aircraft heading towards this location,” he said, sharply. “The RAF is moving to intercept.”

Jackson locked eyes with Barron, and they shared the same thought; paratroopers.

“I’ll be with my men,” Jackson said and ran out of the bunker. He’d deployed half of his men into Handyman Hall itself, using it as a position for them to pour fire down onto anyone trying to assault the building on the ground, but he expected more of a bombing raid than a paratrooper assault. The Germans loved paratroopers. Ever since Skorzeny had captured Zhukov, they had embraced the potential of the paratrooper raid. If they could kill General Barron, the British forces along the line would be cut off from higher command, and confusion would start to set in, costing the British the battle.

“We’re about to be attacked,” he yelled, as he threw himself into a trench. He could still hear the noise of the bombardment, but now he could hear a second sound, the noise of German engines high above. It might still be a bombing raid, but as the aircraft passed overhead, he heard no bombs falling down, nor explosions close enough to affect the Hall. “Keep an eye out and…”

A flare burst in the sky, revealing the German paratroopers, falling out of the sky. Jackson let out a whoop as the company opened fire as one, sending bursts of bright tracer fire into the air, targeting the Germans before they had a chance to react. Several of them fell out of the air in the eerie light as their parachutes were ruined. Others managed to make it to the ground before they were engaged, some of them even landing in the trenches. A brutal fight broke out across the ground, several of the German paratroopers managing to stay low and fight. The British troops had the advantage and most of the Germans were wiped out quickly; a handful survived long enough to throw grenades before they, too, were wiped out.

Jackson cursed as a burst of fire echoed out from the west. A group of Germans had landed there, away from Handyman Hall, and were mounting an attack of their own. He peered into the gloom through his night-vision goggles, despite the eerie and fading light of the flare, and tried to count the number of Germans as they pushed forward. There was no denying their bravery as they assaulted a trench, throwing grenades into the trench and then jumping in for close-quarter combat, but he wondered just what the Germans were thinking.

The last German fell and silence fell, broken only by the sounds of the fighting in the distance and the drone of aircraft, high overhead. The Germans were funnelling every plane they had into the area, knowing how important it was to defeat the British here, and the RAF were doing the same. He’d never been that impressed with the fly-boys before, but he said a silent prayer for them as the battle raged overhead. If they failed, the battle might be lost.

“Remain at alert,” he said, into the semi-silence. His instincts warned him that they weren’t out of the woods yet. “How many of the lads were hit?”

Sergeant Wilt was ready with a quick count. “Twelve dead, sir, and Jocko and Ally were both pretty badly hurt,” he said. “I’m sending them back into the house for medical treatment.”

“Good,” Jackson said, peering into the gloom. The light faded in the distance. It would have been an oddly pretty sight if it hadn’t been so lethal. Over there, miles to the north, British soldiers were fighting and dying, trying to hold the enemy back, and he was stuck body-guarding the General. “Form a patrol and…”

“Incoming aircraft,” someone shouted as an aircraft appeared out of nowhere. Jackson threw himself to the ground, tasting mud in his mouth, as the aircraft bombed their position, causing a massive wave of heat and fire to spread rapidly. He’d heard about the possible use of napalm in a combat situation, but he hadn’t expected that the Germans would use it, not in Britain. They normally used it for clearing insurgent cities in Russia.

“Everyone out of the trenches, now,” Jackson shouted, feeling fear gripping him as he saw the lines of burning fuel. They were running along the ground, pouring into the trenches and setting fire to everything they touched. Handyman Hall might be pretty much fireproof, being built of so much stone, but everything inside the building was likely to be destroyed. It was all he could do to stand his ground and not run, but his men were depending on him. He saw a soldier enveloped by burning fuel and vanish in a ball of flame; the sight made him feel sick as he tried to push it out of his mind. “Everyone, get out and…”

He lifted his radio and selected the general channel. “General, get you and your men out of the bunker quickly,” he enjoined. They’d set up a duplicate command post in a nearby building, but there would be a break in command while they moved operations into the new building and resumed control of the battle. The Germans were masters at improvising. Would they take advantage of any command problems to strike against the British? What would happen if there was a command problem right in the middle of the battle. “I need you to…”

He saw them moving around the fires and shouted a warning. For a moment, he thought they were British soldiers, but then the leader levelled a weapon at him. Jackson threw himself to the ground and returned fire with his assault rifle. The German fire swept the handful of surviving British soldiers and killed several who had escaped the fire, before British sniper fire from the roof began to hit them.

Jackson crawled away as quickly as he could, trying to make it to the window of the Hall, while the Germans tried to avoid the devastatingly accurate sniper fire from the roof. Eventually, one of them brought out a Panzerfaust and launched it at the roof, blasting a gargoyle down onto the ground. Jackson felt the ground shake as it hit hard enough to shatter the stone and send it flying everywhere.

“Sir,” one of his soldiers said. They’d blocked up the main door — it was too big and obvious — but they’d opened one of the windows to serve as an access point to the house itself. “What are we going to do?”

Jackson pulled himself to his feet and picked up another rifle. “We’re going to hold this place,” he said, as he glanced around for the telephone. “How many men do we have here?”

“Seventeen on this floor, seven on the roof,” the soldier said. He wore a Corporal’s rank insignia and looked as if he was taking control of himself. “I can have some of the rooftop soldiers brought down here if you want.”

“Not yet,” Jackson said while picking up the phone and dialling a number from memory. “I want ten men assembled to resist an assault here and the others distributed around the ground floor at other points of entry. If they have explosives…”

He broke off as there was an answer.

“I need a quick-reaction group at Handyman Hall, now,” he ordered and put the phone down before the person on the other end of the line could argue with him. There were several infantry divisions nearby, and they could spare a few companies of soldiers and armoured fighting vehicles to help free the General from the Germans. “Get the men in here and have the others warned to watch for them trying to burst in…”

A spray of bullets came through the window and he cursed, lifting his own rifle and firing back. The other men ran into the room, and he quickly deployed them in positions that would allow them to hit the attackers while hopefully not being hit themselves, although he was worrying about ricocheting bullets. The Germans pushed again and were flung back. He felt the air beginning to fill with smoke and frowned darkly. If the Germans decided to encourage the fire to spread into the house, if it hadn’t already, it would make their life hell.

“Grenades,” one of the soldiers shouted. Jackson was on the ground before he knew what he’d heard, shielded by a concrete block as the grenades detonated. The shock-wave and the rapid change in air pressure stung at his ears, but he pulled himself to his feet as the Germans tried to break in again, only to be met by strong fire. He saw a nozzle entering the room and, for a moment, he didn’t understand, just before the German flame-thrower ignited and sent a trail of fire into the room. The heat kept rising until it was almost unbearable.

“Fall back,” he ordered, hoping that their relief would come soon. Had the General made it to the secondary command post? There was no way to know; all he could do was hold out as long as possible.

Inch by bloody inch, the Germans pushed them back, hammering them with grenades and the flame-thrower until it was disabled by a British grenade. Somehow they held until the first armoured fighting vehicle arrived. The Germans retreated as soon as they saw it, leaving several dozen bodies behind… and a wrecked command post.

“Bastards,” Jackson commented. Wilt had survived, much to his relief; he’d been trapped with another group of soldiers. He glanced up towards the north. The thunder of combat was only growing louder. The bangs and flashes, also, were growing closer.

The battle was far from over.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Near Colchester, England

“Panzer March!”

Hauptmann Johann Bothe felt his Panzer shake once and then rumble forward, heading directly south — and London. He’d been told that they would be avoiding British habitations and merely concentrating on stabbing deep into the British rear area but knew better than to expect perfect success. The British would be doing everything in their power to destroy him and the rest of 7th Panzer, and he was determined that they would not succeed. He would sooner die rather than fail Rommel.

The panzer slowly nosed forward, picking up speed and heading directly towards a weak point in the British lines. Even through his earphones, he could hear the noise of the bombardment and the shrieks of the rockets as they passed overhead. The British were firing back with their own weapons, but most of their fire was trying to suppress the German barrage, which meant that they weren’t trying to impede the Panzers.

That would change as soon as the British realised that 7th Panzer — and Das Reich, several miles to the west — were the spearheads of the main offensive. They would call down everything they could on the Germans, just to prevent them from punching through their lines. There was nothing like a Panzer division to focus the mind on stopping it at all costs.

The battlefield was illuminated by the mixture of flares in the sky and flames on the ground as they nosed onwards into British territory. They were pressing right down the side of a road, heading into British lines, and it would be bare moments before the British realised what they were doing and worked to counter it. The reconnaissance photos had revealed that the British had a smaller set of trenches ahead of them, one of the lines that was intended to serve as more of a tripwire than as a serious defence, and if they could punch through it, they would be in the rear before the British could react. The noise of explosions grew louder as they flooded forwards, watching for trouble…

Ping!

Bothe grimaced and ducked down into his cabin as a sniper’s bullet bounced off the Panzer’s armour. The view was much more restricted from inside the Panzer, but there was no point in allowing a British sniper to have a free shot at his head. The noise was fading as the German bombardment dispersed, striking further into the British rear to avoid any possibility of accidentally hitting their own forces. He hoped that the British forces blocking their way would have been killed, or broken, but he knew better than to expect that. Time and time again in modern war, a bombardment that appeared all-crushing failed to kill more than a handful of soldiers or done nothing more than torn up the ground.

“There,” the driver crowed. Bothe peered through his own viewing port to see the British lines ahead. The panzer lunged forward as the driver gunned the engine and led the charge into the British position, the main gun booming out in the confined space as the gunner fired an anti-personnel round into the British. Explosions raked the length of the trench as the panzers punched through. One of the German vehicles seeming to leap right over the trench, and the handful of British guns went wild. Bothe saw, out of the corner of his eye, a British soldier taking aim at them with an antitank gun, only to miss them by a few millimetres.

It was easy to see what the British had done; they’d dug in a set of antitank guns and were now shooting at the panzers as they fell back, unable to charge the British position directly. Bothe would have bet his next leave in Germany that some thoughtful British commander had mined the area in front of the British guns as well, just in case the Germans did try to charge them.

He barked orders into his radio and watched the panzers spread out while German shells rained down on the British positions. Rommel had placed 7th Panzer’s own supporting artillery under the command of the spearheads and as the guns began firing, the British ducked for cover. They probably wouldn’t be actually harmed by the shells — although the Germans might get lucky and hit an ammunition dump or something else explosive — but it would force them to cover their bodies while the panzers moved.

They’d practised before in the training centres. Five panzers went around the British guns one way, five went the other way, while infantrymen came up in support and attacked from the front. Caught between several attacks, the British fought and tried to hold the position, but it was impossible. After what felt like hours, the remainder of the British positions surrendered.

Bothe didn’t wait around for orders; the panzers advanced again, charging down the road towards the next set of British defences. British shells were starting to splash down around them, but only one of the panzers was hit and destroyed; Bothe ignored the loss and they kept moving, hunting for targets. Their overall objective was to cut a series of roads and prevent the British from reinforcing their positions, but that wasn’t going to be easy. The British would be determined to stop them.

“Aircraft,” the driver shouted as the tank heeled madly to one side. The British aircraft, a ground-attack propeller aircraft dating from the last war, came right at them, launching rockets towards the German panzer column. The bright flares of the rockets almost blinded Bothe for a moment; when he recovered, three more panzers had been hit and disabled. The British rockets hadn’t been enough to actually kill the panzers, but the disabled panzers were effectively useless unless the British came within range of its guns. The mechanics would be able to repair or cannibalise them for parts, but Bothe couldn’t afford to wait for them. The panzers must keep moving.

He listened briefly to the radio, switching back to the general channel and trying to pick up an overall idea of what was going on. The sun rose slowly in the sky, revealing scenes of untold devastation and heavy fighting with smoke rising all around them, but it was impossible to get any idea of just what was happening as the battle disintegrated into a melee. Das Reich was apparently having success at punching through their section of the British lines, but the infantrymen who were supposed to be exploiting the victory were being stalled by vigorous British fire and carefully-prepared traps.

The RAF and the Luftwaffe were fighting it out desperately for control of the skies, but he’d already seen one aircraft attacking them, which suggested that the Luftwaffe wasn’t really in control of the skies. He hoped he was wrong, but as they punched closer and closer to British airfields, the weight of British attacks would only grow.

“Tank,” the driver reported, calling his attention back to the fighting. Bothe cursed under his breath as he saw the British tanks, just out of range but spoiling for a fight. The British tanks looked different from the German panzers, bulkier and seemingly tougher, but they weren’t superior to the German panzers. The Panther had had dozens of little problems at first, but as it was improved and lessons from the Russian campaign incorporated into its design, it had become the finest tank in the world. They were about to face the British tanks directly.

“Take us at them,” he ordered, knowing that escaping engagement wasn’t possible. The British tanks were determined to blunt 7th Panzer or die trying. They were aiming themselves directly at his force, charging at them with astonishing closing speed. The Panzers spread out as they sped up themselves, hoping to punch through their opponents and charge right into their rear. “Fire!”

The main gun barked. The British tanks opened fire at the same moment. The intensity of the fighting was staggering. A British tank exploded, a second one fired at one of his tanks, and then exploded as a German shell punched through their armour and detonated. The hatches on a disabled British tank burst open, allowing its crew to escape. He hoped that they made it and survived the battle. The two forces lashed through one another, tanks hacking away as they kept moving. A British tank loomed in front of Bothe’s panzer and only some quick thinking on the part of the driver kept them from ramming the British tank directly. The battle seemed to go on and on…

And then they were free, charging onwards towards the British rear. Bothe risked it; he stuck his head out of the hatch and peered behind him, seeing the British tanks engaging the German infantrymen and hopefully coming off worst while a line of panzers followed him directly towards the British guns. Seven panzers had been lost or disabled in the brief savage fight, but the survivors punched through and survived the experience. 7th Panzer was now in the enemy rear… and cutting off their line of retreat.

“Signal HQ,” he ordered, as the panzers spread out. They would need refuelling and reloading soon, and the British probably wouldn’t be kind enough to leave them any fuel to use. The French had done that, several times, back in 1940, but the British had had weeks to prepare their defences and years to plan their procedures. The roads were right ahead of them and the panzers headed towards them. “We have secured objective one and require resupply.”

All around them, the battle raged.

* * *

Gunner Spike Milligan, formerly of the British Army and now part of the Home Guard, peered through his binoculars as the German panzers received their resupplying convoys. They were just out of range for his weapons, intended to prevent the Germans from making a tank charge towards the depot, but the sight of them almost drove him to tears. Milligan wasn’t fond of the British Government, regarding both Atlee and Churchill as unbearably pompous, but surely even they could have prevented a German invasion. Or maybe not; the only lesson Milligan had brought home from the war in the desert was that the British Army was composed of lions, even including the reluctant Milligan, but led by donkeys.

He glowered as the Germans fanned out. The tanks should have been able to assault the Germans infantry and drive them back from the roads, but instead they had been sent onwards to engage the German panzers directly, something that almost made him wonder if there was treachery somewhere in the ranks. Milligan had spent a year in a German POW camp before the end of the last war, and the exchange, and had seen how British officers got on with their German counterparts, leaving the enlisted men while they spent time with their new friends. It wouldn’t have surprised him to learn that they had all gone to the same schools, or maybe were all related at some level; certainly, they had all united against the lower orders.

Had one of the generals, someone friendly to Germany, sold them out? He would have believed it of Percival, but Percival, at least, had been disgraced and stripped of his rank before the Churchill Government had left office. The Australians had wanted his scalp, and Churchill had given it to them.

“Harry, take aim,” he ordered as the panzers swept forwards. Harry Secombe was larger than any Home Guardsman should have been, but, as a reservist, no one had been checking up on his weight and general health. Milligan had been known to remark how empty the room was without him, but he respected Secombe, who was at least trustworthy. Milligan suspected that the entire unit had been left here to die. “Fire as soon as they come into range.”

The German panzers took on shape and form faster than he had imagined, but the gunners prepared with the calm competence they had developed in endless drills ever since the call-up to war. Milligan had seriously considered refusing to report for duty, but it was his country, and no matter how bad the toffs at the top were, they were much better than the Germans. Milligan had tried to spread the word about what the Germans were doing to the people of Occupied Europe, but the BBC had often refused to broadcast such material, apparently on the grounds that it would upset the Germans. Milligan had been disgusted. It was a lack of moral courage that had allowed Hitler to remain unchallenged until it was far too late…

“Fire,” he barked. The gun shook once and fired an antitank shell right into the teeth of the German panzer. He worried, for a moment, that the shell wouldn’t be enough and that the German would somehow survive — that had been a problem in the last war - but the shell worked perfectly and the German panzers exploded into a fireball. The other guns fired as well, hitting the other German panzers and knocking out three of them, before sending one of them flying through the air, crashing down onto the ground. Milligan didn’t know how that had happened, but as the Germans fled their tank, the machine guns cut them down with brutal efficiency. “Reload and…”

Something struck him right through the chest; a burning pain that sent him reeling backwards. He hit the ground without any awareness of the fall, his hand clutching at the wound on his chest, as the burning grew worse and darkness reached out for him. He thought he saw ghosts — an incredibly fat man, a suave distinguished man, a British officer, a boy scout and others — before the burning finally grew too strong. The darkness reached out for him again and this time, he could no longer resist.

* * *

The British defence collapsed under the weight of German fire-power, and the panzers charged through, one of them crushing a British soldier under the treads as the man attempted to take aim with an antitank weapon. Bothe didn’t spare a thought for the British soldiers as the panzers spread out, driving towards the vast concentrations of British men and material they’d seen on the reconnaissance photos. The British were preparing to mount a counter-attack The panzers had to delay them long enough to allow the infantrymen to come forward and consolidate their gains.

More explosions billowed up farther down the line as the British called in their own artillery. The panzers pushed on, knowing that the odds were in their favour, leaving another pair of unlucky panzers behind. They wouldn’t be recoverable, Bothe suspected, and their crews would have been killed instantly, if they were lucky. If they had somehow survived the shell and the explosion, they would have been seriously wounded and condemned to life as shadows of their former selves. They would be lucky to survive, even if they were allowed to survive; he’d heard dire rumours about what the SS sometimes did to people who were wounded without any hope of recovery.

German rockets flashed overhead and the panzers followed them, seeing the explosions as the rockets tore into British support areas. They weren’t very accurate, but the British had accidentally presented them with a target-rich environment. Almost every rocket was guaranteed a hit on something. The British would be trying to retreat to new lines, but the rockets would be tearing them apart and the panzers would complete the job. He saw the burning wreckage, a monumental tangle of tanks, trucks and weapons, and smiled as the panzers charged forwards again. The British could surrender or they could die.

A British tank loomed up out of nowhere and fired directly at one of the panzers. The gunner was already tracking it and fired as soon as Bothe barked the command. The shell missed the intended target, striking one of the British trucks, but another of the panzers destroyed the British tank. Bothe shook his head ruefully, understanding the gunner’s muttered curse. Their reputation for accuracy had just taken a major blow.

“I expect better next time,” he said, as the British force retreated. A handful of them were surrendering, but the others were either running or had been badly injured when the rockets attacked. It was something that few politicians ever saw in their lives; the wreckage and ruined lives left behind by war. Hitler had served in the trenches and fought in the war; how had he decided to embrace war?

He shook his head. It didn’t matter at the moment. All that mattered was winning.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Over Colchester, England

“Sir, we have five major inbound raids,” Lieutenant Norah Fairhurst said. The cabin of the Lancaster airborne radar plane grew tense as she spoke. “There are upwards of seven hundred German aircraft moving out over the battlefield.”

“Show me,” the Group Commander said. Norah could smell his cigar smoke as he bent over her shoulder and peered down at the screen. “Shit… I mean…”

Norah ignored him as she called in the raid warning. She had never expected to be in a combat zone - or even near a combat zone - not when the use of women in combat was strictly limited. The Home Guard had a few women working anti-aircraft guns, but apart from them, the women were generally kept on non-combatant roles and often separated from their male counterparts. The men could fight and go to war, and while Norah disliked the inherent sexism of the system, at least it allowed her a chance to be useful and hit back at the Germans. There was no rule against female radar operators, and if she could free up a man to fly a combat jet, it would be fitting. Her father would have approved, had he survived the last war. The Germans had killed him in North Africa.

She gritted her teeth as she passed on the warning. It had taken years to convince most of the men that the WAAFs were just as capable as them at most tasks, including radar and even some engineering. There were teams of female mechanics at some RAF bases, working to keep the RAF’s planes flying, and they sometimes fell into bed with fighter pilots. It might be officially forbidden, but if some woman wanted to leave her position, the easiest way to do it was to get pregnant. She cursed them under her breath; they made it hard for other women in the RAF to be taken seriously.

“I have a small group separating themselves now,” she said calmly. “They’re coming towards us.”

The Group Commander picked up the internal telephone and barked a command down the line. “Pilot, prepare to evade,” he ordered, before putting the phone down again and picking up a radio set. “Ground Control; this aircraft is about to come under attack.”

Norah’s eyes followed the positions of the British aircraft in the area. Twenty-one Meteors had been flying CAP over the battlefield in the dark, left alone by the Germans, something that had bothered her senior officers at the time. The Germans normally tried to harass any British aircraft they saw, but this time they had left the British aircraft alone. They were being mobbed by the German fighters now, fighting for their life in the darkness, relying on their radars to differentiate friend from foe. There would be no help from them.

The Lancaster banked steeply as it altered course to retreat, but Norah knew that it was already too late. The converted bomber couldn’t hope to outrun the German jets. There were more British fighters rising up from the other airfields, but they would be too late for Norah and her crew-mates The Group Commander understood it as well. In his last moments, he was passing command of the air battle on to other commanders on the ground. There wasn’t even time to try to bail out of the plane.

“You have all done well,” he said, looking around the cabin. Norah’s eyes tracked the Germans as they closed in. “I am proud to have served with each and every one of you.”

Norah’s eyes filled with tears as a stream of explosive bullets sliced into the aircraft and sent it falling down towards the ground, impacting with an explosion powerful enough to be heard for miles.

* * *

Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt watched dispassionately as the British radar plane fell towards the ground, before he pulled his jet into attack position and waited to meet the British fighters. The British would be throwing everything they had into the fray, trying to crush the thrusts on the ground, and everything depended on the Luftwaffe keeping control of the air. If the British managed to get their aircraft through them and into position to target the ground, the entire assault force could be in jeopardy. If that happened…

He shook his head as he concentrated on the radar screen. He had never seen such a massive battle before, not even back at Scapa Flow; there were over two thousand aircraft entering the battle. Over half of them were German aircraft, but the only way of telling the difference between them was the primitive IFF system the Luftwaffe had developed; in the darkness, it was far too likely that they would accidentally start shooting down their own jets as well as British fighters. The only consolation was that the British would have the same problem.

Or maybe not, he thought, as the British patterns became clear. They had divided up their own forces, with their fighters raging ahead and their ground-attack aircraft remaining low, where they would launch attacks on advancing Panzer columns. If his forces fought the British fighters, to save the German tactical assault aircraft, then the British would have a chance to get some blows in against the ground forces. It was hard to make a decision, any decision, but he knew what the priorities were. They were to keep the fighters away from the German transports. The paratroopers were a very important part of Rommel’s operations plan and they would have to be preserved as much as possible

“Engage at will,” he ordered, as the German aircraft spread out to meet the British. It was impossible for non-pilots to understand just how rapidly two forces of jet aircraft, each force flying at barely below the speed of sound, could converge on each other; one moment, the sky was clear, the next moment and they were in the middle of a brutal dogfight. He sensed more than saw a British Meteor ahead of him, partly illuminated by the flares in the sky, and fired a long burst of tracer into it, seeing it rolling out of the sky and falling down towards the ground. There was no time to watch, either see it explode or see if the pilot escaped; the other British aircraft were surrounding him and yammering away with their guns.

He cursed as he avoided a Meteor piloted by a man with a death wish, or maybe in the chaos the British pilot hadn’t realised until it was almost too late that the two aircraft were about to crash. The battle was completely out of control, with everyone fighting for himself; he watched his scope carefully as he illuminated another plane, only to jerk his hands away from the trigger when he realised that it was a German aircraft. A British jet fired at him, a stream of tracers narrowly missing his cockpit, and he fired back, before dodging and diving as the British aircraft curled onto his tail and came after him.

I wonder if I’ve met you before, Schmidt thought, remembering the daring British pilot he’d tangled with, during the raid on Dover. The British pilot was certainly tenacious, following Schmidt down through his arc and remaining firmly on his tail, shooting time and time again. Schmidt was used to being the hottest pilot in the sky and losing, particularly like this, galled him. The British pilot was on the verge of actually hitting him. Desperately, he yanked the aircraft up into a tight loop, his blood running cold as he heard the choking noise from the engine, and somehow appeared behind his opponent.

“Die,” he howled and fired. The enemy pilot had the reflexes of a cat. With what looked like humiliating ease, the Meteor slipped to the side and evaded the burst of tracer. Schmidt followed him, concentrating hard, and finally managed to score a series of hits, raking the Meteor’s wing with fire. There was a moment of pregnant possibility… and then the enemy aircraft heeled over and headed towards the ground, the pilot barely managing to bail out in time. Schmidt waggled his wings — ignoring, once again, the orders to shoot at any enemy parachutists — and returned to the battle.

The scene was a bit more controlled now, but losses were about even. The British were attacking the oncoming German bomber formations. Schmidt fell into formation with the bombers and covered them while they made their attacks, silently cursing the slow speed of the bombers and the need to cover them. There were supposed to be specialist fighters assigned that duty, as the jets suffered from reduced effectiveness by being tied to the bombers, but the chaos of the fight had made that impossible. The sun was slowly rising in the air, revealing clouds of smoke and massive damage on the ground… and panzers advancing across the battered landscape towards the city.

The sight held him spellbound for a moment. Flying so high, it was sometimes hard to remember that the ground-pounders suffered on the ground; the gentlemanly struggles of the fighter pilots and the occasionally brotherhood they shared with their opponents didn’t apply down there. The panzers, shooting it out with a line of British tanks, all looked like toys, as if they simply didn’t matter. The chaos on the ground had no rhyme or reason. The ground was burning, with flames and smoke rising up everywhere… and, somewhere down in the smoke, the infantry were deciding the battle. If they won, they would push through and advance on London; if they lost, the invasion effort itself might be in peril.

He yanked at the stick, an instant before a prowling British fighter could shoot him down. The moment of distraction had almost cost him his life. He swore at himself as he tried to control the jet, feeling the aircraft shuddering under his abuse. He had been fighting for what felt like hours; the British pilot didn’t know it, couldn’t know it, but if he kept Schmidt busy for too long, the German wouldn’t be able to return to the tanker to refuel. He jerked around, trying to retreat, but the British pilot followed him, firing burst after burst at his jet.

“Damn you,” he hissed and yanked back on the stick. The trick didn’t work twice. The British pilot followed him through the manoeuvre and came out behind him, still firing. Schmidt dived towards the ground, levelling out just above the ground, and dodged bursts of anti-aircraft fire while the British pilot broke off. Schmidt allowed himself a sigh of relief and rose up into the air, back into German controlled airspace, and headed for the tanker. It would be close, but he would make it, somehow.

“This is Schmidt,” he said, as he approached the formation of tankers. They were protected by a swarm of German aircraft, just to ensure that the British didn’t seize on targeting them as a means to degrade the German aircraft. “I am requesting emergency refuelling.”

“Roger,” the tanker said. Schmidt nodded in relief. If the tanker had been unable to take him within the next few minutes, he would either make a run for one of the captured airfields or try to put the plane down on a British field. That would have been easy in one of the older aircraft from the last war, but much harder with a jet aircraft… and then they would have to have moved it back to a proper airfield or risked taking off from the field. “Approach and insert your probe.”

Schmidt smiled. The original tankers had spurred the creation of an entire series of rude jokes, aided by the presence of some female operators, and the joke had lasted until Kesselring took over command of the Luftwaffe The sexual innuendo had gone the same way as the female operators, and all parties now knew to stick to business. Goring, whatever his other faults, had known the pilots needed to blow off steam and tension once or twice in a while. He’d been a proper flier himself. It was hard to credit that, when the pilots looked at the man they called the Iron Fatty, but there had been a time when Goring had been an ace. Those days were long gone.

He guided the probe into the tanker’s drogue and waited while fuel poured down into the tank. He’d done it before, hundreds of times, but it never failed to give him chills running down his spine; if the enemy attacked while he was refuelling, he would be extremely vulnerable. One Luftwaffe pilot, on exercises, had somehow ignited the fuel and blown both the tanker and the fighter into a fireball; the British would certainly try to trick him into accomplishing the same feat.

“My tank is now at ninety percent,” he said, feeling the dull throbbing of the tanker’s propellers echoing down the fuel line. A moment passed and the fuel stopped flowing, allowing him to break contact and fall back slightly from the tanker, watching as the massive aircraft turned and headed away from the combat zone. The tankers would remain forever outside the fighting; they were just too important to be allowed to be risked for no reason. “Thank you.”

He altered his radio settings again. “This is Schmidt,” he said, and gave his details. The entire battlefield had been scattered. Pilots would be flying with whatever wingmen they could scrape up. “I am returning to the engagement.”

* * *

The ground was moving at a terrifying speed, but Flying Officer Bentley ignored it, trusting to his skills to keep the Tempest aircraft from crashing into the ground. The Tempest was a new and largely untried aircraft, with only five built for the RAF so far, but it had lived up to most of its promises. It had been designed after realising that the Germans had practically invented the doctrine of close-support for their soldiers and had developed tactics that allowed a single aircraft to make a major contribution to the fighting. The Tempest was fast, powerful, and armed with weapons that could reduce an entire armoured unit to flaming debris, assuming that it could find its target.

Bentley focused his mind as he flashed over a small settlement, converted into a fortress by the Home Guard, and headed towards the German lines. The pre-mission briefing hadn’t been particularly detailed, but one thing was clear; the Germans had launched a two-pronged attack into the British defence lines and were on the verge of breaking through. If they succeeded, it would be much harder to evict them. So Monty was concentrating everything he had on destroying their spearheads before they got too far into the defence lines and broke out into the rear. Bentley saw the clouds of smoke and checked his weapons. He was getting closer to the Germans, and when he saw them, he would attack at once.

A low-level attack carried its own risks, although he hoped that his angle of approach, from the south, would convince nervous Home Guardsmen not to fire on his aircraft. The hope wasn’t realised as several bursts of anti-aircraft fire narrowly missed him, but he was over their position within moments and heading right for the German lines. If the smoke was any indicator, the Germans were right ahead…

There! The grey shapes of German panzers were very clear, bombarding a British position as they moved forward at terrifying speed. Bentley didn’t hesitate. He selected his rockets and launched a major assault, firing off all of his rockets in a single massive salvo. They were hardly precision weapons, targeted perfectly, but it didn’t matter; there were enough of them to ensure that at least some German tanks would be killed. He smiled as he saw the explosions and felt the plane being buffered by the blasts as the effects rose into the sky; he’d definitely hit at least four panzers and damaged a couple more. It was a shame that the Germans hadn’t strung them out in a nice line, but it hardly mattered; he’d given them a bloody nose all right.

His lips pulled back into a sneer as he triggered his cannon. The Germans would bring supplies forward to reload their advancing forces and he was behind their lines. The supply convoys had to be near him. The Germans wouldn’t have sent them near to any major habitation — they tried to avoid them — so where were they?

He dared to rise a little higher in the sky and spotted a line of German trucks heading towards one of the advancing spearheads. He rolled the aircraft into a dive and triggered the cannon, strafing them until the entire line of trucks had been wrecked.

Altering course, he climbed into the air and flew back towards the British lines. He would reload… and then he’d be back. There would be hundreds of other targets for his aircraft.

The German front line was all-too-clear to him as he rose higher. He could see the smoke and fires caused by the fighting and the massive shellfire from both sides, but the Germans were definitely making progress. A cold knot of fear appeared in his heart as he looked down on the battlefield; he was too high up to see any of the fighters, but somehow, he knew it wasn’t going well.

Colchester was falling to the Germans.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Felixstowe, England

Gregory Davall threw caution to the winds and strode over to the window, peering out around the blackout curtain and staring away to the south. The noise of combat was growing louder, like distant thunder or fireworks, and he could see flashes and flares in the darkness. The British lines were some miles away, and he couldn’t hope to make out individual details, but he was sure that their captive was right; the German offensive had begun.

Their captive was laughing. “Shut up,” Davall snapped as he pushed the curtain back into place. That explained the surprisingly low levels of German guards, although it didn’t explain, or why this particular German had decided to take the night off. “Why aren’t you out there fighting with your friends?”

Blood was trickling down from where Davall’s hand had split their captive’s lip. “I’m a logistics officer,” their captive said with some dignity, perhaps in response to the unspoken accusation of being a coward. “I organised the attack’s logistics and now they don’t need me anymore, so I came out here with her for a peaceful night.”

Davall glanced in the direction of the fighting. It was eerie; they could hear the noise, but the ground wasn’t shaking. The only sign that there was anything wrong was the racket; outside, he suspected that people would be staring into the distance, looking for signs of what was going on. The Germans had their curfew in effect, but even so, the townspeople would be alerted, wondering what was happening in the distance. Would someone try something stupid while the Germans were distracted?

He ground his teeth in rage. He’d waited too long too long to obtain the information he’d wanted. He hadn’t been able to send a warning and so he’d risked revealing Janine’s real role for nothing. He took a tighter grip on his pistol, seriously considering simply shooting the SS man in the head, but refrained. His disappearance would be noted. If Davall shot him, but left Janine alive, a smart SS man might wonder why Janine had been left alive, and come to the right conclusion.

“Guard him,” he said, checking his watch. The Germans wouldn’t be coming for their officer for a few more hours, but there wasn’t much darkness left. They needed to get into the forest, change their clothes, and then return to their homes, all before the sun rose. “Remain here and gag him.”

He wanted to be sick as he looked at the German’s hand. He hadn’t wanted to torture the German, and indeed, their field training had said very little about how to torture someone effectively, but there had been no choice… and it had all been for nothing. It wouldn’t be easy to convince the German to hide the fact that they had tortured him… he shook his head at the absurdity of the thought. The German would have to be left alive, but at the risk of revealing that there were at least three insurgents operating within the German-held territory. Perhaps he could be convinced to remain silent… no, that was impossible.

The interior of the cottage was more luxurious than he had expected, someone’s dream idea of a countryside cottage, rather than anything real. It was easy to find the bedroom and he closed the door behind him, hoping that the German’s imagination would fill out all kinds of scenarios for what he could be doing with a nude and vulnerable Janine, rather than the truth. His men had left her in a comfortable position, or at least as comfortable as one could be when tied hand and foot, but her eyes were deeply worried. She knew that she was at risk too.

“Janine,” he whispered, keeping his voice very low. He could have removed the gag, but it was important that they made as little noise as possible. “We got here too late; the attack’s already begun.”

He saw her eyes go wide with fear and bitter understanding.

“We can take you out of here and hide you in the forest, or we can leave you in place,” he said, softly. “Do you want us to take you out of here?”

She shook her head, rubbing it uncomfortably against the bed. Davall leaned closer. “You want us to leave you here?”

She nodded. Davall understood. If she were lucky, she would be taken for nothing more than an innocent bystander in the events that had overtaken the SS man who had paid for her favours. She was likely to suffer for his shame, even if she was taken to be an innocent; a man would sometimes take his shame and humiliation out on the nearest vulnerable woman. He kissed her once on the forehead, winked at the surprise on her face, and then slipped back into the main room. Deininger was glaring at him over his gag, his eyes dark with murderous intentions. It would look very bad when he was caught. Davall briefly considered trying to dress him up in women’s clothes, something that would earn him a hot reception from his comrades, but there was no time.

“We’re going to be going now,” he said, placing his lips as close to the SS man’s ears as he could. The man flinched away from his lips. “If you feel inclined to have hundreds of people hurt or killed because of this, we will find you again and kill you. Bye, bye…”

They slipped out of the cottage and into the darkness. The SS man would probably manage to free himself, given enough time, but Davall guessed that they had at least an hour before the SS man called for help, assuming that he actually did call for help. It would look rather bad on his record and he had a hunch that the remainder of the SS wouldn’t be happy with their comrade, particularly since he hadn’t remained on duty, but had gone off with a prostitute. Maybe he had had permission to go on leave on the eve of the offensive — there was no way to know — but it hardly mattered. The man would look bad and hopefully none of his report would be believed.

We can’t rely on that, Davall thought, as they reached the hidden shack in the wood. They had rigged it up carefully with diabolical ingenuity, in order to prevent the Germans from breaking in and finding the supplies; anyone who tried to enter without taking the right steps would be blown to smithereens by the explosives they’d placed underneath the shack. He watched as McAllister carefully deactivated the explosives, before they slipped into the shack, changed rapidly back into their normal clothes, and closed the shack up again.

The rumbles of thunder from the distance were only growing louder, rising and falling; he guessed he was hearing the sound of the guns, and then the noise of the explosions as the shells crashed to the ground. He took a chance and scrambled up an old tree he knew from his childhood, climbing high enough to gain a better view; the entire horizon looked to be on fire. The flashes of light, each one marking the impact of a shell, were everywhere and the sky was glowing with the light of flares, casting an eerie light over the entire scene. It was almost obscenely pretty, in a way; he could have watched it for hours. That wasn’t an option, he knew, and allowed himself to slip back down the tree, walking back to his men.

“We have to split up and get back to our homes,” he said, shortly. They performed quick inspections of each other to ensure that they weren’t carrying anything too revealing before they split up and wandered down separate paths, heading back to the town. He ducked, quickly, as the noise of German aircraft roared overhead. He looked up and saw a massive line of them, blotting out the sky as they flew towards the south.

The streets of Felixstowe were deserted when he slipped out of the forest; he didn’t even see any German patrols. It made him wonder if the Germans had pulled out suddenly and sent all their SS men to the front, but that didn’t seem likely. He saw some windows, the ones facing south, half-uncovered, the occupants looking into the distance and wondering if the morning would bring relief or increased torment. The growl of German vehicles rose up suddenly, and he took refuge in someone’s front garden, watching fearfully as the line of German vehicles drove past, heading to the front. The Germans had been building up a massive supply depot some distance from town. He’d thought about attacking it, but with what looked like an entire regiment committed to its defence, he had rapidly dismissed the thought as suicide.

Bastards, he thought, as the first glimmerings of dawn appeared in the distance. He redoubled his pace, slipping from house to house, until he reached his home and slipped around to enter it from the rear. Kate had left the back-door unlocked and he slipped inside, realising that the combat was still audible, even growing louder. He undressed rapidly and slipped upstairs to bed, only to discover that Kate was still awake, staring at nothing.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said by way of explanation. She wore the nightdress her mother had given her on their wedding night, very different from Janine’s easy sexuality, but Davall remembered her without it on many different nights. They had moved from being lovers to being married… and along the line, their passion had grown stronger. “That noise…”

“There’s a war on,” Davall said, as he climbed into bed beside her. It was warm, very warm, but it was easy, somehow, to cuddle up to her. “I think the Germans are launching an assault on our lines.”

Kate’s eyes went very wide. “And what you were doing…?”

“You don’t want to know,” Davall said, and kissed her. She responded to his kiss and they grew in passion as she leaned back, inviting him to straddle her and lift up her gown. A moment later and he was inside her, pushing against her and pushing them both forward… there was a perfect moment of blissful forgetfulness, and then the world came crawling back into his mind. The German assault might fail, and if that happened, the fighting would come back into Felixstowe, and if that happened…

Davall didn’t get any sleep at all that night.

* * *

It had taken Brigadefuhrer Franz Deininger nearly an hour to wiggle free of his bonds. The British insurgents had severely damaged his right hand, but his left was still intact. With a great deal of effort, he had managed to loosen his bonds enough to get his hand free. He would have used handcuffs in their position, although they might have intended him to escape eventually, perhaps in the hopes that he would be merciful to them when they were caught. If that had been their intention, Deininger had no intention of allowing it to work. He intended to hunt them down like dogs or Russians. They would pay for ruining his leave.

His right hand throbbed badly, and he forced himself to concentrate long enough to free his other arm, and then his feet, releasing himself from the chair. The effort of standing up almost made him collapse as his body staggered under the sudden change in position, but he caught hold of the table, still covered in the remains of the food from their meal, and steadied himself. The water jug had remained intact and he drank some of it, using it to clear his parched throat while he considered what to do next.

The novels that were churned out to celebrate the power of the SS man would have had the lone hero — someone based on a mixture of Otto Skorzeny and Hitler himself — carrying out medical aid on his own body, but Deininger knew that he couldn’t do that, certainly not without one of his hands. It would be much safer to ask for help from a trained medical team, which would mean admitting what had happened here… and there was really no choice. He was expected back to work within a couple of days, maybe less if the system failed to hold up under the pressures of the offensive, and they would ask questions if he turned up with a bandaged hand. They were already unhappy about him having taken a few days off to spend them with Janine…

The thought reminded him about her, and he moved as quickly as he could into the bedroom. He saw her there, lying naked on the bed as he had imagined, but then reality intruded upon the idyllic view. She had been left there, tied and gagged, and he felt his anger rising again. All he had wanted was a pleasant few days with a girl. He could have pretended to have a normal life. They had ruined it and ruined her as well. Her position suggested that they had amused themselves with her, hurting her, ruining her… he had known, of course, that she was a prostitute, but it was no longer possible to pretend.

“Don’t worry,” he said, as he looked into her frightened eyes. He staggered over to the bed and sat down beside her, his hand touching her bonds and trying to undo them. It rapidly proved to be almost impossible with his hand, so he staggered back into the kitchen, found his ceremonial dagger, and carefully severed the bonds with that. Her hands looked worse than his, almost black and blue from having her circulation badly interfered with, but he was sure she would recover the full use of her hands. He passed her the knife after she rubbed life back into her hands and she used it to free her legs. A moment later and she had removed the gag, revealing a tear-streaked face.

“Don’t worry,” Deininger repeated and took her in his arms. She shook against him, trying to draw what comfort she could from his embrace, and he put his good arm around her. Her body had been wonderful to his eyes only hours before, now she was a human being in need of comforting. He could have done with some comfort himself, but he put his own concerns aside to comfort her. “It’s all over now.”

She held him away from her as they lay together. One of her hands found its way into his pants. Her voice was teary. “Do you want to…?”

“Not now,” Deininger said, feeling the throbbing from his hand growing. She withdrew her hand, looking almost relieved. The expression on her face almost made Deininger’s heart melt. “I think you’d better call the local command post and get them to send a team up here.”

Her eyes flashed with fear; Deininger interpreted it as her remembering what the SS had been like, back in Occupied France. “Don’t worry,” he said, as he pulled himself to his feet. “They won’t do anything to hurt you, I promise.”

She staggered to her feet and found the telephone; a moment later, she had called the command post and explained what had happened. The operator didn’t believe her and demanded to speak to Deininger; Deininger took the phone and left the operator in no doubt that if he didn’t get a team up to Deininger’s cottage at once, he would be shipped at once to the worst area of Russia and assigned to counter-insurgency duties. Even the worst fanatics tried to avoid those duties there, apart from the ones who weren’t quite right in the head; the Russian insurgents were the worst foes the Reich had ever faced. They might not be able to actually defeat the Reich, but they could constantly impede the New Order as it set about trying to rebuild that section of Europe.

The noise of the fighting was growing louder in the distance when the security team arrived with a medic. Deininger had ordered Janine to get dressed, but he was all-too-aware of their hidden disapproval, their sense that he had somehow deserved it, or worse. The medic set his fingers as best as he could, but it would take much more to repair his hand completely… and Deininger knew that he wouldn’t get the priority, not with heavy fighting in the south. They would leave him unhealed until the real soldiers had been given medical aid…

He found it hard to disagree with their priorities, intellectually, but emotionally, with the pain burning through his hand, he hated their cold logic. The medic had given him a shot of something for the pain, but it refused to fade completely, a reminder of just what the insurgents had done to him on a night that should have been perfect. They would pay for the humiliation, he decided.

“The grounds are empty,” the head of the security team said dryly. The SS soldiers had conducted a brief search, but apart from several rabbits, they’d found nothing of interest. The hidden mockery in his voice was easy to hear. “The insurgents seem to have escaped.”

“We’re going to find them,” Deininger said, shortly. He glared around the room until they all nodded their understanding. “We’re going to dissect this town until we find them, understand?”

Chapter Forty

London, England

Winston Churchill approached the Houses of Parliament with more trepidation that he was normally willing to admit to feeling. The population of London was restive; they could hear, in the distance, the sound of guns. The Germans might still be many miles away, but an unopposed charge could bring them to the gates of London in less than a day. The entire governing centre of Britain had been sealed and secured by hundreds of soldiers, including the two who were escorting Churchill personally. The Germans would not be allowed to launch a second surprise assault on the very heart of British power.

He allowed himself a brief moment of reflection. He had gone to see the King back in 1940, after becoming Prime Minister for the first time, and again in 1943 when his own party had removed him from power. Then, he had been full of fear for the future and yet convinced that Hitler and his thugs needed to be stopped whatever the price. Almost alone in political Britain, Winston Churchill had known that Hitler could never be reasoned with, never be convinced to accept what he had and seek no more territory; it was, more than ever before, him or the rest of the world. That truth had driven Churchill for years, from his hopes that the Allies might stop him, to his desperate faith in the French Army, to the point where it looked as if German soldiers were going to set foot on Britain itself.

Instead, Hitler had gone east and so pleased the anti-communist side of the British Establishment that it had been surprisingly easy to get them to go along with a peace treaty, even such a grievously flawed treaty that played to Hitler’s advantage. It was something that bothered Churchill during his lone years as an MP and persistent critic of the government. Would it have made any difference if he had fought them instead of standing down? Would the war have raged on until Hitler landed anyway?

There was no way of knowing, not now. Churchill knew that with the Germans on British soil, all of the gathered might of Britain would be focused on driving them back into the sea. The events of the next few days would decide the fate of the British Empire, and indeed Britain’s very survival as an independent state; British Intelligence had picked up enough clues as to Hitler’s plans for the country to know that they didn’t dare lose. Not for Britain the happy state of Vichy, with Mosley and the former King Edward as German puppets; Britain would be controlled by a German governor and the establishment would be purged. That had sent fire burning down the spines of a few hundred members of the establishment, including, to Churchill’s private amusement, some members who were inclined to make peace with Germany, and the country was united behind him. The only worry in his mind, now, was simple; was it too late?

Sounds of gunfire rose in the air again as the battle raged in the distance. Churchill had seen, in the darkness, flashes and flickers of light, but now, in daytime, all they could sense of the battle was the noise. Churchill had seen the charts in the War Office, heard the reports as they came in, and knew that the fighting wasn’t necessarily going well. The Germans had the advantage of greater mobility and the ability to bring all of their fire-power to bear on a single point; the British had the advantage of being determined to win and well dug into British soil. The Germans had learned, time and time again, that British towns and cities were hard targets; they’d simply enveloped many of them and concentrated on driving onwards towards London. The die was cast…

Churchill could sense the mood of Parliament as he entered, a mixture of fear and grim determination. England hadn’t been invaded for centuries; even during her darkest moments, Napoleon hadn’t been able to land on her soil. The French had failed, the Spanish had failed… and, back during the last two wars, the Germans had failed. Now, he knew, they had landed, but they would not succeed in taking Britain. They would do it over his dead body, something that was very likely; he had already decided that, whatever happened, he would not leave Downing Street. The Germans would have to take it from him.

They gathered in their rows, looking for hope and a promise that there was a future. Churchill despised many of them. They were small men, in their way, throwing away the core of Britain’s greatness for their own private dreams. The Empire was crumbling, the very soul of Britain was imperilled, and yet they saw fit to try to enhance their own positions at the expense of the country. Where would the Empire have been if men like them had been allowed to rule? Where were the Pitts, the Wellingtons, even the Gladstones and the Parmerstrongs? Churchill looked upon the Members of Parliament and swore a silent oath that if Britain survived her darkest hour, the country itself would be reshaped and recast in the image that had served Britain so well in the past. He knew what he believed in, and he was determined to fight for it.

The Speaker spoke into the silence. “I call upon the Prime Minister to speak to us about the progress of the war,” he said, his voice betraying not a hint of concern or fear. “I ask the Honourable Member to address us now.”

Churchill pasted a suitably grave expression on his face and stood up. “Honourable Members, I speak not only to you, but to the millions of Britons who are listening, and to Hitler himself, skulking in his bunker while his forces fight and die to take an island that will never surrender,” he intoned. “I speak to them all, and I ask them to hear my words and listen, for Britain is indefatigable and will never be defeated.

He allowed his voice to quieten. “We face our darkest hour,” he said. “Last night, the Germans launched their offensive against our lines, spearheaded by units that we know and have learned to dread. We know that the 7th Panzer leads one of the attacking prongs, and we know that Das Reich leads the other, both units that have achieved a enviable reputation on the battlefield. We know that within the next few days, the fate of England will be determined… and the Nazis shall never win! They must be made to understand that one fact, above all others; Britain has never been a victim, but a country that can and will fight to defend its hallowed freedoms!

“Out there, the men of the British Army, the Home Guard, and even brave British citizens caught behind enemy lines are fighting to stem the tide,” he proclaimed. “Out there, they are fighting desperately to save us all from Hitler’s hordes, and they will succeed! The Germans think they’re winning, they think that because some lines have proven themselves weaker than others, they can punch through and win. We have had years to prepare for the day when the Germans came, and our tactics have been prepared well in advance. The Germans will be beaten!” Applause from the MPs caused him to pause.

He’d given them hope. Now he would confirm it. “And it is my pleasure to announce to the House that the units of the Royal Navy, the Mediterranean Fleet, and the Eastern Fleet, have united and have started to prepare for an all-out offensive to crush the German Navy once and for all. That force will retake the English Channel and break the German supply lines, leaving them with no option but to surrender. Britain will be free!” The gathered officials vociferously applauded.

“And so I speak now to the Germans who are currently occupying our fair lands,” he said, softly. “We are watching you. Any act committed against British citizens will be repaid tenfold. We will find the guilty and we will punish them. Your position in our land is temporary and we will recover it, taking back what you stole from us. Your days are numbered… and, just as you have refused to behave in a decent manner towards the citizens of Britain, we shall refuse to behave in a decent manner towards you. Act now, or face the consequences of not acting; the justice of a strong and democratic nation.”

He stood and stared around the chamber. His eyes lit on faces he knew and faces that were barely familiar to him. All of them, for the moment, were united. If the Germans broke through, whatever else happened, that would change but for the moment they were his, and he knew it. “We will fight them, if we must, even through the streets of London itself, but we will never be defeated.” The walls shook as the thunder of the standing ovation washed over the chamber.

The Speaker coughed as Churchill resumed his seat. “Under the circumstances, it has been agreed that the new Leader of the Opposition will forsake his speech,” he said. Churchill smiled to himself. Labour was in disarray following Atlee’s death and facing the rage of a public that blamed them for the invasion. “I ask all members of the House, now, to join me in a prayer for those fighting on the front lines and asking God for his help in defeating the scourge of Nazism.”

* * *

Alex DeRiemer had listened to the speech from the public balcony and felt his chest swell with pride when Churchill finished his words. He joined in the brief prayer and then ran down to meet up with the Prime Minister as he emerged from the chambers. They headed at once to the tunnel system that linked the House of Commons to the War Office. It had surprised DeRiemer when he’d first seen it — a person could walk from one end of London to the other without ever stepping above ground — but it made a certain kind of sense. These days, the tunnels were hardly secret; there were squads of soldiers at every possible location, desperately preparing in case the Germans managed to break into Central London.

“That was a good speech, sir,” he said as Churchill climbed the steps into the War Office. It was impossible to put his feelings into words. “Do you think they bought it?”

Churchill gave him a reproving look. DeRiemer realised, in a flash of sudden understanding, that Churchill believed every word he had said. DeRiemer had regarded intelligence work as a puzzle that needed to be solved, with no real hatred for the Germans; for Churchill, the fight against Hitler and his men was something very emotional. He would have fought beside the soldiers to prevent Hitler and his men from profaning the very core of Britain, and he would have refused to bend until they burst through and killed him. Hitler wanted him alive for a show trial, like he had done with Stalin, but Churchill had no intention of being taken alive.

“The Members of Parliament do not often understand military realities,” Churchill rumbled, after a long moment. “They see disaster and fail to understand how even disaster can be turned to Britain’s advantage.”

DeRiemer nodded, with the private thought that sometimes Churchill didn’t understand military realities as well. He’d started life as a reporter and had picked up a romantic idea of war that had never quite faded, despite knowing more about the barbarities of Hitler’s men than most Britons. He had liked Rommel, because Rommel suited Churchill’s idea of a good and honourable General.

“Yes, Prime Minister,” he said, after a long moment. “The field marshal is ready to brief you on the progress of the war.”

The massive chart on the table was being updated rapidly by a small army of female assistants; Churchill peered down at it and allowed his mouth to tighten in displeasure. It did look bad, DeRiemer agreed. Hitler’s forces had enveloped Colchester and were heading south, trying to punch through the secondary lines and hit London itself. The German positions weren’t as permanent as they were hoping, he saw. They’d trapped thousands of dug-in British soldiers behind their lines, and those soldiers were proving nearly impossible for the Germans to dig out quickly.

The air battle was raging backwards and forwards with no clear winner, but both sides were throwing everything they had into air supremacy missions. The issue of supporting the troops was starting to take a back-seat to just keeping the other side’s aircraft off the bombers and attack aircraft. Monty had said that that would be a good thing; the Germans relied more on their aircraft as flying artillery than the British. He hoped that Monty was right.

Field Marshall Alexander conducted the briefing. “Prime Minister,” he said. “The Germans attacked late last night and punched through the first defence lines at their weakest spot, as we anticipated. Colchester itself is under siege, but we have thousands of men dug into the city and have left them plenty of supplies, so they can hopefully hold the Germans for weeks. The Germans mounted a pair of infantry attacks, which were slapped back with very heavy losses, and have since grown more circumspect about operating near our forces.”

Churchill smiled. “How long can the cities hold out?”

“Weeks if the Germans commit everything to attacking them,” Alexander said. He smiled grimly. DeRiemer had a mental vision of civilians caught in the middle of burning cities, trying to flee as two rival armies battered away at each other. “The handful of panzers the Germans tried to send into the city were destroyed within minutes, so they’ll have to clear them all house by house, while we know everything about the city and the ways of moving through it. Eventually, they’ll fall, but they’ll bleed the Germans white as they do.”

That’s if the Germans are stupid enough to attack them directly, DeRiemer thought coldly, and looked up at Churchill. The Prime Minister was standing there, looking more confident than DeRiemer had expected; did he know something that DeRiemer hadn’t been told? The losses would be appalling, but if he was reading the map properly, the German army was on the verge of bogging down.

“Excellent,” Churchill said finally. He peered down at the map. “What are the Germans going to do now?”

“General Montgomery believes that the Germans will endeavour to clear enough space to allow themselves to reinforce and march on London,” Alexander said. “That’s not going to be easy, as we have men prepared to sneak out of the cities and hit the German supply lines, but they have no choice. If they can punch through and take London, they might be able to win the war even with the fleet taking back the Channel or inflict enough damage on the army that we have to make a compromise peace.”

“There will be no compromises,” Churchill stated flatly. “How long until we know, one way or the other?”

“I’m not certain,” Alexander admitted. “The Germans are currently pushing hard against the defences here, which are currently holding firm, but once they break through, they’ll be facing the might of 1st Armoured, under the direct command of Montgomery himself. If they break through those lines, their advance will still stall until they can handle their rear area, and that won’t be easy at all. That gives us time to bring up the reserves and execute Montgomery’s counter-attack plan.”

“Very good,” Churchill said. “I expect every man to be reminded that the fate of England herself depends upon them.”

He strode away into a side room before Alexander could say anything, and DeRiemer followed in his wake, unsurprised to see Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies and Sir Percy Joseph Sillitoe waiting for the Prime Minister. He nodded once to Menzies, his former boss, and stood well behind Churchill, wondering what was about to happen. Churchill had been organising the meeting well before the German offensive had begun, and he was hardly going to allow a little thing like a German assault to prevent him from holding the meeting. Churchill was personally fearless and respected that same lack of fear in others.

“Gentlemen,” he said shortly. “What progress have you made towards identifying the worm at the core of our apple?”

“Not enough,” Sillitoe admitted, after a brief pause. “We reviewed the files of all possible figures who were in a position to know information, but we failed to locate any real suspects. If it’s someone who was unknown to us and never worked for us, we don’t know anything about them. People who were known to be sympathetic to Nazi Germany, or were associated with Nazi Germany in some way, have been rounded up and a handful of them were indeed spies, but none of them led us to Skorzeny. I think we’re looking for a very deep cover agent indeed.”

Churchill rumbled his displeasure. “We have the most dangerous man in Europe somewhere within London,” he said. “I want him found and incarcerated, quickly!”

“London is a vast city,” Sillitoe said sharply. He wasn’t that fond of Churchill. “Unless we get lucky, Skorzeny can remain hidden for weeks, maybe even months, until he either escapes or tries to hurt us in some way. We do not have the manpower to search the entire city for him. All we can do is cover the areas he is most likely to attack.”

In the distance, the guns boomed.

Chapter Forty-One

Near Colchester, England

“Everyone out, now,” Sergeant Henry Wilt commanded, as the lorry screeched to a halt. The Company spilled out of the lorry, clasping their weapons in one hand as they advanced rapidly towards the defence line. The soldiers there seemed relieved to see them. They knew that with Colchester enveloped, it wouldn’t be long before the Germans turned their attention to breaking through the lines.

Captain Harry Jackson smiled to himself as he reported to the Colonel in command of the line. The British had dug in heavily, using a small village as a base and expanding it, even to the point of knocking down some of the houses and using the rubble as cover. The Germans, he’d been told, were being careful about engaging dug-in soldiers, but they must punch their way through the village to use the main road. The heavy road had been built to transport soldiers and the Germans wanted it… and he was determined that they wouldn’t get it.

“Take up your positions and wait,” the Colonel ordered.

The man had looked stressed enough for ten men, handling the remains of dozens of units that had been streaming into the rear areas. They were given a quick bite to eat and some more ammunition, and then pointed back into the lines. The Germans had ground through the first defence line, but their rear would never be secure, and they would have to secure the road network to move supplies up for their assault on London.

The defence line was the strongest he’d seen yet. The engineers had worked in concrete blocks and other impediments to tanks, ensuring that the German Panzers wouldn’t be able to just charge at them and punch through by the sheer fury of their offensive. The villagers who had been evacuated to the west had created an entire series of shelters and basements for their proud homes, all of which the engineers had gleefully adapted into a blocking line. The Germans would have to dig them out or the road would never be safe.

Jackson sucked in a breath as quiet fell. The battlefield wasn’t silent — everywhere, he could hear the sound of guns and explosions in the distance — but he was suddenly aware that the noise had fallen sharply. The Germans were probably catching their own breath, preparing their attack before the British could mount a counter-attack Jackson waited as his soldiers prepared themselves to fight. It wouldn’t be long before the Germans came at them and then they would have to hold. He was determined. Whatever happened, there wouldn’t be another retreat.

The Colonel ran over to him from his command post in the basement of one of the smaller houses. “I just heard a report from one of the observation patrols,” he said, gasping for breath. He was a reservist and it showed, even though Jackson couldn’t find much to fault in his deployments or his grasp of the situation. “The Germans are advancing towards us.”

Jackson shoved the Colonel down into the trench as he heard the whistle a moment before the shells crashed down . The ground shook and heaved as the shells came down in an endless stream, destroying the few remaining houses. Jackson glanced upwards, risking his eyesight, and saw the faint shape of the German spotter aircraft, high overhead. The German pilot had been watching them and calling in the heavy guns. A moment later, a force of aircraft roared overhead and added their own bombs to the carnage. The ground seemed to be caught in the grip of an earthquake, not entirely unusual in some parts of England, and he felt the colonel squirming under him as the bombardment slowly tailed off, seeming to end.

“Stay down,” he shouted, trusting the observers in the forward trenches to report if the Germans were on the verge of launching an attack. He hadn’t seen the trick before, but he’d heard about it; the Germans had a nasty habit of trying to catch British soldiers, popping up after the first attack, with a second attack. The trick was thoroughly unpleasant, and it had worked more times than he wanted to admit. “Stay down…”

He covered his ears desperately as the shriek of German rockets reverberated through the air as the ground began to shake again. The rockets were terrifying, but they didn’t actually cause much damage unless there was a direct hit. They didn’t possess the terrifying explosive power of a heavy German shell, let alone a direct hit with a bomb. The Germans used them more to terrify and confuse their opponents than actually relying on them to destroy their enemies. But if caught in the open, any unprotected man would swiftly be torn to pieces by the explosions and the flaming wreckage.

The Germans might be more civilised than some of the insurgents he’d faced in India, but at least the insurgents hadn’t possessed such weapons or such a skilful hand with the weapons they had. They been no match for the Ghurkas, or the other soldiers of the Indian Army, all of which had tended to regard the insurgents as idiots.

“Now,” he said, as a whistle blew. The bombardment was coming to an end, and he scrambled to his feet, seeing German vehicles approaching from down the road. He’d seen their panzers before, but this time he was determined; they were going to hold. “Take aim and hold your fire. Choose your targets…”

He smiled as the Germans raced closer. “FIRE!,” he thundered.

The men with antitank weapons fired as one, sending their PIATs directly towards the Germans and smashing into the most vulnerable areas on the Panzer. The Germans had heavy frontal armour that took a great deal of luck to burn through, but the treads, the sides and the rear were not so well protected. The German tanks came to a sudden halt and one of them blew up as the PIAT weapons struck home. Their machine guns opened fire, forcing the British to keep their heads down. Another German tank appeared, heading around the disabled panzers, and four PIATs struck it, sending it up in a massive fireball. The damaged panzers were unable to move. He watched, wondering if the Germans would try to escape before his mortar crews loaded and opened fire.

He smiled as the mortars fired, their rounds going up in the air and coming down around the Germans. Three of them scored direct hits and punched through the weaker armour on the turret of the panzers, the others fell down around them, scattering German infantrymen who had been trying to sneak up on the British position, using their own panzers as cover. The British soldiers shot them down ruthlessly as they fell to the ground, sniping back with their own weapons and advancing carefully; a mortar round fell among the main group and reduced them all to a bloody mess. Jackson shook his head as he watched; the Germans might be bastards, but they were brave men.

The spotter reported over the radio, “We’ve got trouble, boss. The panzers are preparing to encircle you and they’re bringing up a dozen trucks of infantry.”

“Understood,” Jackson said, grimly. The Germans were going to try to storm the village, while their panzers cut the British off from any possible retreat. That was fine by him; he was damned if he was going to retreat again. “Keep us informed of what they’re doing and buzz me once they start their advance.”

He shouted the warning up and down the line. His soldiers, prepared to meet the offensive. They hadn’t had enough time to familiarise themselves with the full scale of the defences, but the presence of the German infantry and the lack of any possible line of retreat would ensure that they held or died. The radio buzzed once as the German troops appeared in the distance, spread out and advancing slowly. He cursed as he saw the line of German rockets rising in the distance, trying to knock out his men before they could hold off the Germans.

The radio was in his hands before he even knew what he was doing. “Snipers, start killing them,” he ordered. A pair of Germans fell. The others threw themselves to the ground and crawled forward while a set of German snipers engaged in a deadly duel with his own snipers. The Germans were advancing as swiftly as they could, but as they came closer, his men shot at them, their weapons forcing the Germans to keep their distance. The Germans threw grenades at the British position while they slipped closer; Jackson gave the order to fix bayonets as the Germans advanced…

And then there was no time left at all for anything but killing.

* * *

The British horse was a complete surprise. the Panzer, charging across British fields in a desperate attempt to outflank their defences, crashed into the animal before they even knew that it was there. Hauptmann Johann Bothe was more affected by the death of the horse — it had been a magnificent chestnut beast — than he was by the deaths of hundreds of British and German servicemen. The horse hadn’t deserved to die. He had no idea what it was even doing there. Maybe it belonged to some British General or some British aristocrat who hadn’t believed in the German threat. There had certainly been people like that in France. Some of them had even ended up as the Nazi Regime’s most useful collaborators.

He dismissed the thought and concentrated on driving forwards, smashing across the fields and small streams towards the bridges. The British would have rigged the bridges to blow, they had to drive the British away from them, in hopes that German engineers could be used to disable the charges before they were detonated. If not, they would have to establish bridges under fire. It was something they had trained endlessly to do. 7th Panzer was spread out, it’s units attempting to watch out for British aircraft like the handful of irritating ground-attack aircraft that had buzzed them yesterday, and it was making good progress… when one of the Panzers exploded.

“Load antitank round,” he barked, as the first British tank appeared. British shells were landing all around the panzers, and it was starting to look like a planned ambush. “Fire!”

The British tank exploded with a gout of fire, but three more Panzers were hit, revealing the presence of a series of dug-in British guns, firing down at them from a knoll. Bothe barked orders and the panzers spread out, trying to avoid the British fire. None of them would have been so stupid as to charge right into the teeth of British artillery. The British themselves had taken a long time to learn that lesson. 7th Panzer, always operating at the sharp end, learned it very quickly.

“Call up air support and paste those guns,” he ordered, watching as three of his panzers poured high-explosive shells into the British field guns. They might get lucky and knock out the guns, but only a fool would rely on luck. They’d also moved outside the range of most of their supporting artillery. “I want that position knocked out and…”

“Tank,” the driver reported. Bothe’s head snapped round to see a British tank, and then another, and another, advancing rapidly towards them from the west. The panzer’s turret began to spin round, drawing a bead on the British armour, as he realised that they had stumbled right into the British counter-attack The advancing Centurions looked determined to punch right through the lead elements of 7th Panzer and they might just succeed…

“Fire,” he barked and had the satisfaction of seeing a British tank explode. Their shell had punched right through the frontal armour and detonated inside the tank, igniting the ammunition and sending the tank up like a firecracker. “Reload with antitank round and…”

The interior of the panzer grew very warm for a heartbeat, and time stood still before the panzer exploded as a British tank scored a direct hit on the prow of the vehicle. Bothe died without knowing what had hit him.

* * *

The men of the 1st Armoured Division were, in their way, as loyal to Montgomery as the men of the 7th Panzer were to Rommel. Monty had built up the unit from the desperately dangerous days of 1940 to the powerful and capable fighting force it was in 1950, and they would follow him anywhere. Most of them had wondered why they were being held in reserve, but as they were moved into position, it became clear. They had been placed aside for Monty’s master-stroke, a direct armoured attack into the flanks of 7th Panzer. They rumbled on until they made contact and then opened fire, relying on their own self-propelled guns to provide covering fire, punching a hole right into the German positions.

High overhead, almost every aircraft left in the British inventory flew cover, driving away the German fighters and ground-attack aircraft. For the first time since the invasion had begun, the British enjoyed air superiority over a major portion of the battlefield. That advantage rapidly translated into success on the ground as the Germans scrambled to respond to the new and shocking threat.

* * *

Jackson ducked as a hail of German bullets splashed into the wall behind him, then sprayed a quick burst towards the oncoming Germans. The British had fought hard, but the Germans had managed to drive them out of the first trench and then out of the second trench, fighting with them down the middle of the village. The British lines were contracting rapidly as both sides bled, but the Germans seemed to have unlimited reinforcements while Jackson only had the five hundred men in the village. He was also now in command. The Colonel had been shot by a German sniper an hour into the engagement, leaving the British more determined to fight on than ever.

The whine of shellfire echoed out again, and he dropped down into the trench. The Germans had shelled them from time to time, using it in expert tandem with their advancing infantry, forcing the British back. He didn’t realise that the explosions had somehow failed to happen until several minutes after his instincts told them that they should have detonated, and he peered out of the trench. The appearance of the German lines was in chaos; had they somehow bombed themselves? In such close quarters, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

”Sir,” Wilt called from his position. His voice was breaking with excitement and relief, the normally controlled sergeant gave vent to his emotions. “Tanks!”

Jackson didn’t understand at first. The Germans had tried a second panzer rush, but that had been stopped dead by his people; they wouldn’t repeat a failed tactic, would they? That would be unlike them. He glanced in the direction of the Germans, expecting to see advancing panzers, and saw, instead, German infantry beating a retreat. He glanced around, puzzled, and saw the mighty force of advancing British tanks, charging directly at the Germans and scattering them. His men were cheering and he joined them; whatever else had happened, the Germans had just been knocked back on their heels. Even the sight of an exploding tank, hit by a Panzerfaust, failed to destroy his relief; the tanks had saved them and secured the road for the British!

* * *

The image on the map told it all; the British armoured force had struck deep into the heart of 7th Panzer, bringing the Germans to a halt amid a confused battle that raged back and forth with no clear front-line, or indeed a clear winner. The British defences hadn’t broken at the new points of contact. Instead, they were working to pin down 7th Panzer while the supply lines were torn apart and the Centurions ripped through the infantry. 7th Panzer wasn’t used to defeat, and indeed they might still be able to win the battle, but only in a sense that would ruin the overall invasion.

Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck looked over at Rommel. Did he know that?

“Fall back,” Rommel sighed, finally. He wasn’t used to defeat either, but the fighting in North Africa had see-sawed back and forth before he’d finally been able to punch through the British defences and race to Cairo. “I want the infantry to remain in place and bleed the British if they attempt to leave the cities or advance too far forward. I want the panzers to mass again behind the front lines and prepare to cut off any British force that comes too far forward.”

His eyes met Baeck’s eyes. Surprisingly, he smiled.

“This isn’t defeat,” he stated after a moment. “Their lines have been hammered and we have trapped many thousands of their soldiers in their fortress cities where they can do us little harm. We are in position to launch a second offensive, and the British don’t have the resources to launch an offensive of their own. This is not defeat, Frank, this is the beginning of victory.”

Baeck looked down at the map and hoped that Rommel was right.

It just sounded like bravado to him.

Chapter Forty-Two

Berlin, Germany

The Fuhrer was not happy.

Himmler kept his head down and watched as Hitler worked himself up into a rage. The Führer’s rages had been coming more and more frequently over the past few years — he could move rapidly from a thoughtful cultured man to a screaming child throwing a temper tantrum — but it was rare to see him so persistently angry. The SS doctors employed specifically to monitor the Führer’s health had warned that the Führer’s mind was stronger than his body, but his body was on the verge of breaking down completely. Hitler should, by rights, have been removed to somewhere where he could spend his last few years in peace, but Himmler, staring at him, found it impossible to countenance such a suggestion.

He looked at the small man to whom he’d given his loyalty and wondered, again, what would happen when Hitler died. By Himmler’s own estimate, made privately and kept solely in the confines of his own head, the Fuhrer had less than two years before his heart gave out or some other part of his body failed. Himmler had no wish to speed Hitler’s end — he loved and respected Hitler too much to even consider hurting him, let alone killing him — but it pained him, seeing the man who was responsible for so much being brought down by his own body.

He would have healed Hitler in an instant if he had the power, but not even the most gruesome experiments in the concentration camps had yielded a medicine or procedure that would save Hitler’s life. The SS doctors had worked with a total absence of medical ethics and created all manner of miracles, from transplants to the perfect contraception, used to prevent the sub-humans from breeding, but they hadn’t found anything that could be used for Hitler. He might see the next year, but Himmler suspected that it wouldn’t be long before Hitler finally passed away. When that happened….

“Treachery at the highest levels,” Hitler thundered, spittle flying from his mouth. Himmler watched with growing concern; he had seen Hitler fake a rage before, but this one was distressingly real. “Who is to blame for our defeat?”

Field Marshal Erich von Manstein spoke before Himmler could inject anything. This was a more important matter than anything else, even though he wanted to see the Army humbled; he didn’t want that to happen at the expense of overall victory. Britain would belong to Germany.

“Mein Fuhrer, the British were able to stop one of our pincers and prevent it from stabbing deep into their vitals,” he said grimly. He might have been one of Hitler’s favourites, but the bearer of bad news was never popular at Hitler’s court. Hitler might order him stripped of his rank and exiled at any moment. “That was nothing more than a local victory, one that Rommel was rapidly able to turn to his advantage and use to convince the British that further attacks were a bad idea.”

So that’s the party line, is it? Himmler thought with unintentional irony. The explanation, so vague as to be almost useless, wouldn’t have made sense to anyone, but at least it sounded encouraging. Himmler had had one of the Waffen-SS officers make a personal report from Das Reich to him, and that report had been much less encouraging. The British had stopped 7th Panzer dead in its tracks and hammered it hard enough to almost break it. That would have been good news under other circumstances — it would embarrass the Army, therefore giving the SS more prestige — but now it was very dangerous. If the British pushed Rommel back onto the defensive, their superiority in numbers would be decisive, unless the supply lines were increased. Was that possible?

Hitler was unconvinced. “I want details,” he snapped, his voice sounding marginally calmer. “What happened and why?”

Manstein paused for a moment. When he responded, he spoke in a careful, calm voice. It was as if he were speaking to a wild and dangerous animal. “The first attacks were completely successful. Rommel moved up his two main striking units, the 7th Panzer and Das Reich and punched through the British lines at the critical locations. Successive attacks by our infantry prevented the British from closing the gaps and in fact, hours into the fighting, the gaps had been torn wide enough to prevent the British from closing them. The main striking forces charged onwards and rapidly surrounded Colchester before pushing deeper into British territory.

“At this point, there were a number of local British counter-attacks and Rommel made the decision to seal off the cities, like we did at Leningrad, rather than risk the losses involved with taking them directly,” he continued. “The main body of the assault force moved to reinforce 7th Panzer, but… at that moment, the British launched a major counter-attack. General Rommel therefore ordered a pause to consolidate his gains before resuming an advance.”

Himmler was almost impressed. Manstein had taken what was, to all intents and purposes, a defeat and turned it into something that Hitler, while far from happy, could live with. It wasn’t the easy victories of 1939 and 1940, but then, Hitler had been just as nervous as the rest of them during that period when they had taken a new and almost untried army into battle against the dreaded French Army and their British allies. Hitler, too, had feared them; Himmler sometimes wondered if the light treatment of the French under the New Order was a remnant of that fear.

“I see,” Hitler said, his eyes darkening. His face was returning to normal, much to Himmler’s relief; he didn’t want Hitler to have a heart attack in public. It would be harder to conceal the Führer’s death until he had his own plans underway for taking complete power in the Reich. “When will Rommel go on the offensive again?”

“He believes that he will be reinforced sufficiently within two weeks and, by then, he hopes to have consolidated his gains and wipe out or capture most of the pockets of resistance,” Manstein said. “We will be focusing on delivering as much in the way of supplies as Rommel needs, as well as regenerating the air force units that took part in the battle, including the ones that were weakened by the British.”

His voice droned on. Himmler listened thoughtfully, considering the private report he’d received on the side; the losses had been much heavier than anyone had predicted. The pessimists had predicted that Rommel’s forces could get brutally hurt — would be — but they’d never suggested just how bad it actually was. Rommel had lost well over ten thousand men and hundreds of vehicles; the scale of the defeat would have been disastrous under any previous regime. The British had been hurt too… but how badly?

“This is beside the point,” Himmler said suddenly. Everyone in the room, even Hitler, looked at him with some surprise. It wasn’t like him to take control of the meeting, at least not when military matters were involved. “Our priority is defeating the British and ensuring that their country enters the New Order on our terms. Can we hold the lodgement if the British counter-attack before the reinforcements are in place?”

Manstein nodded. “The British would meet our own infantry, dug in and positioned for defeating any armoured thrusts of theirs,” he said firmly. “Our antitank weapons are actually better than theirs and our infantry more experienced, so I believe that we could hold the lodgement itself for much longer, if necessary.”

“Good,” Himmler said. “That leaves us with one question. What are we going to do about the British Navy?”

All eyes turned to Generaladmiral Erich Raeder, who looked unhappy. “I wanted to attempt to block the Panama Canal, but I was forbidden from doing so or engaging the British Navy anywhere near American units,” he said. “The net result of that is that the British Far Eastern Fleet has passed through the Panama Canal, met up with troop transports from Canada, and is proceeding to Britain at high speed. This force is accompanied by three older American battleships, officially to prevent the British from getting any ideas of invading Panama, but effectively preventing us from engaging them as well.”

“They’re lying,” Himmler said flatly. “The British have quite enough problems without adding the United States to their list of enemies. This is daring us to open fire on American ships.”

Admiral Canaris smiled thinly. “The American Government’s official position is that the United States is not involved in the fighting and expects to remain that way,” he said. “Unofficially, they are definitely providing a high degree of support to the British, including several shipments of weapons and a few thousand volunteer soldiers. Their ships are providing additional convoy escorts for any convoy that happens to include an American ship, and, as you can imagine, that is all of them.

“I don’t know if the American Government can push this much further without some assistance from us,” he continued, “but President Taft has clearly decided to use the conflict to his advantage, at least in some ways. Dewey left Taft with a series of problems, but he has shown himself able to use the war to his advantage. How it will work out in the long run remains to be seen, but at the moment, we must reckon the Americans to be actively supporting the British, and to all intents and purposes, to be at war with us.”

“They will pay for this,” Hitler thundered, his face darkening again. “A mere command could send hundreds of bombers to flatten New York, and our submarines will sweep their ships from the sea!”

Himmler found himself, for once, trying to talk the Fuhrer out of something. “Mein Fuhrer, the priority for the moment is the British,” he said. “The task of confronting the United States and bringing it into the New Order will have to wait until we have defeated the British. Then expand our own armed forces to the point where we could launch a major offensive against the United States.”

Hitler rounded on him. “And could they stand against our might if we dealt them a mighty blow?”

Himmler scowled. “We could not make the first blow fatal,” he said very calmly. “If we failed to make the blow shattering, the Americans would build up and crush us under the sheer weight of their industrial production.”

He found an ally in Speer. “In ten years, our industry will expand to the point where we can break the Americans,” the industrialist said. “Until then, we can ignore the Americans and watch as the British fume in helpless rage, aware of what they could do with American support, but helpless to get it and bend it to their use.”

“America will one day fall,” Hitler said, promising the room. “And so, what are we going to do about the British fleet?”

“We believe that the American ships will escort them until they reach Ireland,” Raeder said. “The Americans took over the former British bases in Eire and expanded them during 1942, as part of Roosevelt’s increasingly desperate attempts to convince the American public to join the war. The Irish Government, despite maintaining an official neutrality, has reluctantly agreed to serve as a transhipment point and, we fear, should also be considered an enemy nation by now. The British reinforcements will unload on Ireland, ship or fly over to Britain, and march up to join the front-line”

He paused.

“The British Navy will then move to destroy the Kriegsmarine, and it is there that we must defeat them,” he said. “The British fleet will be numerically superior to ours, but we have advanced technology and the support of land-based aircraft. Our capability to use tankers to support our aircraft will present the British with a series of technological surprises such as they have never imagined.”

Hitler, always keenly interested in new technology, listened with the greatest of attention.

“This will stun the British as our forces attack their fleet directly,” Raeder assured him. “As soon as they realise that their aircraft have been caught out of position, they will be forced to react to us, at which point we will launch our carrier aircraft to join the strike and complete the destruction of the British carriers and their battleships. Once that is completed, the seas will be completely under our control, and we will reinforce at will before taking London and ending the war.”

“Excellent,” Hitler said. His voice seemed much happier now. “I will, of course, examine the plans and maybe add my own refinements, but on the whole, I approve of your plans. The invasion of England is in good hands.”

“Thank you, Mein Fuhrer,” Raeder said. “I will ensure that the pilots are aware that you are thinking of them when they go into battle.”

“Regardless, I am disturbed by Churchill’s success at rallying the British to continue their resistance,” Hitler said, changing the subject without missing a beat. “Why does he continue to embrace opposition when it is so futile?”

Himmler knew the expected answer.

“Because Churchill is an old reactionary dog who doesn’t understand that his time is past and his teeth have fallen out,” he said, remembering some of the jokes that were told about Churchill on Radio Berlin. The British leader was frequently caricatured in German newspapers, sometimes to hilarious effect, sometimes in mockery that irritated even Himmler. “He feels that as long as he can hold the hope of American assistance, he can save the remains of his crumbling empire.”

Hitler rounded on Joachim von Ribbentrop. “And how have the Iranians responded to our proposal that they invade Iraq and India at once?”

Ribbentrop hesitated. He had just come back from a series of diplomatic missions to German allies looked tired. His competence, too limited to be trusted with anything too serious, was curtailed to making nice with people, although Philby had reported, much to Himmler’s private delight, that Lord Halifax had regarded Ribbentrop as a fool, a moron, and a babbling lunatic. The very idea of sharing anything with Lord Halifax made Himmler smile. He wouldn’t have expected that they had any points in common.

“They are on the verge of moving into Iraq,” he said finally, foregoing the fact that they had been on the verge of moving ever since the war began. It wasn’t really a coincidence that most of their army units were kept in the north of Iran. “They are waiting for the British to be soundly defeated before they advance.”

“Then they will only have to wait two weeks,” Hitler said thoughtfully. “And so, how can we strike at Churchill himself?”

“My reports from London suggest that Churchill is a very isolated figure,” Himmler said smiling. “If he were to be removed, then the British Government would be in disarray, maybe even willing to consider a compromise peace.”

Hitler looked thoughtful. His whims reshaped the face of Europe. He had had Stalin crawling on the ground in front of him and kept Mussolini in power, rather than having him replaced with a more competent pro-German Italian, and there were thousands of those. He tolerated Franco rather than sending in the Panzers to avenge the occasional insult; he encouraged the French to settle in North Africa, just to alter the demographics of France. Deep inside, Himmler wondered if Hitler respected Churchill, at least on some level, or maybe it was just the desire to have Churchill grovelling in front of him as well. Atlee wouldn’t really have made a good substitute.

“He may have to be removed,” Hitler agreed finally. “How do you intend to accomplish this miracle?”

“I think that had best be kept between you and me,” Himmler said after a long moment. Someone had been passing on information to Britain, and when that person was caught, his fate would serve as a warning for a thousand years. “Churchill will die, and his successor will make peace with us.”

Chapter Forty-Three

London, England

“We have won a great victory,” Winston Churchill proclaimed, as he took his seat at the head of the table. Like the other aides and assistants, Alex DeRiemer sat at the back of the room, listening, but not allowed to speak unless called upon by one of the principles. His former boss had once remarked that aides were there to be seen but never heard in public, lest they embarrass their boss. DeRiemer suspected that very little embarrassed Churchill; he certainly hadn’t been shy about asking for DeRiemer’s opinion when he had wanted it.

He watched as Churchill spoke to the room, uniting them once again under his sway. Monty had told him that Churchill was a very clever man, but had a problem with understanding that the world was changing around him; it wasn’t so much that he was stupid — he wasn’t — but that he was often too stubborn to realise the facts of life and respond quickly. It was both an advantage and a disadvantage; an advantage because he kept his nerve when others would have lost it, and a disadvantage because he either underestimated or overestimated the forces at his command. Churchill had learnt — finally — to leave command to the Generals and Admirals, but he still had the urge to stick his nose in and offer advice and suggestions that were almost orders. It would be a brave commanding officer who defied them.

“The German assault on our cities and the very core of our existence has been broken,” Churchill said, his voice rising as he spoke. “We must now take advantage of this opportunity to crush the Hun and drive him out of our green and pleasant land before he tries to regain control of the situation.”

He paused. “Field Marshal Alexander, how long will it be until our forces can go on the offensive?”

Alexander, at least, had no problems telling Churchill when he was wrong. Monty had commented, bitterly, that if Wavell hadn’t had that problem, the British Empire would have taken Libya before the Germans could have gotten involved, securing North Africa, maybe bringing France back into the war, and preventing the fall of Egypt. DeRiemer suspected that Monty was wrong — there would have been major logistics issues — but even so, the defence of Greece had been a waste of time. Churchill’s books had proclaimed it a just and necessary attempt to save at least one of Hitler’s victims, but between the Italians and the Germans, Greece had been almost impossible to defend. It was further irony that the Greeks had beaten the Italians with ease; the Italian-occupied sections of Greece had the most violent and determined resistance group in Europe.

“At least two weeks,” Alexander said after a long moment. Churchill glowered at him, clearly expecting the army to advance at once, but waited to allow him to finish. “As you know, Prime Minister, the advance elements of the Canadian and Australian contributions to our defence are only a week away, along with a handful of units from the Indian Army, and we now have a torrent of supplies from the Americans. It will require time to integrate the newcomers with our own soldiers, arrange a joint command structure, and prepare for the advance.”

He paused. “What we don’t have is a guaranteed supply line from the Americans; our allies over there are merely getting American war stocks sent to us, rather than expanding American production lines,” he continued. “This means that there will be a finite limit on what the Americans can send unless they agree to expand, and it is uncertain what President Taft will be able to do, even assuming that he jumps in completely on our side. Ambassador Truman and our other friends over there have been doing a grand job, but the Americans don’t have a sense of urgency. That will change — that may change — if we lose the next series of battles and fall to German occupation, but by then it will be too late.”

Churchill’s face darkened. “I will have no talk of defeatism here,” he ordered. “We beat the Germans.”

“We beat them in an environment that we had designed to minimise their advantages and maximise our advantages,” Alexander said. He stood up and strode over to the massive wall map of the war zone. It was large enough to give a real sense of the scale of the battlefield. “The German Panzers, for example, were able to punch through our defence lines, but we were, in most cases, able to harass their advancing infantry and even force them to burn off fuel and ammunition fighting to prevent us from sealing the hole again. They managed to tear open several major gaps in our line regardless, but by that point we had our own reserves moving to seal up the hole and intercept their advance forces.

“In the meantime, we withdrew into the towns and cities, Colchester in particular, and dug in,” Alexander continued. “We had evacuated most of the civilian population over the last few weeks and were able, therefore, to defend the city without regard for the feelings of its inhabitants, of whom several thousand stayed behind to aid in the defence. The Germans have some experience at taking stoutly-held towns, but we were able to force them back out of the cities and then handle them roughly whenever they sought to break back in while using the cities as a permanent threat to their flanks. They were allowed to discover that we had tanks in the cities and therefore… we maintained the ever-present threat of an armoured thrust coming out of the city and forced them to tie down their forces to prevent us from breaking out…”

“And Monty mounted his armoured counter-attack right into their teeth,” Churchill said. “Why can’t he push onwards at once?”

“We didn’t retake all of the ground we lost,” Alexander said calmly. “We planned it so that we would maul the German forces and crush them on grounds of our choosing. The plan didn’t work perfectly, but we broke one of their major Panzer Divisions and smashed a second force that would otherwise have broken through and imperilled London itself. However, the Germans mounted a series of counter-attacks of their own” — his hand traced out lines on the map — “with the net result that the siege of Colchester was not lifted and indeed there is a giant area that belongs to neither side, but is being torn apart by constant fighting.

“And our losses were very heavy,” he continued. “1st Armoured took a major beating during the second half of the counter-attack and lost several hundred tanks, while a large percentage of our infantry were either broken or trapped in towns and cities, hardly helpless, hardly prisoners, but still useless for the moment. That leaves us holding the line… and the supply situation is very dangerous. It will take time to resupply all of the units and reinforce them to the point where we can go on the offensive.”

Churchill looked at him for a long moment. “And what if the Germans go on the offensive themselves?”

“Our friend in Berlin has confirmed that the Germans took too much of a battering to be able to consider offensive action for the moment,” Menzies said. The Director of MI6 smiled grimly. “The Germans took a beating as well, gentlemen, and they will have to reinforce as well before Rommel can consider taking the offensive again.”

“Then is this not the perfect time to attack?” Churchill asked. “We could move now and take out their lodgement before they reinforce!”

“They still have their infantry and antitank guns dug in to prevent us from doing just that,” Alexander said. “Montgomery is probing their lines with his own infantry and reconnaissance units, as well as using information from agents inside the occupied zone, and he has concluded that the Germans are digging in for the moment. They still have enough soldiers to make us pay a disproportionate price for retaking what we lost over the last few days, let alone punching through to Felixstowe and Harwich and ending the war.”

“It won’t end the war,” Churchill said slowly. DeRiemer guessed that he was remembering Professor Anderson and the Omega Project. How far had the Germans advanced on such a project themselves? How much did they know about atomic science? “The Germans will still be out there, plotting revenge and their next step in dominating the world.”

Alexander nodded once.

“Prime Minister, we cannot throw the Germans into the sea at the cost of destroying the British Army,” he said. “Allow us the time to build up and prepare, and we will destroy their lodgement, but until then, we can only hold the line and hope that our reinforcements get into position before theirs do.”

“Very well,” Churchill said with sour grace. “I expect the War Office to work on plans to evict the Germans as soon as possible.”

He peered across at Christopher Parkinson. “What about the country?”

Parkinson frowned.

“The country could be a lot better off,” he said, ignoring the expression on Churchill’s face. “The Germans, fortunately, haven’t launched more than a few assaults against our factories, but the refugee crisis is growing to astonishingly high levels and has actually led to a series of riots. I am sorry to report that I have ordered the arrest of two scions of the aristocracy for refusing to allow their ancestral homes to be turned into refugee camps.”

“Oh dear,” Churchill said. He didn’t sound too worried about the imprisoned aristocrats. “What about food and logistics?”

“That is more of a problem,” Parkinson admitted. “The refugee crisis means that some areas are consuming more food than others. We actually attempted to alter the rations for workers, as opposed to refugees, but that caused massive hardship and some unrest, so that was altered quickly. A unit of the reserve Home Guard actually went on strike until their families, evacuated from the conflict zone, received the same food ration as everyone else; frankly, the system is on the verge of collapse. We never expected a refugee crisis on such a scale, and that is making is much harder to feed everyone.”

He paused. “The Germans have been more careful about interdicting our shipping, seeing as we tranship most of our purchases through Ireland, but internally it’s a different story. There are sections of the country that are almost completely cut off from others as far as mass transport of food is concerned, and others have an abundance of food. The food programs we started to feed the country in 1940 have been paying off to some extent, but we never developed it to the point where it could feed everyone, and consequently, we have major shortages. The matter isn’t helped by the black market; the farmers are just not cooperating.”

Churchill thumped the table. “It’s their country as well!”

“Yes,” Parkinson agreed dryly. “They also see us fixing prices for them, and they rebel. They are dependent upon a certain amount of profit or their farms will have to be sold, and that causes them to decide that it’s easier to sell some of their produce under the table. This problem developed under the last government, Prime Minister, but it is going to remain for years to come, unless we can stem it now. I have proposed a series of emergency bills to prevent the massive abuse of the system, but even so, it will still be a long time before there is any major effect.”

“Thank you,” Churchill said. His voice became drier, almost sardonic. “How long will it be before the country collapses?”

Parkinson thought about it.

“It’s impossible to say, Prime Minister,” he said. “If the war was to stop tomorrow, we would still need years to repair all the damage and rebuild enough to get the country running smoothly. If the war carries on and the damage keeps increasing, then we might have much more internal unrest within a year and be on the verge of a major crisis — an even bigger crisis — within two years. Once people actually start starving to death, and they will far too soon, the entire situation will explode.”

He met Churchill’s eyes.

“My department is charged with monitoring the condition of the Home Front,” he said softly. “There is a great deal of anger directed at the previous government for allowing the Germans to land and invade the country, but there is also a great deal of anger at the current government, both for the increasingly intrusive control over the country and for the refugees. I don’t think we’re on the verge of a civil war, but unless something is done quickly, we may have real trouble on our hands.”

Churchill turned to Admiral Cunningham. “And the fleet?”

“Is due at Ireland within a fortnight,” said Cunningham. “We have attempted to confuse the Germans as to when the fleet is actually expected to arrive, but I suspect that we will be unable to surprise them much. They will almost certainly have a U-boat tailing both elements of the fleet by now. Once they meet up with the remainder of Home Fleet, we will either sink the German Navy or lose our remaining fleet elements. If we sink the German Navy, Britain will be safe from invasion, at least until the Germans build up again; if we lose, the war will be lost with the fleet.”

On that note, the meeting ended.

“I want you to look into the search for the German agent,” Churchill said as soon as they were alone. DeRiemer nodded in understanding. “Whoever he is, he’s someone fairly close to the higher levels of power and has to be found quickly. Sir Percy has found nothing, but I want you to review it.”

“Yes, Prime Minister,” DeRiemer said. He wasn’t hopeful of success, but knew that he had to try. He’d seen enough of the search for the mystery German agent to know that MI5 hadn’t actually done anything wrong. “I’ll get to work at once.”

No one, not even Churchill’s aide, could take papers out of MI5’s offices without being stopped and arrested, so he found a small office in the building and read through the files carefully. The report that one of MI5’s best investigators had compiled was first, and he skimmed it quickly. He then re-read it carefully, but he couldn’t find any fault with the man’s procedure. There were several thousand people in Britain with known pro-Nazi leanings, people who would probably end up running the country if Hitler’s forces actually did crush the British Army, but all of them had been watched carefully, even during the Atlee Years. When war had come, most of them had been rounded up within hours of the signal. MI5 had simply sent out the orders, and all of them have been rounded up. The handful who had evaded arrest for the first few hours only lasted a couple days. Only one had escaped completely by fleeing to Ireland.

This is futile, DeRiemer thought after a long period of reading the reports. The known pro-Nazis were all cooling their heels in an internment camp in Scotland where they were hardly likely to be able to give any help to Skorzeny. He’d run a handful of agents himself in Germany where security levels were much tighter, and he knew some of the problems involved from the operating end. It was easy, even in Germany, to establish an agent, but getting that agent closer to the centre of power was much harder. The Germans had a reputation for bureaucratic thoroughness and carefully investigated the past of everyone who tried to get into the higher ranks just in case there was a discrepancy. One British spy had been lost due to a simple oversight. His fictional biography had included a Jew in his ancestral line. Britain was much easier to penetrate…

He considered it carefully, placing himself in Himmler’s shoes, and tried to work out what he would have done. Himmler knew that it would be easy to get an agent into Britain, but, again, it was much harder to get someone into the corridors of power. Someone who was too pro-German wouldn’t have been permitted into any position of such responsibility. The risk would have been too great. That suggested that there were actually two German agents within the capital, and one of them was someone who didn’t sound any alarms. Not pro-German, not pro-Soviet, not pro-American… someone who kept his head down and remained unnoticed. Who?

The files were open in front of him, and he went through them again. The agent couldn’t be someone who was directly part of the government; there was no way that Himmler would risk a prize like that on protecting anyone, even Skorzeny, but he would be someone with a high level of access. Who had known what the spy had passed on to Berlin which had in turn been passed on to London? The list grew longer, with nearly two hundred names, all of which would have to be checked carefully. It would also have to be discreet; the names included some of the most important analysts in Britain, and some very well-connected people. If they got wind of what was going on…

Or maybe that’s what we want, DeRiemer thought. We want them to know we’re after them…

There was a knock on the door. DeRiemer made sure that all the papers were covered and shouted for the knocker to come in. A young MI5 officer stuck his head in and frowned.

“Mr DeRiemer, the boss wants to see you at once,” he said. The surprised excitement in his voice made DeRiemer smile; had he ever been that young? “Roger Hollis has been found dead; he killed himself!”

Chapter Forty-Four

Felixstowe, England

“Interesting,” Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl said as the SS investigative team went though the cottage carefully. “Very interesting indeed.”

“Really,” Brigadefuhrer Franz Deininger drawled. Technically, he outranked Stahl, but in occupied Felixstowe, Stahl was very definitely in command. The logistics and civil service sections of the SS took a back-seat to the security forces in wartime, particularly in occupied territory. “They broke three of my fingers and tried to force me to tell them information!”

“Yes, interesting,” Stahl agreed. He wasn’t entirely convinced by Deininger’s story; the man had already shown a dubious amount of moral courage — if not common sense — by coming up to the cottage with a prostitute on the eve of the offensive. The French bitch might be pretty, but Deininger was clearly more than just a little infatuated with her, something that Stahl found disgusting. Who knew where she’d been? “What did they want you to tell them?”

“They wanted to know about the offensive and when it was going to be launched,” Deininger said. “I held out until I heard the noise of guns and then laughed at them. They tried asking a few other questions, before they fled and left us tied up…”

“And they didn’t kill you,” Stahl said. That point was odd. “Do you know why they didn’t kill you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Deininger thundered. “I want them hunted down and eradicated!”

Stahl took a long breath. “It has been my experience that when most insurgents take prisoners, they very rarely keep them for long,” he said. He carefully kept his voice calm and free of accusation. “You should have had your throat cut, and your bitch should have either been killed or had her hair cut off. Why were you not killed?”

“I have no idea,” Deininger snapped. The fury in his voice was unmistakable. “What are you going to do about finding them?”

“I am going to carry out a proper examination of this place first, and then I will decide,” Stahl said pleasantly. “My men will escort you back to our compound where the medics will see to repairing your hand and hopefully returning you to duty as soon as possible. The fighting is being touted as a great success, but between you and me, I don’t think that it was as successful as the official broadcasts indicate.”

He smiled at Hauptsturmfuehrer Grauer Wulfenbach as Deininger was escorted out of the cottage and back to Felixstowe. He wasn’t convinced that Deininger was an innocent in the affair or that he was being completely honest about why he was up at the cottage. There was something buried there that Stahl didn’t understand. A man like Deininger, with his rank and status, could have had practically any unattached woman he wanted, or he could indulge the darkest of tastes at an SS-run brothel, but he had chosen a French whore. Why?

Wulfenbach snapped a salute as soon as they were alone. “I interrogated her and she knows nothing,” he said briskly. Stahl had given orders that the questioning was to be gentle, but ‘gentle’ was relative when it came to the SS. The whore would have been scared out of her life. “All she knows is that the attackers came in, tied her up, and dumped her on the bed. A few hours later, the Brigadefuhrer freed her and had her call for help.”

“And yet, she wasn’t molested in any way,” Stahl said. He scowled as he thought about it. “Did they try to take her or anything?”

“No,” Wulfenbach said. “They just tied her up and left her out of the way.”

“As if she was nothing to them, not even a woman,” Stahl said.

Wulfenbach shrugged. “I can question her more thoroughly if you want…?”

Stahl stroked his chin as he thought. There were generally two types of insurgents; the trained and experienced remains of various armies and, then, civilian insurgents who were often little better than bandits. The first type could be very dangerous but tended to be professionals, while the second type could often be more dangerous to their own people than they were to the Germans. They’d left Janine alone, and that was curious. Several girls who had slept with Germans had had their head shaved under cover of darkness. The entire action had been professional… and yet, there had been a certain kind of amateurish behaviour about the attackers. They should have killed Deininger and had, instead, left him alive.

“Not yet, he said, finally. He looked over at the head of the forensic team. “Have you found anything?”

“No, Herr Standartenfuhrer,” the man said. He pulled off a pair of gloves as he spoke. “We found a great many prints, but the only fresh ones correspond to the prints of Brigadefuhrer Deininger and his female companion. The insurgents wore gloves and didn’t leave any traces of their identities.”

He smiled. He’d given orders, as soon as the attack began, for the British civilians to remain firmly in their homes, sheltering from any British attack and remaining out of the way of troop transports as they moved through Felixstowe and up towards the front-line Their mystery insurgents were probably still in the town, unless they had a hiding place out in the country, and that meant that they were vulnerable. He could find them, and if he found them, he could crush them like bugs… but doing so wasn’t going to be easy.

“Seal this cottage and have a guard remain here,” he ordered the forensic team and headed back out into the sunlight. His official car was waiting for them, and they climbed in and ordered the driver to take them back to the barracks. They passed through the empty streets of Felixstowe, the houses still blacked-out but with the occasional open curtain, and he felt his insides shake. He hated the town at that moment, hated it for interfering with his work and leaving a black mark on his record. They would all pay for daring to interfere with the triumph of the Reich.

“Carola,” he barked as soon as he marched into his office. “Where are all the British men with military experience from this town?”

Carola took one look at his face and wisely didn’t argue. “Half of them are in Detention Camp Seven,” she said. Stahl nodded; the Germans had set up ten detention camps, mainly for captured soldiers. They were packed as a result of the fighting. Several hundred prisoners had already been shipped over to France in order to prevent the British from recovering them. “The others are part of the dockworker force.”

“I want those men permanently isolated and supervised at all times,” Stahl ordered curtly. He frowned as he ran through the logic. They couldn’t simply be added to one of the detention camps as it would slow down the unloading process. The Army would have a number of sharp things to say about it, and Himmler would be furious. It would rapidly result in his recall and transfer to Russia. “They’re to be restricted to one of the barracks when they’re not working.”

“I need something that will bring them out before something worse happens,” he said, thinking hard. He considered a major search of Felixstowe, but there was little point. The insurgents wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving weapons around, not after what had happened to Davidson and his family. That brought a smile to his face, and he made a decision. “I want hostages.”

Carola stared at him. “Herr Standartenfuhrer…”

Stahl ignored her. “I want to round up twenty wives,” he said, remembering how this tactic had been applied in Norway and Denmark. The Russians hadn’t been quite so easy to affect with the tactic; they didn’t seem to care that much about their women. “I want them held here and it to be announced that they will be executed for the crimes of the insurgents unless the insurgents come forward and surrender to us.”

Carola made a second attempt. “Herr Standartenfuhrer, the Reichsfuhrer forbade the use of heavy tactics against the British,” she said. Her advancement was dependent upon his; it gave her a motive to offer him good advice at all times. “Should you not clear it with him first?”

“The British have managed to humiliate us,” Stahl snarled. He had seen it happen in Norway. Someone humiliated the Reich, and it encouraged dozens of others to try to follow suit. It usually ended with a particular settlement being razed to the ground and was therefore wasteful of resources. “If we don’t hit back at them now, we will have to use heavier tactics later, understand?”

Carola bowed her head and replied. “Of course, Herr Standartenfuhrer.”

“Draw up a list,” Stahl ordered her. “Use the standard criteria, but leave out any wife who is married to someone who was working at the docks when we arrived and wives of the police and local government people; anyone else is fair game. Send that list to Wulfenbach, and he can organise the arrest teams. Once they’re all rounded up, we can make the proclamation about what will happen to them unless the insurgents surrender.”

* * *

Gregory Davall had slept in despite the rising and falling noise in the distance. there hadn’t really been anything else to do. The Germans had banned the British from going out in the day and it wasn’t worth the risk to see what was going on. The battle was being decided far from them and, despite listening to both the BBC and Radio Berlin, there was no way of knowing what was happening. The BBC swore blind that the German attack had been contained; Radio Berlin swore blind that German panzers were driving towards London… and the only thing they agreed on was that there were high losses.

Kate stuck her head into the room and urged him to get out of bed. Davall was tempted to try to pull her back into the bed instead, but with James in the house and wide awake, he knew that Kate would never agree. She was often just as eager to make love as he was, but her sense of proper behaviour would never have allowed her to risk their child catching them in the act. Davall’s father had once told him that he needed to listen to his wife in such matters. Kate, the woman he loved, was often more practical than her husband. She meant the world to him…

So why was Janine’s face floating around in his mind?

He dismissed the vision angrily as he pulled himself out of bed and got dressed. There was no way of knowing how long they would be prisoners in their own home, but James was already bouncing around like… well, like a child demanding entertainment and diversion. He would normally have gone to school or gone to see his friends, but with the Germans keeping everyone indoors, he was trapped with his parents. Davall remembered when he had been that age; he would have considered it a prison sentence, but he didn’t dare allow James to leave the house. It would have been far too dangerous. The Germans might not have shot a little boy, but it would have drawn attention to their house.

The kitchen smelled surprisingly good as Kate fried eggs and bacon for him. She managed a tired smile as she served him, but he could tell that she was worried. The last time James had been confined indoors, he’d accidentally on purpose wreaked havoc with the house’s furnishings. Kate had cleared up the mess, and James hadn’t gotten any supper that night.

Now, James was older, and yet unable to understand the Germans. Their existence meant very little to him, even though they were already altering what he learned in school; one of his new schoolbooks had almost made Davall sick. It contained a story about a Jewish doctor and a German girl, who went by the name of ‘your sister,’ and detailed in terrifyingly sharp prose what had happened to her at the hands of her doctor. There had been a major fuss a few years ago when teenagers had read a book that had been regarded as dubious, but now no one would dare protest… and James could already do the Hitler salute. If he could be altered so much in the space of a few short weeks, what would he be like if the occupation lasted for years?

“Thank you,” he said after finishing his breakfast. He helped Kate with the washing up as his mother had taught him, remembering how she had told him off for refusing to help, a cold lecture that had been somehow worse than a trip over his father’s knee. “Is there anything else you want done around the house?”

Kate smiled, her face crinkling up with laughter… and then there was a knock at the door. Her face went pale instantly; it wasn’t a hesitant knock, or a friendly knock, it was the knock of someone standing there with the full weight of authority behind him. Davall knew, instantly, who it was and, composing himself as best as he could, went to the door. Three Germans stood there; an officer and two subordinates, all wearing SS uniforms.

The leader stepped forward. “Mr Gregory Davall?”

“Yes,” Davall said, carefully. “That’s me.”

“We have instructions from the Reichgovernor of this town to take Mrs Kate Davall into custody,” the leader said. Davall didn’t hear his words for a long moment. “You will present her to us at once.”

“No,” Davall said, desperately. He wanted to shout at Kate, ordering her to run and hide, but it was already too late. “You can’t have her…”

The leader swung a punch into Davall’s chest and he folded up, gasping with pain. One of the soldiers stayed and watched him, assault rifle pointed directly at his head, as the other two walked into the house as if they owned the place. He heard, through the pain and the roaring in his ears, Kate’s sudden scream and a cry of pain from James; a moment later, Kate was being hustled back out of the house, her hands cuffed behind her back and tears running down her face. Davall tried to stand up, wanting to kill all the Germans with his bare hands, only to discover a rifle pointed directly into his eyes.

“You will remain in your home until the ban on moving outside your home is lifted,” the German leader said flatly. Davall concentrated on trying to memorise the German’s face, noting the dark eyes and the beetle-brow, promising himself that he would kill him, whatever it took. “Unless the people responsible for the attack on Brigadefuhrer Deininger surrender themselves, the hostages will suffer their punishment.”

“But… that’s not fair,” Davall protested hopelessly. He tried to keep the cold knowledge of what he could offer to save her life from showing on his face. “She doesn’t know anything that you can use!”

“She is a citizen of the Greater German Reich,” the German said flatly. “The lives of everyone in the Reich are dedicated to maintaining the Reich, but someone within this town, someone who has sworn loyalty to the Reich, has decided instead to turn on the Reich. If that person does not surrender, the hostages, including your wife, will carry out their duty to the Reich and die in their place.”

“That’s madness,” Davall said. He was ashamed of his own weakness, his own inability to protect his wife, his own fear for the future. “You can’t…”

“We can, and we will,” the German said. He snapped to attention, arm outstretched in the classic German manner. “Heil Hitler!”

They marched off, leaving Davall alone.

Chapter Forty-Five

London, England

Roger Hollis was dead.

Kim Philby hadn’t known him very well on a personal level, but he had known what Hollis was. He had been the brightest star in the Soviet intelligence network within Britain. Hollis, a young recruit to MI5 who had risen rapidly in the ranks, had been tasked with covering the handful of highly-placed Soviet agents in the British Government. He had no obvious links to Hollis — although Hollis had called him in to give ‘advice’ on the Soviet Union — but his death came as a terrible blow. It was all he could do to get through the day and then return to his apartment, grimly aware that Otto Skorzeny would want all the details.

Philby wondered about it all through the day. Hollis had been bright and very dedicated, determined to do the right thing for communism and the global revolution, and he hadn’t been deterred by the fall of the Soviet Union. That made it fairly certain that Hollis, like Philby, had been tricked into supplying information to Berlin, information from the heart of MI5. Philby had heard about the unusual streak of luck that the Germans had in clearing out British spies and guessed, now, that that had been something to do with Hollis. If Hollis had realised that they had all been tricked into working for the class enemy…

Well, he couldn’t have gone to the government, any more than Philby himself could. They would both have faced a certain death penalty for their actions. He’d chosen to kill himself instead, which struck Philby as a little ironic, but maybe he had known that Berlin wouldn’t have allowed him to just leave his post. He’d had years in him yet, maybe even a position at the very top, and there was no way that Berlin would have permitted him to leave. If he had, there would have been a quiet disclosure and Hollis would have been dragged to a very quiet prison in chains. He’d chosen a way out that Philby frankly envied. It was tempting to take the same way out himself. Only a reluctance to die and a desperate hope that somehow Berlin would be somewhere new for him to live kept him from complete despair. He had nothing to live for, any longer, but the hope of escape.

He’d used the small café before, a French Restaurant in the heart of London, run by a pair of Frenchwomen who had escaped Occupied France. Their husbands had been in the Free French before that outfit had been disarmed and almost surrendered to the Vichy French by Atlee’s Government. Only hasty action had allowed them to escape to somewhere much safer for them. The Free French were a joke these days, Philby knew, and yet… they clearly had some uses.

The Frenchwomen were his direct link to Moscow, or what he’d thought was Moscow, long ago. Their communist ties were a secret. If that had been known when they had come to Britain, they would likely have been sent back to Vichy France’s tender mercies. Admiral Darlen would not have been pleased to see them.

“My usual, Simone,” he said as the woman approached him. He came in every second week for a drink and a cake. He’d picked up the habit of French Cakes from his time in France, just before German armoured columns had punched through the lines. It still gave him a moment of grim amusement that he had understood what was happening before the French Army. “A cake and a cup of tea.”

The cake was perfection. The tea surprisingly good for such a small place. Philby knew that while the common folk of the country were on rations, those with money could eat anywhere they liked, devouring massive meals that seemed to have no end. He’d taken it as proof that the British system was doomed to fall, but now, with Otto Skorzeny in his living room, he no longer had any grounds for complaint. It no longer seemed important that the Royal Family supplemented their merger rations with grouse shot on their estates or that the aristocracy sent their children to safety in America. He’d been a fool and more than a fool. They would be making up new words for what he had done to the country.

“Thank you,” he said finally. He took the slip of paper placed next to the cake and pocketed it, accepting a kiss from her before slipping back out of the door and into the streets. The air raid sirens howled in the distance, but he ignored them. If there truly was a God, and Kim Philby had long since abandoned any form of religion, he would die tonight, and that would be the end of it. There were no German bombers coming any closer than the docks, where they were dropping mines into the water; they never bombed the city itself. These days, people still ducked into the nearest air raid shelter, but many of them were already emerging, laughing at themselves for getting into such a state.

Philby felt envy for them as he climbed aboard a bus for the ride home. He’d chosen the apartment carefully as somewhere where he could escape quickly if his cover were blown, but he hadn’t realised who he was really working for, or why. If he ran now, his handler back in Berlin would burn him and the British would come for him, hunting him down until he was caught and hung. His mind refused to leave the image of him slowly choking on a noose, hung just perfectly to ensure a long and painful departure, and he felt sick. Berlin was his only hope.

He stepped into his apartment and came face to face with Skorzeny. The SS commando looked terrifyingly big and powerful, or maybe that was just his reputation; even so, he filled the room with his presence. He wore a set of clothes that Philby had brought him, common workman’s clothes, and yet… somehow, he made them seem like a uniform. There could be no doubting what he was and somehow, regardless, he had walked through the streets of London without fear.

“Welcome home,” Skorzeny said without irony. Philby kept his face carefully blank, wishing that he didn’t feel so imperilled in Skorzeny’s presence; he had the sense that each time he turned his back, it might be the last. Skorzeny was intimidation personified; every time he smiled, Philby had the urge to cover his groin and run. “Did you get the information and the orders?”

“Yes, I did,” Philby said. Skorzeny had listened in disbelief as the advancing panzers, far from punching through the British defences, had been balked and then turned back by the British armour. Philby had been both pleased and worried. Pleased because of the expression on Skorzeny’s face, worried because without the panzers coming to rescue them, Skorzeny might try something stupid to escape London, dragging Philby down with him. “Have you made the tea?”

Skorzeny merely held out a hand. Philby passed him the note and went into the kitchen, somehow unsurprised to discover that the commandos, while very neat, hadn’t bothered to make any food. They hadn’t even set about preparing a small meal for them. The seven of them ate a great deal of food between them, he had realised, and as his rations were designed for only one person, he was having to use a great deal of ingenuity to gather enough food to feed them all. He had contacts and friends in high places, but with a witch hunt going on for German spies, he didn’t dare do anything that would cause anyone to realise what he was doing.

“Interesting,” Skorzeny said as he came into the kitchen. The team leader showed no sign of recognising Philby’s irritation. “Do you know what they want us to do?”

“No,” Philby said crossly. It had occurred to him that he could have forged information or orders for the commandos, but cracking the code for their communications had proven beyond his abilities. “I cannot read your codes.”

“No,” Skorzeny agreed dryly. His face twisted into a sneer. “I guess they didn’t trust you. Once a traitor, always a traitor.”

Philby had a rare moment of deep insight. Skorzeny acted like a small boy half the time. A small boy with utterly lethal combat skills and a small arsenal of weaponry. He had complete faith in his own abilities and absolutely no conception of what might happen to him if he were caught, or even of his own death in combat. He went to war gladly, with a smile on his face, completely unable to grasp the fact that he might die. His faith in his own invincibility was a powerful asset, the one that had kept him going through his career… and allowed him to become one of the legends of the SS.

“I thought that the idea was security,” he said, refusing to show any offence. They had had some details drummed into their heads a long time before Hitler’s forces had taken Moscow and killed Stalin. “If I am caught, the less I know, the better. What do you have to do, and how does it involve me?”

“It seems that someone in Berlin has decided to toss Winston Churchill down the WC,” Skorzeny said, laughing at his own joke. It wasn’t that funny, but Philby risked a laugh anyway, not daring to antagonise the bully too much. “They want us to remove him permanently from office with a shot through the head.”

Philby stared at him. “They want you to kill Churchill?”

“Apparently so,” Skorzeny said, buffing his nails with a toothpick. “I dare say that our esteemed Fuhrer has decided that Mr Churchill is no longer required for the war effort and has ordered him removed. As the best people in the Reich for such missions — I have killed several Russian generals personally — we have been ordered to dispose of him.”

He leered, picking his teeth with one hand. “Or don’t you think that’s a good idea?” He asked, his voice becoming mocking and very cold. “Are you feeling some tiny trace of loyalty still left in your system?”

Philby frowned at him, thoroughly disgusted.

“Not really,” he said, trying to sound casual. “I just suspect that if we actually kill Churchill, it’s going to be extremely difficult to remain in place and avoid detection.”

Skorzeny quirked an eyebrow. “In the middle of a power struggle over who would succeed Churchill as Prime Minister?”

“We’re not going to fight a civil war over it,” Philby proclaimed. “The handful of possible candidates will either form a compromise government between themselves or one of them will gain enough votes in Parliament to go to the King and receive his blessing to form a new government. Regardless, they’re not going to stop looking for you, and they’ll go through everything — and everyone — with a fine-toothed comb.”

“And maybe they’ll see through your cover at last,” Skorzeny said, a smile forming around his lips. His teeth showed once; they were perfect, of course. “What are you going to do then?”

“I have no idea,” Philby said wilting. He had some plans for escape, but he suspected that the press of events would ensure that they were no longer usable They had partly depended on Hollis, and he was now dead. “What do you want me to do?”

“They want us to get out of the city afterwards,” Skorzeny said calmly. Philby tried to paste a relieved-looking expression on his face. Skorzeny probably thought he was a coward, but that hardly mattered, not now. There might just be a chance to escape completely. “How do you advise that we do that?”

Philby had looked into the matter before the Germans launched their attack against the defence lines to the north.

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said, after a moment to collect his thoughts. He’d have to check everything again, and that would risk detection. “I don’t think I can get us papers to get very far out of the city, and if we were to pose as a military unit, we would be unlikely to get away with it for long.”

“Why not?” Skorzeny smiled and asked. His eyes lit up as he contemplated an important point. “You could be an important minister and we could be your bodyguards.”

Philby shook his head.

“The British Army senior ranks are very entwined with the political and aristocratic framework of the country,” he said. How much did Skorzeny actually know? “It’s quite likely that if we posed as a government personage and his escort, whoever we met would know all of them by sight and would smell a rat at once. If we tried to make it to German lines in the north, we would very likely be caught and then thrown into jail.”

“Executed,” Skorzeny said flatly. He laughed aloud as Philby flinched at the blunt word. “Where else is there? Ireland?”

“That’s where they would expect us to go,” Philby said. “There are dozens of possible ways to get to Ireland, but all of them would be watched under any circumstances, and of course that would be doubled after Churchill’s death. The only other way out would be to head to France.”

Skorzeny gave him a sharp look. Did he see the deceit that Philby was planning deep inside his heart?

“France happens to be on the opposite side of a rather large sea,” he said coldly. “They may claim that I can walk on water, but I would sink if I tried to swim that far, so what do you have in mind?”

“There are fishing boats all around the south coast of England,” Philby said carefully. “Any one of them could get us to France; hell, there are reports of Frenchmen using the boats to smuggle stuff in and out of Vichy France. The fishermen haven’t even stopped in time of war. They have kept fishing, and they are feeding part of the south coast through their efforts.”

Skorzeny rolled his eyes.

“You British couldn’t secure a thing,” he said dryly. Philby, who would have privately agreed, said nothing. “In the Reich, we do not allow such behaviour.”

“Without their efforts, the south coast would be much more hungry,” Philby said, half-smiling. “Would you want to be the Government that told millions of people to starve rather than allow the fishermen to continue their trade?”

“Democracy is an alien concept to me,” Skorzeny growled. It was true, Philby knew. The Reich had never been a democratic state and the state before it, the Weimer Republic, had failed spectacularly. They had been meant to vote in a communist government, but instead they had trusted Hitler, a dreadful mistake. “Are you confident that you can get us all out that way?”

“As long as we move quickly, we could be in France within hours,” Philby promised. “I think that we could make it without any major problems.”

“Good,” Skorzeny said. “Now, it’s time to start figuring out the answer to the most important question in the world; how can we get a clear shot at Winston Churchill?”

Chapter Forty-Six

South of Colchester, England

Captain Harry Jackson stood to attention, along with the other officers and men, as the Jeep pulled to a halt in front of them. Monty himself, a tall wiry man, stepped out of the vehicle, followed by a smaller portly man who drew all of their attention to his face and the single defiant cigar poking out from between his lips. They’d all seen photos and the occasional film, but meeting Winston Churchill in person was something different; he was every bit as impressive as they said. The line of soldiers snapped out a salute, which both men returned, and then relaxed as Monty ordered them to stand at ease.

“Thank you, all of you,” Churchill said, his voice ringing out without the use of a loudspeaker. Jackson was silently impressed. Churchill knew how to speak in public. Even the occasional bursts of gunfire to the north were dim in comparison to his voice. “Through your efforts, the British Empire will yet be saved from the Hun, and all of you will be remembered; if England lasts a thousand years, your names will live on as the saviours of the country and the finest fighting men that England has ever produced!”

Jackson smiled to himself. His father had fought in the Great War and had often spoken bitterly of how returning soldiers had been treated. Perhaps it would be different this time, or maybe their sacrifices would be forgotten just as quickly, but it hardly mattered. For now, all that mattered was throwing the Germans back into the sea. He’d been holding the responsibilities of an officer several levels above him and he knew that Monty was trying frantically to reorganise the army before taking the offensive again.

Jackson hoped it wouldn’t be too soon. The infantry he was reorganizing had taken a beating at the hands of the Germans. Even now, a week after the battle, units were still being reconstituted and training together, before being moved up to the lines for patrolling.

The Germans were patrolling much more aggressively than they had before, making life dangerous all along the line. Their infantry remained dug in around Colchester, miles to the north. The fighting might have died down, but it hadn’t stopped altogether; if the Germans suspected that Churchill was at the camp, they might have tried to shell it to get rid of him and a few dozen soldiers… and Monty, of course.

Monty stepped forward as Churchill finished his speech. “Captain Harry Jackson, step forward,” he said. Jackson took a breath and stepped forward, facing Monty directly. “Captain, you have served the Home Guard and the British Army well, and you have earned a promotion,” Monty said. “For your services, it is my pleasure to promote you to the rank of Colonel in the Home Guard, a title that reflects the responsibilities you have been given and discharged with such success. I expect great things from you in future.”

He smiled at Jackson as he stepped back into the line and called on the next officer. He hadn’t expected a promotion so quickly — the Home Guard didn’t promote as rapidly as the regular army — but now he had it, he felt a little strange.

Monty promoted seven more officers, one after the other, before finally stepping back and addressing them all. “I’m proud of you,” he said simply. Jackson felt his heart swelling. “Soon enough, we will advance and take back what’s ours from the Germans and rid our land of their scourge. God save the King!”

“God save the King,” the soldiers echoed.

“Dismissed,” Monty said. Jackson saluted and left the field, heading back to the training ground that held his soldiers and several other companies, or were they all under his command now? He had spent most of his time training new units and getting them to work together.

He made a mental note to pick up his new uniform from the office later. Somehow, the British Army was never short of uniforms, although there were shortages of everything else useful at the moment. He knew from listening to General Barron that they’d fired off too much ammunition and lost too many tanks to take the offensive at once, but replacements were on their way from British factories, Canada and America. Once they arrived and were distributed, he hoped that they could take the offensive and drive the Germans out of the country he loved. Perhaps that would end the war… or perhaps it would go on forever.

* * *

Alex DeRiemer watched as Churchill spoke to group after group of British soldiers, reassuring them that their sacrifices were not in vain and that their country would remember them after the war, something that DeRiemer suspected was rather uncertain. Churchill himself had been remembered after the last war, as had Monty and a few others, but most of the common soldiers had been quietly forgotten, their lives something unimportant to the vast majority of people. The struggle to survive had drained that much from the country.

His eyes glanced around the military camp, trying to take in its awesome size. He had never seriously considered the army as a career, not after what had happened to his uncle in the last war, it still surprised him to see just how large the camp actually was. There were thousands of soldiers walking everywhere and carrying massive loads with them; only the quiet surrounding Churchill was noticeable. The camp hummed and throbbed at all hours of the day, with the soldiers desperately preparing for the resumption of the war, something that everyone he’d spoken to expected to come quickly. The Germans might take the offensive again, or maybe they would wait for the British to launch their attack, but either way, both sides knew that the status quo wouldn’t last. If the Germans built up first, they would take the offensive and seek to punch through to London.

He grimaced. London exerted its baleful influence over the fighting; for one side, it was the target they must protect, for the other, it was the place they must take to win the war. DeRiemer knew that Churchill had contingency plans to continue the fighting after London fell, assuming that it did fall, but the blow to British morale would be staggeringly huge. London had been turned, by the BBC, into a fortress that had resisted the worst the Germans could throw at it; God alone knew what would happen if London fell. Would defeatism take the British population, as it had taken the French in 1940, or would they feel a renewed determination to fight on?

Their next destination was a tent full of wounded soldiers. DeRiemer kept his face blank, feeling the urge to be sick as he took in some of their wounds, and even Churchill looked subdued. Churchill spoke to them gently, while pretty nurses tended their wounds, and some of them managed a smile for him. One man screamed at him, asking if losing his legs was worth it, and he said nothing. A row of doctors, looking harassed, testified to the grave shortages of medicines and drugs and weren’t reassured when Churchill explained that a vast amount of supplies were on their way from America.

“They keep telling us that,” one doctor said. “We have to do surgery without any drugs, and we’ve even used alcohol to sterilise the wounds.”

“We’ll have as much as we can sent forward,” Churchill promised. “I shall see to it personally.”

“There have been too many deaths,” Monty said. “The final offensive will have to be carefully planned to avoid needless death.”

Churchill said nothing as they reviewed the final formations, his silence noticeable. DeRiemer wondered if something was wrong. Monty addressed the soldier, promoted one of them, and watched Churchill carefully. The Prime Minister’s thoughts were elsewhere. It wasn’t until ten minutes later that he finally spoke.

“An excellent collection of young men,” Churchill said finally. Monty looked pleased at the description; they were his men, one and all, and he had fought hard to make sure they got the supplies and reinforcements they needed. “I would now like you to brief me on the plans to take the offensive.”

“Of course,” Monty said. “If you would like to follow me…?”

He led them towards a set of low buildings in the middle of the camp. They were fenced around with barbed wire, as much to keep the ordinary soldiers out as the Germans, although DeRiemer had some problems imagining the wire holding the Germans for long. All they would need would be a set of wire cutters and they’d be sweeping into Monty’s headquarters. A small group of soldiers, wearing clean uniforms and holding older weapons, stood to attention as Monty passed through the gates and led them up to the buildings. He presented his ID card to several sets of guards, who didn’t allow their awe at seeing Churchill in person prevent them from examining his card carefully.

“We actually had a German impostor claiming to be Colonel Glodstone,” Monty said by way of explanation. He smiled as he remembered. “The man would have made it too — he was quite good — except for the fact that Major Prestonbury knew Glodstone and knew perfectly well that he had been injured during the Battle of Ipswich and shipped up to Scotland for recuperation. We caught him and tried to interrogate him, but the bastard popped a suicide pill and died on us.”

He shrugged. “We would have shot him anyway, but even so, he could have told us a lot,” he said. “It’s going to be a problem as we insert more new units into the combat zone, Prime Minister; we’re going to have to hold more meetings between senior officers, just to be sure that everyone knows one another.”

DeRiemer coughed. “And what happens if junior officers obey orders from a man they think is a superior officer?”

“Good question,” Monty said as he led the way into the main room. “Soldiers are trained to obey orders, regardless of their nature, and we don’t… encourage them to question orders in the middle of a battle. All we can really do is keep an eye out and perhaps insert a few trick questions for any suspected impostors.”

DeRiemer looked around the room as the handful of staff officers stood to attention. It was bare and gloomy compared to the War Office he remembered from back in London, but Monty’s staff had rigged up electric lights, pouring down illumination on the set of maps in the centre of the room, each one drawn on with pencil marks. A handful of maps showed arrows and unit insignias as part of a planned offensive. The others were clear of anything but possible lines of advance. It all looked impressive, but DeRiemer would have bet good money that the German plans for the attack on London had looked good too, and those plans had come unstuck. Would the same happen to the British plans?

“We have been working hard to integrate American supplies and volunteer units into our line of battle,” Monty said after a moment. “The Canadian and Australian units insist on remaining under their own command, at least tactically, but we have been able to oblige them to some extent. There have been some problems placing the Americans within our units, but as they came in company-sized units, we have been able to work them in.”

Churchill held up a hand. “I was under the impression that the Americans would be fighting as an army in their own right,” he said. “Why have you changed that?”

Monty didn’t blink at the question. DeRiemer suspected that he had expected it. “The American Government originally said nothing about the creation of an American Army within Britain, but apparently they changed their mind once we actually had enough Americans to form an army,” he said. “They requested that we treat the American troops as Commonwealth forces and insert them into our formations, as we did back in North Africa. It hasn’t caused any real problems, as they’re still largely operating under their own officers, but in the long run we may have supply problems. Their weapons are different and need different supplies.”

Churchill nodded. “And how would you rate them as combat troops?”

“It’s impossible to say,” Monty admitted. “They’re enthusiastic and determined, and a few of them have experience fighting as volunteers in the Mexican Civil War. Those people ended up mainly with officer and sergeant commissions. The remainder trained well under well-planned conditions, but they have never really been under fire before, and their discipline, while good, is also limited. I don’t think that they will break, but it may take them more time to get used to fighting in such conditions; Mexico was nothing like this war.”

He shrugged. “I have much more confidence in the Canadians and the Australians,” he said, “even though the latter in particular was very insistent on operating only under an Australian General. They trained according to the same standards as we do, and they use the same weapons, so supplies aren’t going to be so much of a problem. They’re tough, disciplined, and ready to whip the Germans until they cry uncle and surrender.”

DeRiemer nodded to himself. There had only been a few hundred Germans taken prisoner during the war, mainly low-level soldiers, all of whom had been moved to a detention camp somewhere down in the south. British Intelligence had wanted to interrogate them, but as the Germans were respecting the rights of British soldiers, Churchill had vetoed any attempt to get information out of the prisoners. They had earned the right to be protected… although the same could not be said of the SS men. Tales of atrocities had spread through the lines, and not a single SS man had been captured. It was all-too-possible that none of them were being allowed to surrender.

Monty smiled. “We believe that the Germans have been moving in supplies as fast as they can, but with the heavy attacks on their merchantmen now under-way, they have to tie up much of their naval force covering the shipping lanes,” he said. “Rommel must be working all hours trying to get more reinforcements over, but we think that it won’t be less than a fortnight before he’ll feel confident enough to try anything, and quite likely a month before he can go on the offensive again. The constant fighting along the front lines must be draining him as much as it’s draining us.”

His hand traced a line on the map. “It is my intention to attack once the Royal Navy has engaged the German Navy,” he said. “Ideally, the Royal Navy will hurt the Germans enough to prevent them from shipping more supplies into the occupied zone, and we will be able to push them back and break through their defence lines. They have kept a reserve, but we suspect that they don’t have the numbers to hold us back, and once we break through, we will keep moving until we retake Felixstowe and put an end to the invasion.

“Overall, we will be launching four attacks into occupied territory, trying to crush the enemy between them, and then working to mop up the remainder of the invading forces,” he said. “The soldiers we have trapped in cities and towns, surrounded by German units, will come out at the same time, keeping the besieging soldiers pinned down and making Rommel react quickly to save as many of his men as possible. In order to thwart us, they will have to stop all of our pincers, and that won’t be easy.”

He hesitated. “I have also been able to slip orders to the stay-behind units that are still in contact with us,” he added. “They are to engage the enemy as soon as the attack begins and make it much harder for the Germans to reinforce and drive back our forces. Many units have been wiped out, but others have survived and are still operating. They will be giving their all.”

Churchill nodded his great head slowly. “And how confident are you of victory?”

Monty stood up. “Give me a week to complete preparations, and I will deliver you a victory,” he said. DeRiemer heard the confidence in his voice and hoped that it was not misplaced. Rommel was known to be brilliant under fire. “A week is all I ask.”

“Very well,” Churchill said. His voice rang out majestically in the confined space. He’d learned since his first term as Prime Minister; DeRiemer had heard that his encouragement to several officers to act before they were ready had cost lives, if not the battles. “You will have a week. May God go with you and your men as you engage the Germans for the final time.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Felixstowe, England

“You can’t give yourself up,” McAllister said.

Gregory Davall stared around at the small group. They were taking a terrible risk, but all of the Grey Wolves were at the meeting, bar one. Janine had been pushed into taking care of the German they’d wounded — ‘poor little baby,’ she’d remarked acidly when they’d met in the brothel — and couldn’t slip out at night. The strength of the Grey Wolves lay in the fact that they knew each other, trusted each other. The weakness was that if one of them could be made to talk, the remainder of the unit would be rapidly exposed and destroyed. Davall had been put through the ‘resisting interrogation’ course along with the others, but he had been warned that eventually everyone broke under torture or drugs. The Germans had quite a reputation for extracting information from unwilling donors

“She’s my wife,” he said, forcing his voice to remain low. It still gave him a cold sweat to think of how close he’d come to telling the German what he was; someone who knew English better might have picked up on his desperate choice of words and wondered why those words in particular. “They’re going to kill her tomorrow if we don’t save her!”

“We can’t save her,” McAllister said. He leaned forward and placed a hand on Davall’s shoulder. “They’re holding all the hostages in their barracks, and they have the entire place guarded as if they expect the 1st Armoured to hit them at any moment. There’s seven of us, not counting Janine, and there’s no way that we can rescue them before the morning.”

“I could give myself up,” Davall said. “You could all hide and escape, or remain undetected…”

“You would be made to talk,” McAllister repeated. “Greg… I know how much Kate means to you, but you can’t give yourself up, not like this. We knew that this was always a danger…”

Davall glared at him. “How many of us really expected that it would happen?”

“We were told, back when Constable Johnston came around to ensure that we all got the message, that we had been placed on alert,” McAllister retorted. “We knew what would happen — what might happen — and we could have said no. What could they have done to us if we had just kept our heads down and tried to remain unnoticed? We knew how the Germans acted, and we feared that they would take it out on our families, and now… you can’t give yourself up.”

“I will,” Davall said. “Kate means the world to me!”

“You can’t save her anyway,” Rigby said. “You heard the rumours from the cell the Germans broke in Ipswich, two weeks ago. They killed the adult members of the cell and shipped the children over to Germany. If they find out who you are, and they know that you and Kate are married, they will kill her as well anyway. They may even kill James. I don’t know what age they consider the upper limit for sending someone to Germany to become a German. Kate is dead, Greg. I’m sorry, but her fate was sealed when they choose to take her as a hostage.”

Davall wiped tears away from his face. “Are you… do you think that they chose Kate because they already knew about me?”

“If they did, they would have taken you,” Rigby said coldly. “There would be no need for any silly game of Cat and Mouse, no need to let us have a chance to escape; we wouldn’t even have known you were taken until they rounded us all up. You must not surrender.”

Davall found himself looking for another solution. “We could take a German hostage and force a trade,” he said, trying to think of a suitable German. The only important ones would be at the barracks, but while Janine might have access to the German they’d wounded once before, she’d reported that her German was in the doghouse. The SS suspected him of something — Davall wished that they’d had the foresight to take some very compromising photographs — and wouldn’t really care if he died. “Or we could find something else to bargain with…”

“It would be too risky,” McAllister said after a moment’s thought. “How many German officers could we snatch without being caught?” He paused. “And you can’t pretend to give yourself up, either. They’ll expect you to surrender us or simply torture you anyway. I’m sorry, but…”

“We’re going to make them hurt,” Davall hissed, too furious to keep his voice down. McAllister shushed him rapidly. “I want to really hurt them in response for this, whatever it takes, understand?”

“Yes, of course,” Rigby said. “We will make them pay.”

“That’s nice,” Davall said coldly. His voice almost broke through grief. “It’s not going to bring her back, is it?”

* * *

“Out of the question,” Rommel said, shortly.

Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl eyed Rommel grimly. The Field Marshal looked tired, very tired, and yet he still burned with inner fire. As one of the Führer’s favourites, he had influence beyond the considerable authority of his rank and position as the supreme commander of German forces in Britain. Stahl needed to handle him carefully, whatever else happened, as Rommel was dangerous. A word from him could have Stahl sent to Russia or simply put in front of a wall and shot.

“The insurgents have managed to hurt us,” Stahl said, shortly. Whatever Brigadefuhrer Franz Deininger’s role in his own captivity — and Stahl still had his own suspicions — they could hardly allow what had happened to him to go unpunished. The British insurgents would learn that the Reich was there to stay. “I have the authority to respond to such actions as I see fit.”

“I was appointed the commanding officer by the Fuhrer himself,” he said shortly. “I have authority here, and I see no reason to disobey our orders and treat the British as if they were Russians. We need cooperation from the people here or our supply lines will be broken…”

“Again,” Stahl said dryly. His gaze fell to the still handcuffed women in the room. They had been tossed in, and left there. Some of the men had been suggesting that they should have some fun with them before they were hung in front of the Town Hall, but Stahl had vetoed that suggestion; there was yet time for the insurgents to give themselves up. “My responsibility is to break the British to our yoke, and that sometimes requires harsh measures.”

He nodded towards the massive map of Felixstowe he’d pinned up on the wall. It was important for any officer to familiarise himself with the area he intended to rule, and until Rommel had arrived, he had been in supreme command of the area. Felixstowe and the surrounding area had been a heady responsibility, but he had hoped to parley it into a much more powerful role in occupied Britain, a goal that was now at risk. The insurgents had been a small threat at first, but as they made more and more raids, they even risked the success of the invasion itself.

“The invasion depends on our having the freedom to move through the country,” he said, knowing that Rommel would understand. “If the insurgents continue their attacks to the point where I am unable to guarantee the security of the supply lines, they may impede us from sending supplies to your lines. I cannot patrol every mile of those lines without stringing my forces out too thin, nor do I have the manpower to ensure that our social control will hold perfectly. We need to make a harsh example.”

“The British are not Russians,” Rommel reiterated. “We have orders to refrain from using Russian-suited methods against them.”

“Yes, they might get the message sooner,” Stahl snapped back. “If we make one brutal example, show them just how far we are prepared to go, they will wilt and abandon their attempts to resist us.”

“We both know what really happened at the battle,” he said. “I know that the British hammered us and might be preparing their own offensive, so we have to react harshly to any threat to our rear. Field Marshal, if we fail to do this, we might have a rebellion in the rear at the worst possible moment.”

Rommel didn’t bother to disguise his irritation. “And, tell me, with what will the British launch a rebellion?” He asked. “I was informed that you had rounded up all of their weapons, or was that a case of optimism over common sense?”

Stahl hesitated.

“I thought that we had rounded up all the weapons as well,” he avowed grimly. Admitting failure galled him. The SS tried hard to develop a reputation for infallibility, and Rommel wasn’t about to allow them to forget such a failure, not now. “The British left arms caches around the countryside, however, and we could not be expected to find them all. The only ones we have located come from interrogating captured insurgents, and they were all well-hidden, well enough that we wouldn’t be able to find them unless we took the countryside apart piece by piece.”

Rommel glowered at him. “Regardless, I forbid you to execute the women…”

Stahl played his trump card. “I understood the possible implications and took the question to Reichsführer-SS Himmler, who in turn took it to the Fuhrer himself,” he said very carefully. Rommel was still capable of having him shot. “The Fuhrer approved the execution of the women unless the insurgents surrender, and as they haven’t surrendered” — he glanced at his watch meaningfully — “they will be killed, as per the responsibilities of the town…”

Rommel exploded. “You seem to be under the delusion that incorporating the British into the Reich somehow makes them perfect citizens,” he almost shouted. “Do you really think that any amount of legalistic nonsense will change them instantly into good and loyal Germans?”

“No,” Stahl said. “I expect that the invasion and the occupation will convince the British that resistance is futile. If I have to make the entire town will suffer to make the point, then I will… to prevent a worse disaster.”

He glanced at his watch again. “And, as they have not surrendered, I intend to proceed,” he said. “Would you like to watch?”

“No,” Rommel snarled and stormed out of the room. He would have guessed that Stahl had refrained from telling him about having sought permission to prevent Rommel from calling the Fuhrer directly — as was his right — before it was too late to halt the executions. Stahl smiled to himself and stood up, carefully buckling on his service pistol and slinging an assault rifle over his shoulder, before heading out to the Town Square. He’d spoken to the British citizens there, the day he’d arrived in Felixstowe; today, he would make another speech to them, and then make an example.

He checked the arrangements quickly. German engineers had rigged up a massive platform and prepared a series of gallows for each of the wives. Machine gunners had taken up positions around the platform, just in case someone tried to rescue them right in the middle of the hanging. As the crowds gathered in front of the platform, encouraged by grim-faced British policemen and blank-faced SS soldiers, Stahl allowed himself a tight smile. It wouldn’t be long before the British insurgents gave up and surrendered themselves… or they would be responsible for an atrocity committed against their fellow townsfolk. As far as Stahl was concerned, it was a win-win situation.

“Bring out the wives,” he ordered and watched as the wives were brought out, one by one, and placed on the gallows. They made a curious mix, from a red-haired mother who spat in his direction as she passed but otherwise seemed calm, to a young girl barely out of her teens who was sobbing uncontrollably. The crowd made a move towards them, only to come face-to-face with machine guns and German soldiers with deadly stares. Stahl watched and hoped that there wouldn’t be a bloodbath; his permission to act as he saw fit only went so far.

He tapped the microphone. “These women have been sentenced to death through random selection in response to an insurgent attack against an SS officer that failed miserably,” he said. “The punishment of the insurgents will fall upon their heads now unless the insurgents take this final opportunity to throw themselves upon the mercy of the Greater German Reich. I say now, to those who choose to try to fight the Reich, stop now before innocents die.”

There was a long pause. No one spoke. “I know that there are insurgents in this crowd,” Stahl said. He’d given orders that the only people to be spared from being brought to see the sight were to be the husbands, who might be expected to react badly to seeing their wives killed. “If they step forward now, the women will be spared and reunited with their husbands, or…”

A handful of people in the crowd were crying, echoing the cries of some of the women, but no one stepped forward. The sullen hostility of the crowd surprised Stahl, scaring and angering him at the same moment, and he wanted them to suffer. He hadn’t understood why some people who had served in Russia spoke of it with awe and terror, until now, until he saw just what happened to an oppressed people. He knew, at that moment, that the insurgents would not give themselves up. His tactic had failed.

“The first woman will die,” he said and nodded to Wulfenbach. The burly soldier kicked one of the buckets away from under the first woman’s feet and she choked to death as the noose tightened around her neck. Wulfenbach was an expert in such matters; the fall hadn’t broken her neck, but sentenced her to a slow choking death instead. There were few worse ways to die. He waited. “The second woman will die.”

The crowd remained silent, staring at him; his rage grew and burst out.

“End it,” he enjoined. “Step forward now and end it!”

There was no movement.

“Do it,” he growled at Wulfenbach and watched as the remaining wives died, one by one, their faces contorted with agony. The crowd just watched in dreadful silence — even the crying had stopped — and he wanted to hurt them as well. Somehow, he was afraid; their eyes were watching him coldly, furiously. Rommel might have been right, in a way; the British were hardly Russians, but something deeper, maybe even closer to the Aryan ideal.

He forced himself to complete his planned speech. “If there is another insurgent attack, more wives and children will die,” he said, knowing that he was stammering as he spoke, revealing his weakness. “Return to your homes and meditate on the futility of resisting the Reich!”

“God save the King,” someone shouted from within the crowd. Before the SS men could react, others took up the shout, echoing it until it was a chant, ringing out over the entire town. Wulfenbach stepped forward, weapon in hand, and the machine guns swivelled on their tripods, but somehow no one opened fire. The chant rang out, time and time again, chilling Stahl to his very soul.

“Disperse and return to your homes,” he ordered, and then he muttered an order to one of the machine gunners, who fired a long burst over their heads. “Return to your homes now!”

The crowd slowly, very slowly, started to disperse. Stahl watched it go, somehow resisting the temptation to wipe the sweat from his brow, and waited until the crowd had left. The bodies of the wives would have to be buried in one of the mass graves in the countryside where all of the dead British soldiers and civilians had been buried. Maybe that would stop them being used as a rallying call for the British. He knew, somehow, that all hell was about to break loose.

“I want you to double the security patrols through the streets,” he said as Wulfenbach escorted him back into the barracks. Had he seen the moment of weakness? Was he going to denounce Stahl to one of the other senior SS officers? “Make sure that they all know to be careful and treat Felixstowe like Moscow.”

“Jawohl,” Wulfenbach said. Moscow was the most dangerous place in the Reich… or had been until most of the civilian population had been marched out, made to dig their own graves, and shot. His voice darkened suddenly. “Do you have any other orders?”

Stahl shook his head. Back in the barracks, he telephoned a report through to Berlin, recounting what had happened, and then he tried to get some sleep. He felt as if he had been up for hours, despite having woken up at seven in the morning, and somehow he felt too tired to continue. His sleep was wracked with nightmares…

And was broken by an urgent report only two hours later. An SS patrol had been cornered, captured, and hung in Felixstowe itself. Someone hadn’t gotten the message. Stahl could only wish that he were surprised.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Atlantic Ocean

Admiral Fraser stared into the darkening ocean as the sun slipped below the horizon, not even casting a golden glow in the distance, as high above the stars came out. The three battleships, one battle-cruiser and a number of smaller ships that made up the remains of Home Fleet were sailing away from the Clyde, hopefully without the Germans being aware. The Germans probably had a U-boat or two — maybe more — watching the fleet, but even the latest electric-powered boats had problems keeping up with warships moving through the water at high speed. Fraser was confident he could lose them before he rendezvoused with the remainder of the fleet.

They said that Admiral Jellico was the only man who could have lost the Great War in an afternoon, Fraser thought, staring down at the King George V’s massive turrets. They were still now, but he could make out faint signs of where the hasty repairs had been completed, mending the damage the Germans had caused as much as possible. When he met up with the Eastern and Mediterranean Fleets, he would be much stronger, but even so, the odds weren’t necessarily going to be on his side.

The Germans should know that the Royal Navy intended to get into the Channel and sink everything flying a German flag. Their intention would be to stop the Royal Navy before it got too close. There was a vast difference between attacking a fleet at anchor and a fleet in motion, and even though the Germans probably had many more of their guided bombs, they would know that they would be much less effective against his second fleet. They would also be aware that the ten battleships of the fleet had radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, while the carriers were loaded with fighters for the defence of the fleet and torpedo-bombers for attacking the German carriers. The Germans would have to focus everything on destroying the fleet. If they sunk Fraser and his fleet, they would have won the war.

It was something that made him think, grimly, of the days when he had been a young midshipman. They had known that as long as Home Fleet remained in being, it was impossible for Britain to be defeated completely, but now the rules had changed. They had been changing back even then, when the Royal Navy had discovered what air power could do under the right circumstances, but it had taken the Germans to discover how they could use air power to break the back of the British fleet. Fraser couldn’t just remain a lurking fleet-in-being, not when the Germans were rushing supplies from France into Britain. He must cut that supply line, once and for all. He couldn’t lurk out of range, forever poised to lunge forward. He had to move as soon as possible. The Germans knew that, and they would be coming out to do battle.

They would be wiser, perhaps, to husband their own units, but they knew as well as he did that this battle would be for all the marbles. If they lost their fleet completely, as they had come close to doing back in 1940, they would still be immensely strong and continue to dominate Europe; if Fraser lost his fleet, the Germans would be able to reinforce at will and eventually crush Britain by sheer weight of numbers. They might even abandon their self-imposed reluctance to attack ships with an American flag; if they sunk the Royal Navy, the Americans wouldn’t be able to make a real impact on the war until it would be too late for Britain. Rommel would build up, crush the British Army, and force Britain to sue for peace.

He flicked his cigarette into the water, watching the glowing ember fall away into the darkness, and straightened up. The crew of the mighty battleship were carrying out their duties as if they were unaware of the massive dangers they were about to face, but then, they had been though the hell of the Battle of Scapa Flow. They all knew how much their world had changed in the last month and they had prepared as best as they could; Fraser had privately promised himself to bring as many of those boys home as possible. He wasn’t sure if it was a promise he would be able to keep; the Germans were tough, determined, and believed that they had better technology. In far too many areas, they were right.

“We need a victory,” Churchill had said, when Fraser had faced the Prime Minister. He had expected to be relieved for his failure at Scapa Flow; the mood of the country had been such that heads would need to roll, but instead Churchill had put him in command of rebuilding as much as possible of the fleet. Home Fleet would never be the same again, but he’d managed to get most of the surviving craft back into action… as well as preparing his own surprise for the Germans.

Churchill had been sceptical. “Are you sure that this plan will work?”

“Yes,” Fraser had said as he tried to keep his doubts hidden. Churchill probably hadn’t been fooled. “We will present them with a tempting target, one that they cannot fail to notice, and use it to lure them into making a mistake. Once they make that mistake, we will jump on them and wreck their fleet.”

Churchill’s eyes had narrowed. “And what if they don’t make that mistake?”

“Then we continue down into the Channel and wreck as much as possible of their shipping,” Fraser had answered. “The German bombers will have difficulties hitting moving ships in the dark, even with their radar-guided bombs, and we should be able to shell their ports and sink a few of their ships before the sun comes up. They have to engage us or we will continue to cut their supply lines and cripple their ability to reinforce their army on the mainland.”

He considered lighting another cigarette as the dark mass of Britain slipped away behind them. It would be a few hours before they met up with the other elements of the fleet, but by then, it would be daylight… and then they would advance again towards Scapa Flow. The Germans had learned, now, that the new defenders of the harbour were on the alert… and, after they’d lost a carrier, would know to be careful around Scapa Flow. They had too many other air commitments to launch heavy attacks on the harbour now. Both sides had lost grievous numbers of aircraft as the war raged on. Would they seek to attack the fleet again, or would they wait until the fleet emerged to challenge the German Kriegsmarine for command of the seas?

One way or another, it would all be over soon.

* * *

It was quiet in the conning tower of U-453 as the electric-powered U-boat moved to follow the British fleet. In theory, any electric-powered boat could remain on station for weeks, but Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Heidelburger had been reluctant to remain on station for too long, grimly aware that the British destroyers that patrolled the mouth of the Clyde would catch a sniff of them if they remained. They’d already come far too close to being caught. Only a long period of complete silence, hiding and cowering, had saved them from a hunting British ship.

Heidelburger hadn’t seen combat service before the war, but he had drilled with German destroyers… and the British were much more persistent. Several U-boats had been sunk trying to slip into British anchorages and repeat the Royal Oak success back in 1939. Heidelburger had no intention of losing his boat and his crew out of a thirst for glory.

“Take us after them and monitor their course,” he said very softly. The close quarters of the U-boat tended to encourage both informality and quiet. There was no way to maintain the mystique of command when everyone practically lived in each other’s pockets; the twenty-one men on the U-boat knew everything about him, as he knew it about them. They respected him, followed his orders, but they knew that he was human too. “Radio?”

The radio operator looked up from his own console. They were monitoring British radio signals as well, but the British fleet wasn’t sending any signals, not even a message back to port to say that they had left the outer limits.

“Yes, sir?”

Heidelburger considered.

“Encode a message informing Fleet Headquarters that the British fleet has left on course heading 255, 55.6° north, 6.7° west, speed 12 knots. Add that we will follow them as long as we are able,” he ordered. The British fleet, at least, made enough noise that following it would be easy without having to stick up a periscope and watch it from a distance. The submariners back in the Great War had done just that and it had cost them many lives. “We will attempt to confirm strength and disposition as soon as we are able to do so.”

He stepped back as the boat moved slowly in pursuit of the British. It wasn’t a safe tactic at all but there was really no other option. He had considered risking an attack, but getting into firing position on one of the bigger ships would be difficult without one of the smaller ships getting in the way and the destroyers coming after him. The British fleet was zigzagging, moving in an pattern that would make it hard to score a hit at this range except through sheer luck.

“Message encoded, sir,” the radio operator said.

“Transmit,” Heidelburger ordered, grimly. “Kurt, keep an eye out for them turning and sending destroyers after us.”

The tension rose sharply. There were no secrets on a submarine, and every man knew that by sending the signal, they risked detection and destruction. The British would definitely maintain a listening watch and even though they wouldn’t — Heidelburger hoped — be able to decode the message.

“Signal sent,” the radioman said. For a brief few moments, they would have extended an antenna out of the water, into the air. Even in darkness, a radar sweep might pick it up, giving the British a direct line on their location. “Berlin acknowledges.”

“The British fleet is continuing on its course,” the sonar operator said. “If they heard us, they’re not bothering to give chase.”

Heidelburger nodded grimly. The British fleet was moving at a respectable speed; if they hadn’t been concentrating on evasive tactics, they would have out-raced the U-boat by now and left Heidelburger unable to relocate them. The time was ticking by slowly. He waited as the British fleet got further and further ahead, before it finally vanished over the horizon.

“Send a second signal,” he said. He was surprised to feel his heart beating so rapidly. It wasn’t a failure, or at least not one that could be blamed on him, but he hated losing track of the enemy ships. “Contact lost. Will attempt to relocate enemy force.”

He privately doubted that they would succeed.

* * *

The Eastern and Mediterranean Fleets were a sight for sore eyes, Fraser decided as his personal autogyro settled down on the deck of HMS Impervious. The Impervious was the most modern fleet carrier in the Royal Navy; the ‘Imp,’ as her crew called her, had been serving with Admiral Sir Philip Vian and the Eastern Fleet for several months, watching the Japanese. It had been a risk, pulling her and her sisters out of the Far East, but as Churchill had said, it was a risk that must be borne.

Japan would have real problems assaulting Australia, and the defence of India and Burma was in the hands of the Indian Army. He somehow doubted that they would risk moving south with such a large American commitment to the Philippines. The War Cabinet had decided that the Japanese had too many problems in China to risk opening up a further war front, but even so, Fraser would be relieved when he could send the Eastern Fleet back to Singapore. The Japanese were not always capable of behaving in a rational manner.

“Welcome aboard the Impervious,” Admiral Vian said. His reputation for taking firm action while all others were confused had preceded him. Fraser knew that the man wouldn’t hesitate to do what was necessary to defeat the Germans. The only black mark on Vian’s record was a well-known hatred of the Norwegians, something that had resulted in a number of incidents before he had been packed off to the Far East to command the Eastern Fleet. “What are my orders?”

Fraser allowed Vian to lead him and Admiral Somerville into his stateroom. “The Germans trailed us for some distance and know we’re here, so I want to take advantage of them knowing our rough location.”

“That rarely helped the Italians,” Somerville said. The commander of the Mediterranean Fleet was the oldest of the three, but as a known Churchill partisan had been denied his shot at becoming First Sea Lord. He was competent enough to take what was, in theory, an inferior fleet and dare the Italians to try to destroy it. After the brief and lethal encounter in 1943, the Italians hadn’t dared to challenge the Mediterranean Fleet again and, even now, remained in their harbours rather than fight. “The Germans, of course, are another matter.”

“Yes,” Fraser said. The two admirals would have read the reports from Scapa Flow with care and attention, but it was important to ensure that they understood the clear dangers in treating the Germans like the Italians. The Italian Navy worried endlessly over a clearly-inferior enemy fleet; the Germans had set about destroying a superior force and they’d damn near succeeded. “We have, however, an operating plan to redress some of our disadvantages and hopefully crush the German fleet when it comes out to do battle. Our priority, of course, are the carriers.”

“Of course,” Somerville echoed. Once the German carriers were sunk, the British battleships or aircraft would finish off the German battleships. Fraser found himself, against all logic and reason, hoping for a chance to fight it out with the seven German battleships and their escorts on the surface. He would have the advantage for once. Fraser spoke for twenty minutes, outlining the plan and answering the questions they put to him.

“I like it,” he said finally. “How far advanced are the preparations for it?”

Fraser nodded.

“I have the modified carriers ready at Scapa Flow,” he said. He hadn’t risked taking those ships to the Clyde. The German submarine that that been trailing them might have risked putting a torpedo into one of the modified carriers, suspecting that it was one of the fleet carriers. “Once we reach Point Alpha, those carriers will move into action.”

Somerville smiled. He was more of a battleship admiral than a carrier admiral, like Fraser himself and unlike Vian, who loved new technology, but he understood the plan. The Germans would have to act in a certain way, but the beauty of the plan was simple. If the Germans didn’t react as expected, the British could simply break off the engagement and withdraw back to Scapa Flow, now heavily fortified against all possible German attacks.

“Clever,” he said. “When do we move?”

Vian produced a bottle of scotch and three glasses.

“Once we’ve had a drink,” he said and poured them all a generous measure. “Admiral, what’s the toast?”

Fraser lifted his glass.

“A willing foe and sea room,” he said. They clinked their glasses together and drank. “One way or another, whatever happens, Great Britain will never forget this coming battle.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

London, England

Why had Roger Hollis committed suicide?

The question nagged at Alex DeRiemer as he sat in his office, trying to think; his instincts, which he had learned to trust, told him that it was important. Hollis had been one of MI5’s most promising young officers, someone who might have risen right to the top, and yet he had killed himself. DeRiemer wondered, reading the official report, if it had really been a murder, perhaps even the work of Skorzeny himself, but he could find no flaws in the report. Hollis had taken a pistol, one of the ones signed out to MI5 personnel in fears that the Germans would try to storm the building, and blown off his own head.

Why?

The files were in front of him, but there was little to suggest any reason for despair. Hollis hadn’t been married, nor did he have any relationships that might have caused him to be despondent, and while there were a handful of negative comments in his file, there were no real black marks. He’d been accused of showing a lack of enthusiasm for chasing a particular report of a German spy at one point, but it turned out that the man had been innocent all along, clearing Hollis of any real charges that might have been brought against him… and his future had looked rosy. It had also come to a sharp end when he’d placed the gun against the side of his head and fired.

“It makes no sense,” DeRiemer said to himself. He’d spoken to a few of Hollis’s colleges — he hadn’t had any real friends — and they said that he’d been more subdued than usual, but Hollis had hardly been Churchill or Monty when it came to flashy behaviour. If there had been something wrong with him, it remained impossible to see, but Alex was sure that he was right on the brink of understanding…

He looked back at the dates and froze. Hollis had killed himself the day that his department had been asked to look for a possible German spy within the establishment. His department hadn’t been directly involved in the first investigation and hadn’t been officially informed — and, in theory, he should have known nothing about it — until the investigation had cleared Hollis and he’d been brought into the matter. As the man responsible for securing British seaports and trade from German or Russian infiltration, Hollis’s help would have been invaluable… but he’d killed himself instead.

He killed himself when he learnt that there was a German spy somewhere in the establishment, DeRiemer thought, then experienced a blinding flash of inspiration. What if… Hollis himself had been the spy? Had he killed himself when he thought the investigation was getting too close to him? Was that even possible? Hollis’s records showed that he had been an ardent anti-German and anti-Communist. Had that been a cover? The theory slipped slightly the more he thought about it. Hollis, in such a position, would have been far too valuable to be risked on basic spying. He might have been the Director of MI5 within a few years.

He tested the theory time and time again in his mind. Hollis had been working for the Germans, doing… what? Logically, he would have been employed to ensure that other German spies were covered or passed over by MI5’s investigators, something that he would have been ideally placed to organise. In his position, he could also have made sure the Germans knew exactly what they would face at Felixstowe; he might even have designed the procedures that had allowed the Germans to sail the Hans Bader into the harbour without anything more than a cursory investigation. That would have been enough to cause anyone to be suicidal, but even so, was it enough to cause Hollis to kill himself? He must have known what he was doing… hadn’t he? Even if he hadn’t known, how had he missed it when the Germans actually landed?

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” he called. His assistant stepped in. “Yes, Sarah, what is it?”

Sarah smiled. “The Prime Minister is requesting your presence ten minutes ago,” she said wryly.

“I’m on my way,” he said. Churchill was scheduled to address a gathering of Londoners and Civil Dignitaries in the heart of London, one of the most secure gatherings in the world… which wasn’t that secure. Churchill’s bodyguards, some of David Stirling’s men, had tried to talk Churchill out of going, knowing that in a crowd, it would be very difficult to prevent anyone from getting close enough to take a pot-shot at Churchill. “Why does he want me there?”

Sarah’s grin grew wider.

“Because he has a habit of gathering the best and the brightest around him,” she said, knowing that DeRiemer’s rise meant that her position would rise as well. “You’re the one who predicted trouble, so you’re the one who gets the credit and… well, he’ll treat you as a good luck charm.”

“You’ve been listening to the other secretaries again,” he said. He knew little about the world of the personal assistants. “As long as he wants me…”

* * *

Skorzeny’s lips twitched as he examined the British lorry. There was nothing much to be said for it, not compared to a panzer or even a standard Speer Lorry that the Speer machine had been grinding out for the German Army. It was nicely anonymous, impossible to tell apart from the hundreds of others that were running through London, and easy to drive. The British had some strange habits when it came to driving, but with Canadians and Australians — and even a handful of Americans — in London, no one would notice the group of British servicemen driving one lorry and looking very urgent. They would get in, carry out their mission, and escape in all the confusion.

Philby’s face looked resigned as Skorzeny climbed out of the truck. Like it or not, they were all committed now; Philby’s involvement would be easy to deduce when he failed to return to his office. He had been granted permission, along with a few dozen others, to attend Churchill’s speech; Skorzeny hadn’t hesitated to use it as an opportunity to take a clear shot at Churchill. Everything would depend on getting the timing exactly right.

“Good,” Skorzeny said. They’d parked the vehicle where it should draw no notice, but they couldn’t stay too long, just in case. “Are you sure that these papers will allow us entry into the secured zone?”

“Yes,” Philby said confidently. His voice weakened. “Are you sure that you can get us out of there afterwards?”

Skorzeny slapped him on the back.

“Don’t be such a coward,” he said cheerfully. “I have been through hundreds of occasions when important people have been assassinated and believe me, the confusion is terrible. We get in, take the shot, and get out again, OK?”

“I suppose,” Philby said. “The papers are set out for a Canadian unit, so you won’t be expected to do anything, but get lost in London. If they order you out, then… well, you can just obey them and then get lost again…”

“But that’s not going to happen,” Skorzeny said in flawless English. “Are you ready for your part of the arrangement?”

“Yes,” Philby said. “I’ll move now…”

“Yes,” Skorzeny mimicked and moved forward as Philby turned his back. The communist wasn’t a strong man and was taken completely by surprise. Skorzeny grabbed the back of Philby’s neck with one hand and drew a slash across his throat with the other. The spy gasped and tried to say something as his life bubbled away. Skorzeny watched dispassionately as Philby fell to the ground, dead.

“Idiot,” he commented and carefully hid Philby’s body in the garage. It would take days for it to be found, but by then, Skorzeny intended to be out of the country. Philby had outlived his usefulness, now that his protector was dead; the shock of discovering who he had worked for had clearly unhinged Roger Hollis. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, Otto,” one of his men said. They all wore British uniforms; they would pass undetected, at least until it was too late. “We’re ready.”

They drove the lorry out of the garage and onto the street. As Philby had promised, the roads were heaving with military traffic, with hundreds of vehicles and thousands of marching soldiers buzzing around, moving through London before they went up to the front-line

It was just the same in Berlin, Skorzeny knew, although his own unit had never been allowed a parade through Berlin. That was a honour reserved for the more public units… and Himmler was determined to keep as much about his unit as possible a secret.

It seemed a waste of time now, as he’d lost too many men in London, but maybe some of them had made it out to join the unit he knew would be reforming in the east. His driver kept them moving directly towards Churchill’s location; the British Prime Minister, according to Philby, intended to bore the socks off everyone in London by making a public speech.

“That’s our turning,” he muttered, and the driver obediently turned the lorry, heading right towards Churchill’s stand. He was a little surprised that the road wasn’t permanently blocked — he’d seen some of the defences in the London suburbs and had been amused at the thought of how determined the British were to defend their capital city — but as a group of soldiers appeared at the far end, he nodded in understanding; Churchill’s own vehicle would probably have to pass out this way. “Show them our papers…”

The driver passed the British officer his papers, and there was a long pregnant pause. “These papers are out of date,” the officer said, one hand falling to the holster he wore at his belt. “I am afraid that I am going to have to ask you to come with me and…”

Skorzeny drew his own pistol in one quick motion and shot the officer, his men spilling out of the lorry like the professionals they were and attacking the British soldiers. Caught by surprise, the unit was quickly wiped out, but Skorzeny knew that the shots would have been heard; the entire British Army would be after them within moments. Philby had either been wrong or had betrayed them and planned to vanish rather than meet at the rendezvous point, but it didn’t matter. The mission had suddenly become a suicide mission.

“This way,” he barked laughing aloud. He was older than most of his men and saw little good in growing even more so until he died in a training accident or even old age. He would close his arms around Churchill’s fat neck and wring it, no matter what the British did, and they would die together. “Heil Hitler!”

* * *

Alex DeRiemer heard the shooting as he sat behind Churchill, trying not to show his boredom or his worries. Churchill was a good speaker and knew how to work a crowd, but there was so much work to be done that it was all he could do to remain quiet, let alone stay seated when he could have slipped off back to the office. Churchill had requested him specifically, and it was something that could boost his career forward, but even so, it was a waste of time. He had been amusing himself by counting the soldiers and Very Important People at the gathering when the shooting started and he was sure exactly who was behind it.

Skorzeny, he thought, reaching for the pistol he wore at his belt. It had been too long since he had fired a shot on the training range, something that was a requirement for any MI6 officer who might have to go into German-held territory, and he was far too aware that Skorzeny would probably eat him for breakfast. Churchill’s bodyguards came forward, while Churchill himself, personally fearless, stared in the direction of the shots… as an explosion blasted away a chunk of the wall.

“Get down,” one of the bodyguards shouted and lunged at Churchill, knocking him to the ground. A group of British soldiers appeared… and opened fire on Churchill. They took fire themselves from a dozen different directions at once, but the first British shots were confused. The antagonists fired back with abandon, forcing everyone to keep their heads down. DeRiemer found himself on the ground without any clear memory as to how he’d gotten there.

The lead soldier, moving forward with astonishing speed, was easy to recognise; the make-up on his face was falling off as he moved, revealing the very familiar scar.

“SKORZENY!,” DeRiemer shouted and took aim, only to miss completely as the weapon jerked in his hand. A hail of bullets slashed across the platform, knocking down some of the bodyguards, and DeRiemer gasped as blood showered down onto his face. Skorzeny laughed and jumped up onto the platform, kicking the pistol out of his hand before he could recover. Skorzeny turned to face Churchill…

* * *

…Skorzeny knew there was no hope of escape, no chance he might pull off one last miracle. . The British Prime Minister was larger and fatter than he’d imagined but that wouldn’t save him. He kept low, knowing that the British would be hesitant to risk firing at him while he was so close to the Prime Minister… and stopped as Churchill rolled over, a small pistol in his hand. Skorzeny had no time to react as the pistol barked twice. He staggered backwards as two red-hot bullets dug into his chest. He could still win…

Skorzeny was older now than he’d been in his early days; he was still fit and healthy, but he had fewer reserves. More British bullets tore through him and he fell backwards, still trying desperately to lift his weapon enough to draw a bead on Churchill. The Prime Minister rose to his feet, a foolhardy gesture that would have been matched by Skorzeny had he been able to move, and pointed his little weapon directly at Skorzeny’s head. He fired once…

Chapter Fifty

North Sea

Generaladmiral Erich Förste stared down at the plotting table and thought baleful thoughts about landlubbers and the effect they could have on planning naval missions. On the map, his mission looked simple; find and destroy the British fleet. In practice, it wouldn’t be anything like as easy, not against a professional force that almost matched his own technology. The last time the Kriegsmarine had gone up against a second navy had been during war games with the Italians, something that had done nothing to improve the German impression of Italian military capabilities and hadn’t really taught them very much about their own tactics. The fleet had exercised endlessly, particularly just before the war had broken out, but exercises with such ships didn’t include live weapons.

Förste grimaced. The gap between the Shetlands and Norway looked tiny, but it was large enough to hide a few hundred ships the size of Berlin, let alone the huge battleships that both sides possessed. The people back in Berlin thought that he could launch a massive attack that would somehow fly directly to the British ships, unaware that if he sent them off in the wrong direction, they would be badly out of position when — if — they located the British fleet. If the timing went badly wrong, the three hundred and sixty strike aircraft of his fleet and the two hundred land-based aircraft under his command would go haring off in the wrong direction while British aircraft bore down on his command. The evidence suggested that Germany still had a monopoly on radio-guided bombs, but after British aircraft had sunk one of his carriers, he knew better than to assume his ships were invincible.

His scowl deepened. He had nearly forty reconnaissance aircraft, long-range jet aircraft flying out of Norway and Denmark, hunting for the British fleet. He’d been able to study some of the British records from the hunt for the Bismarck and a handful of other German battleships, and the British had had real problems in locating enemy ships, let alone bringing their vastly superior might to bear against them. He had the same problem, in a way; if he spread out his units, the British might be able to crush them individually before he could re-concentrate his fleet. Their task was simple; all they needed to do was cut the shipping lanes between England and the Reich.

The map seemed to mock him as the reports came in. Left to himself, he would have held the fleet back until he had located the British ships, maybe even refused battle until the British came down into the narrows. Berlin didn’t seem to think that that was possible, dreading any possibility of even a small interruption in supply lines, and had ordered him to keep the British fleet well away. That would be easier said than done; it wasn’t as if the Channel was a bridge that the British had to cross in order to reach their destination, was it? No, the British fleet could be anywhere in the waters, lost somewhere and able to reach their goal with ease, unless he was lucky enough to locate it beforehand.

Förste checked the reports again. It wasn’t going to be an easy battle. He’d hoped that submarines could have taken a bite out of the British ships, but the presence of the American ships and the improved British sonar had deterred all but the bravest or most foolhardy U-boat commanders from launching attacks, and most of those attacks had failed. The British had spent the years since the last war working on antisubmarine tactics, and although he hated to admit it, they might well be better at it than his own forces. A British submarine had put a torpedo into one of his pocket battleships a week ago, and the only saving grace was that there was no sign that the British actually knew what they’d done. Time was ticking away…

His gaze fell to the tactical map again. Ground-hogs really had no idea of the scale of the problem. They talked about land-based air redressing the balance, unaware that mounting a major assault that far from the airbases, such as had happened at Scapa Flow, required a major commitment of tankers. That in turn risked losing the tankers to British attack, an obvious way to degrade and diminish the German forces, and one he knew they didn’t dare risk. If the tankers were knocked down at the wrong moment, the lifespan of a sizeable chunk of the Kreigsmarine’s anti-shipping aircraft would be shortened down to hours, unless they somehow managed to reach home on vapours. The aircraft were forced to remain at their airbases until they found the British fleet, and then they would have to be steered towards the fleet…

“Herr Generaladmiral,” one of the operators called. Förste stepped over to the man’s seat. He wore a pair of headphones, listening to the reports from the spotting aircraft, and pulled them off as Förste arrived. “We have a report from Spotter Nine. They have sighted the British fleet!”

“Show me,” Förste ordered as the second report came in and the plotting table was updated. The British fleet was steaming south-east at a reasonable speed, but he had no illusions about them coming so close to Denmark and the Reich’s airbases there. he would have to assume that they would change course at some point, probably within the next two or three hours. He looked over at the plotting table again and nodded. “Show me an area prediction.”

“Jawohl, Herr Generaladmiral,” the operator said and drew out a circle on the chart. The British fleet, assuming that it travelled at its full rate of knots, would be somewhere within that circle. The centre of the circle would be moved as more reports from Spotter Nine came into the ship. “Spotter Nine reports that it is following the British at a safe distance.”

Förste shrugged dryly. The jet-propelled reconnaissance aircraft were the most advanced aircraft in the Reich, capable of long periods of flight and flying too high to be knocked down by the RAF jets, although one had been lost over England to causes unknown. The British surely knew that the aircraft was there and they would have taken note of the fact that their position was now known to the enemy. It wasn’t the perfect surprise that Förste would have wanted, but it was still an advantage; as far as he knew, the enemy didn’t have the slightest idea of where his forces were…

“Send a signal to the main strike force in Norway,” he ordered after a moment’s thought. It would be better to conserve the carrier-based strike force for the moment. They would be needed to complete the job and cover the carriers if the British launched their own strike. “Update them on the course and speed of the British ships and order them to launch at once. The targets are the carriers.”

“Jawohl, Herr Generaladmiral,” the radio operator said. He bent his head to his console, muttering orders into the small microphone that came down from his headphones, one of the most advanced pieces of micro-engineering in the German fleet. Förste had heard rumours of something even more fascinating coming out of some of the Reich’s more secretive laboratories, but so far the fleet had yet to reap the benefits. The operator glanced up again, finally. “The strike force acknowledges and is on its way.”

“Good,” Förste said. He smiled thinly. “Order the fleet to turn in pursuit and prepare for an engagement.”

He would have preferred to be on the bridge, but duty, cursed duty, kept him in the Combat Information Centre. They’d spent years training to use the ships as a single fleet, but now he would have preferred to be a Captain again, or even a junior officer, someone who could watch the awesome majesty of combat from a proper vantage point.

“And inform the crew,” he said. It was easy to push confidence into his voice. “The final battle of the Second British War begins today.”

* * *

Unbeknownst to Generaladmiral Förste or any of his men, HMS Sealion had been prowling the seas near Denmark when it had caught sight of the smaller German ships advancing through the Kiel Canal. The canal had been expanded several times by German slave labour and was now large enough to allow a Bismarck-class battleship to pass through without any real problems, although it wasn’t something that the ship’s commanding officers cared to do. The German fleet used the canal to allow rapid deployment without having to navigate around the tip of Denmark, where so many German ships had been spotted and tracked by British ships or spies in Sweden. These days, the Swedes were less cooperative when it came to spying, but Sealion and her contemporaries were able to watch for German ships without their help.

Commander McKenzie peered through the periscope as the massive fleet headed west. It wasn’t easy to see them all, but he made out four battleships and at least three carriers. The Germans wouldn’t have risked a battle without all of their ships gathered together in a single overwhelming force, but he couldn’t see the fourth carrier amidst the other ships. The Germans had sent nearly seventy ships to sea, and the destroyers, always on the prowl, kept him back through the sheer force of their efforts to deter any prying eyes.

“Compose a message,” he said after a moment. “Enemy fleet sighted. Composition four heavy battleships, several smaller heavy ships, three carriers and numerous smaller ships. Attach course and speed, and then transmit.”

“Aye, sir,” the radioman said. He worked his pad for a long moment. “Signal composed, sir… and transmitting.”

“Keep us well back,” McKensie ordered. The Germans might not have heard the message — they’d transmitted as short and simple a message as possible — but one thing every submarine commander learnt when they were training was never to underestimate the enemy or assume that the enemy was stupid. Those who didn’t learn that lesson ended up dead. “Prepare for evasive manoeuvres…”

* * *

Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt took a breath as his jet aircraft raced down the tarmac of the runway before rising up into the sky, moving sluggishly as always with the weight of the rocket pods attached beneath the wings. He had more reason to be nervous lately. In the last few days, there had been a handful of petty attacks by the Norwegian resistance against German military installations, including one nervy attack on an airfield while a heavy transport had been taking off for Denmark. The resulting crash onto a Norwegian town should have been counted as an own goal — it had killed more civilian Norwegians than Germans — but it had been alarming. Everyone had thought that Norway had been reasonably pacified.

Schmidt concentrated as his aircraft approached the flying tanker for a final refill before setting out after the British ships. The German Army had taken a beating on British soil and its reputation for invincibility had been badly dented. It had given hope to the people under the German boot, even the Norwegians who were as close to fellow citizens of the Reich as Schmidt himself was, and there had been a series of incidents right across the Reich. The SS had cracked down hard on most of them, and some of them had been little more than half-hearted anyway, but even so, it was a depressing reminder of just how unstable the Reich could become, if the war went badly wrong.

He checked his compass and set out along the course he’d been ordered to fly, the entire group maintaining radio silence. If they were lucky, the British would never know they were coming. It wouldn’t be like attacking Scapa Flow when the British ships had been effectively stationary and undermanned. This time, the British fleet would be moving, fully manned, and very capable of shooting back with radar-guided weapons. This would be the decisive battle. If they sunk the carriers, the remainder of the British fleet would be easy to deal with…

Assuming that they found it. They knew where the fleet was, they knew its course, but if the fleet broke contact and headed off on a different course, they would waste precious time trying to locate it. They wouldn’t have as much time as they had over Scapa Flow, either. There weren’t as many tankers devoted to refuelling the aircraft this time. Schmidt hadn’t been told why, but he could draw his own conclusions… and none of them were good. The aircraft that would have been intended to refuel them were most likely destroyed.

The hills and fjords of Norway fell away behind them as the flight proceeded onwards towards their target. One way or another, it wouldn’t be long now, not with the spotter aircraft constantly relaying the British course and speed. Schmidt expected them to break contact, but the longer the British delayed breaking contact, the easier it would be for his force to locate and destroy the their ships. The signals kept coming in, however, and as they came in, he allowed himself a smile. There was no hiding place for the enemies of the Reich.

* * *

“Admiral, we have a large German force taking off from Norway and flying towards us,” the radio officer said. “The Sealion just updated us with the location of the Germans…”

Admiral Fraser listened to the remainder of the report in silence.

“Order the carriers to launch their aircraft,” he said, once the report had finished. “I want them to target the German carriers first, and then their battleships.”

He waited until that order had been sent. The carriers of the British fleet would be launching already, their crews pent up and waiting for the chance to strike back at the Germans, blissfully unaware of the German flight descending on them from Norway. Fraser hoped that the Germans were unaware that he knew about their attempt at a sucker punch; the message from the spotters at Norway had been carefully disguised as a signal from a German army unit. By the time they realised their mistake, it should be too late to do anything but dance to Fraser’s tune.

“The carriers are launching now,” the radio operator announced. Fraser could hear the nervousness in his voice, even though he didn’t say anything out loud. He’d just stripped the fleet of all of its air cover. The German spotter aircraft would be gleefully relaying that to the German ships, who had kept back their own aircraft to cover themselves from his strike… all the while expecting him to be naked and vulnerable to their strike. “Sir… Force One has relayed its confirmation.”

Fraser nodded.

“No reply,” he ordered, as the radar screens filled with the lights of German bombers. “We’ll allow Force One to carry out it’s part of the mission without being interrupted.”

* * *

Schmidt had radar contact with the British ships a long time before he saw them. They were great majestic castles of steel, moving through the water as if they didn’t have a care in the world, showed no sign of responding to his presence. The fleet had launched all of its strike aircraft towards the German fleet… and even if they recalled them at once, the British multi-purpose aircraft would have to be rearmed before they could fight his aircraft, assuming they could have stood their ground. The British carrier-borne aircraft would be no match for his land-based jet aircraft.

He smiled, altering course slightly to locate the carriers in the fleet… and then one of his bombers exploded. The blast shook his plane, the more so because it wasn’t expected, and Schmidt struggled to maintain control. A second bomber exploded, then a third, and for a chilling moment Schmidt wondered if the British had actually found a way to detonate the bombs in their bomb bays, before looking up and seeing…

“What the hell?”

Chapter Fifty-One

North Sea

Admiral Fraser had anticipated what the Germans needed to do if they wanted to significantly damage his fleet before he engaged the German battleships. The Germans would hold back their carrier aircraft to protect their own fleet and use land based bombers to go after him. His plan took all of this in account.

The RAF had massed a large force of fighters in Scottish airbases, officially to rest and recuperate after the Battle of Colchester, and those fighters had been launched to shadow the fleet once the German aircraft had been reported. They had slipped up to the German aircraft, which hadn’t expected jet fighters opposing them because neither side had yet managed to launch a jet aircraft from a carrier, and hadn’t been using their radars because they hadn’t wanted to warn Admiral Fraser that they were coming. The inviting target of the British fleet had suddenly become deadly poison.

* * *

Schmidt grabbed at his stick and yanked his aircraft into an evasive manoeuvre as the British fighters fell out of the sun. The Meteors had them bang to rights, trapped against the sea and tied to the bombers, but they were directing their fire mainly against the bombers. The German formation was falling to pieces as the British aircraft raced closer, firing down as the Germans scattered, and Schmidt breathed a curse under his breath.

His plane flipped over, struggling to gain altitude and engage the British jets. There was a long hair-raising moment when he thought the engine would cut out altogether, just before it caught and pushed him onwards towards a Meteor. The British pilot fired at the same instant as Schmidt, blowing a hail of explosive bullets through the British cockpit and blasting the aircraft into a fireball.

Schmidt cast about desperately for some empty airspace, but could find none. Aircraft were blundering everywhere, firing madly. He cursed as a stream of tracer from a German bomber almost took his wing off. He hurled invective at the pilot and the British genius who had thought up the complicated and brilliant scheme with every word he knew. There was no time to think, only to react.

“No,” he snarled as a British fighter made an angry pass at him. He fired back, but missed. The British pilot vanished somewhere within the swirling dogfight. The British tactic was clever; the bombers, scattered, wouldn’t be able to make their own attacks in anything reassembling a coordinated fashion with the British fighters hammering away at them. The German fighters weren’t the priority targets, not with the British focused on protecting their vital ships, but even so, it was going to be difficult to reverse the situation. He tried to think, to focus, and cursed again as a British fighter took aim at him and fired a long burst.

“Damn you,” he swore. He concentrated on barking orders into his headset, trying to take control of the battle. The bombers were trying to concentrate for an attack run on the British ships, but the level and accuracy of the flak was an order of magnitude greater than anything they had experienced before. He spit out another curse and fired a long stream of bullets towards a British fighter, smiling grimly as the British fighter caught fire and plummeted out of the air, splashing down into the water. It was just a shame that it hadn’t struck one of the British ships.

The remaining German fighters formed up around him, and he almost cursed again as he realised how many had been lost to the British jets. The British plan was clear now. they had launched their own carrier aircraft towards the German ships, the British knew full well that they were protected by their own land based Meteors all the time. They hadn’t been fooled by the German flight. They’d either known what the Germans were doing or had worked out their own plan that had dovetailed nicely into defeating the German force. For the first time in his life, since graduating from the Luftwaffe’s training centre, Schmidt was starting to feel as if he had been comprehensively out-thought and out-gunned

“Form up on me and engage the enemy,” he ordered. The British fighters had drawn apart for a long moment, separating themselves from his aircraft, and then they re-engaged This time, they would have to blow through the enraged German fighters to reach the bombers. The flak was growing more intense as the two sides separated, but as they closed in, the flak reduced; the British wouldn’t want to shoot down their own aircraft.

Schmidt had the satisfaction of seeing a Meteor go down in flames before they punched through the British lines, moving into dive-bombing formations. The heavy bombers were following them, the British abandoning the German fighters to concentrate on the bombers, but too late. He saw the bombs begin falling, targeted on two of the British carriers and one of their battleships. The bombs had been improved following Scapa Flow…

“Scratch one flattop,” someone carolled over the radio as a British carrier disintegrated in a hail of tearing explosions. Schmidt was beyond pity for the crew, but even he admitted that they had died well. “What’s the next target…?”

“The next flattop,” Schmidt ordered, wondering what had happened to the bomber’s raid commander. He was probably shot down along with his aircraft. The precisely organised and comprehensible chain of command had been blown to smithereens; it would have worked much better, he was sure, if he had engaged the carrier-borne aircraft, rather than land-based jets. “All bombers without any bombs; withdraw now and return to base, all others…”

In war, a distraction at the wrong time can have fatal consequences. Schmidt, trying to handle too many things at once, missed the British Meteor until it was too late… and the Meteor put seven bullets through the Messerschmitt’s left jet engine. Schmidt reached for the ejector handle, but it was too late. His jet disintegrated around him and he died in a world of fire and pain.

* * *

Admiral Fraser knew that he no longer had any tactical control over the battle, if indeed he had ever had any at all; there were limits to how much he could command fighter pilots struggling over his carriers. He’d given them all their orders, planned it so they could have the best possible chance at taking a clear shot at the enemy, and now all he could do was wait and see what happened. The reports kept coming in of a carrier being hit — first one of the fleet carriers, and then one of the modified carriers he’d been preparing at Scapa Flow — and then the King George V was struck. He braced himself as the ship shook, but the damage was minor; a German aircraft had crashed into the ship, apparently accidentally. The Japanese had used suicide tactics in the later days of their brief war against Soviet Russia, but it was unlike the Germans to deliberately crash their aircraft into an enemy ship, although he had to admit that it would make one hell of a guided weapon.

“Minor damage,” the Captain reported. Fraser concentrated on appearing calm. Everything was out of his hands now and would remain so until the enemy air assault was beaten off. “The Nelson took a major beating, sir.”

Fraser said nothing. There would be time for them to count the cost later, but for the moment, all that mattered was remaining calm and appearing to be in control, even though he wasn’t directing the battle. As the German aircraft finally broke off from their attack, he allowed himself a brief moment of relief. The main body of the fleet had survived the encounter.

“Status report,” he ordered, refusing to seem as if he had been even slightly worried by the battle. “How many did we lose?”

“We lost one fleet carrier and two smaller carriers,” the radio officer said as he tallied up the reports. The remainder of the German air-force was fleeing for home now. The RAF squadrons would have to head back to their tankers soon, before they ran out of fuel and fell out of the sky. “Two battleships were badly damaged. Three cruisers and nine destroyers were sunk, three more damaged.”

“I see,” Fraser said. Truthfully, he’d expected much more damage; the Germans had taken more of a beating than he’d dared to hope. “Is there any report from the CAG?”

“They are engaging the German fleet now,” the radio operator said. “I have no report on progress as yet.”

Fraser hadn’t expected one.

“Good,” he said. He glanced down at the plotting chart. If everything went well, they could put an end to the war in an afternoon. “Inform me the minute you get an update.”

* * *

As one of the Fleet Air Arm’s most experienced pilots, and one of the handful who could paint a German carrier on his cockpit, Flight Lieutenant Stanley Baldwin and his Gannet was in the lead force of British carrier aircraft approaching the German fleet. The briefing had been clear; the Gannets were to concentrate on the carriers. The older aircraft, armed with torpedoes and other surprises, were to wait until the German carriers had been sunk, or if Baldwin and his squadron mates failed, they were to engage the carriers themselves. Baldwin wasn’t particularly surprised at the orders; if the German carriers were sunk, the British Navy would be able to sweep the seas of German ships with ease.

What had surprised him had been the miniature carriers, converted freighters that had been quickly rigged up into tiny carriers something he’d heard about. The designs had been sitting on the back shelf somewhere in the Admiralty, gathering dust, until some of the fleet carriers had been sunk at Scapa Flow. The flight from one of those terrifyingly short decks had been the stuff of nightmares, something that he had never wanted to do in practice; the RAF pilots might think that they had it hard, but anyone who had flown off a carrier’s deck knew that they had the most dangerous job in the fleet. Baldwin would have felt safer standing in a crow’s nest during a battleship duel than flying off one of the tiny carriers — so small they didn’t even have names — but there had been no choice. It was a minor miracle that the squadron had gotten into the air without losing a single aircraft to the drink.

The enemy fleet appeared ahead of them and so did the enemy aircraft. Like the British, the Germans divided their carriers wings between fighters and various different kinds of bombers, providing a mixture of protection for the carrier and striking force for the German Navy. The British fleet had sent all of its fighters out to escort the Gannets, and, as the German aircraft drew closer, Baldwin could see that they would be well matched. The Germans were flying their modified aircraft from the last war; the British pilots were flying Seafires, modified Spitfires designed to serve on-board carriers. They were the last Spitfires in Britain, although there were still some squadrons of Spitfires in the Middle East, Australia and India, and both sides knew that this would be their swansong.

He ignored the fighters as they duked it out for air supremacy and peered down at the German fleet, hunting for the carriers. From this height, the German ships looked tiny, little toys gliding across the water, but there was little amusing about their presence now. He could see puffs of smoke, far below, that signified the firing of anti-aircraft guns… and, moments later, felt the air violently swirl around the aircraft as the shells detonated. The Germans were supposed to have some really good proximity fuses, to match with the radar guided guns, but so far, nothing was coming close to his squadron.

There, he thought, as he saw the German carriers. There were four of them, all spread out and well-protected from any submarine assault, but they were dependent upon their combat air patrol to protect them from British aircraft… and most of their fighters were busy. They would be recalling them now, trying to get them back to cover the carriers before the British bombs fell on them, but Baldwin knew that it was already too late. The last war had started with aircraft trying to bomb ships from high up in the sky and missing more often than not. Now, they would engage the German ships through a sharp dive and release their bombs at the lowest possible attitude.

His aircraft nosed down as he dove. The German carrier grew as he closed at phenomenal speed. He could see an aircraft on the deck, with tiny Germans scurrying around as if it were the end of the world. The German fighters were closing in, firing. He pulled the release handle, knowing that even if they shot him down as he tried to pull out of his dive, it would be too late for the carrier. He yanked back on the stick, feeling the plane shudder as it tried to pull out of the dive and save them both… as the rockets ignited, driving the bombs down towards the carrier with terrifying force. They would punch through the carrier’s deck and detonate inside it’s bowels.

The force of the explosion stunned him. The plane jerked as he struggled to maintain control, trying to get away from the German pilot he knew was on his tail, out for blood and revenge. He glanced back, risking his life, and saw the German carrier burning brightly and settling into the sea, other German ships were burning or firing at him as he tried to escape. It all seemed hopeless as he skimmed over a German destroyer, seeing the crewmen on the deck for a lightning-quick moment, too fast to fire on them with the Gannet’s cannons.

He found his course and sped away from the German fleet, trying to escape… and then a German fighter slipped in behind him. Baldwin tried to escape, but a Gannet was no match for a German fighter… and the aircraft disintegrated around him as the German fired, sending him smashing into the sea at a colossal speed. He died knowing that he’d hurt the Germans far worse then they’d hurt him.

* * *

“Only nine aircraft survived?”

“Yes, Admiral,” the radio operator said. His voice was profoundly shocked. Fraser had no time for shock. “All four German carriers and two of their larger ships are confirmed sunk, along with several smaller ships, but only nine of our aircraft were able to escape from the German aircraft.”

Fraser nodded once, grimly. He’d expected heavy losses, but nothing like that… and it meant that he would have to alter his plans. “I want to cut loose the Lightning and her force,” he ordered, after a moment. The destroyer Lightning headed twenty-one destroyers, the latest and most modern destroyers in the Royal Navy, and they had an excellent record for sinking German submarines. “The Lightning is to escort the remaining carriers back to Scapa Flow, where they can be rearmed and prepared to go out to sea again.”

“Yes, sir,” the radio operator said. There was a long pause. “The ships acknowledge and are starting to separate now.”

Fraser looked down at the chart. The German fleet was out there, wounded, but still dangerous, very dangerous. It was a gamble, but if they won…

“Order the Nelson and the Jellico to accompany them as well,” he said. The two battleships had both taken a serious beating and wouldn’t be fit for action for months. The remainder of the fleet is to form up on the flag and prepare to advance.”

He smiled darkly. “And signal to all ships,” he said, remembering Lord Nelson’s famous signal. It was oddly fitting for the last battleship duel that Fraser expected to see in his lifetime. “We go now to fight and sink the remainder of the German Navy before it can escape; England expects every man to do his duty.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

North Sea

Generaladmiral Förste’s already dark mood turned black as he stared down at the reports. The German Navy had been hammered by the British aircraft in both encounters; they might have sunk several British carriers, but the British had more carriers to spare. He’d lost all four of his fleet carriers, and while there were several more being constructed, they wouldn’t be available for several months at least. His force was trapped, about to engage a British fleet which had superior numbers… but not, perhaps, superior fire-power His force had the greatest fire-power available to any German fleet. If he could defeat the British ships, there was still hope for the invasion.

“Steer us towards them,” he said quickly as he found his cap and placed it firmly on his head. “I’m going to the bridge.”

* * *

Admiral Fraser peered through his binoculars at the tiny shapes of German ships, still miles away. He counted seven battleships and one battle-cruiser; four of the battleships, he saw, were Bismarck -class. He’d been much younger when the Bismarck had been hunted down and sunk, but he’d studied the battle carefully. The Bismarck had killed the famous Hood through a single lucky shot in the right place. The heavy German battleships weren’t perfect designs, but the Germans had been improving them ever since… and, if he didn’t miss his guess, the lead ship was the Tirpitz, the famed Lonely Queen of the North. The Royal Navy had tried to sink her until the peace treaty in 1943… and, as far as he knew, they hadn’t even scratched her paint.

He smiled to himself as he checked out his own fleet. He’d brought nine of his battleships to the encounter and dozens of smaller ships to cover their flanks, but the important part of the duel would be between the battleships. His force was spread out into line of battle, steaming directly towards the Germans, but spread out enough so they could turn to bring their stern batteries into play at a moment’s notice. He expected that the Germans, knowing they had the inferior numbers would attempt to pass through his fleet and bring their weapons to bear as quickly as possible. He welcomed such a manoeuvre. He had the fire-power to handle it and the crews he needed to hold such a steady course. The Germans might decide to try to retreat, turning at just the right moment to bring their own weapons to bear by crossing his ‘T,’ but if that happened, he would simply match their manoeuvre and pour fire on them.

The German battleships were getting closer. Any moment now… he smiled as he saw the flashes of light on the German ships. Their main guns had opened fire, blasting heavy shells towards the British ships. He doubted that they would hit anything at that range, even with the help of radar to guide their shells, but the fountains of water were too near his ships for comfort. He studied the German formation again and issued a set of orders, watching as the operators passed the orders on to the other ships in the fleet, which were still holding their fire. Fraser was proud of their discipline. The Germans fired again. This time, the geysers were much closer to his ships. How long had it been since either side had fired a shot in anger at another battleship? 1941?

“Fire,” he ordered quietly.

The bridge was meant to be soundproofed, but the noise of the guns echoed through the hull as the ship fired, sending a pair of heavy shells back towards the Germans. The gunnery officers would be watching them through radar now, calculating the location of the German ships and adjusting their own fire to compensate. The Germans would be doing the same. It was a battering match and one he was confident of winning. He had the numbers, and the Germans did not. He raised his binoculars to his eyes once more as towering plumes of water erupted near the German ships. A German destroyer, struck broadside by shells intended for a battleship, was blown apart in a tearing gout of fire.

Poor bastards, Fraser thought, with the slightest flicker of amusement. The German crew had been hit by accident, but as the old saying had it, no ship could do very wrong if it struck an enemy ship. The Germans would be concentrating their own fire on the British battleships — a massive gout of water burst up near the King George V — but so far neither side had scored a real hit on the other’s capital ships. The ships grew closer.

“The Howe reports one hit, minor damage,” the radio officer reported. Fraser scowled. The Germans had found their range first and would probably plaster the unfortunate Howe until they cracked her open and sent her down to the bottom. He glanced over towards the Howe, a battleship almost completely identical to the King George V, and saw smoke pouring from the side of the ship. It looked bad, but his experience told him that such things were often illusionary; as long as the ship was firing and moving normally, the damage wasn’t that extensive. “Her Captain reports she’s still in the fight.”

Fraser’s lips twitched. “That’s good,” he said, watching as the Germans grew closer. Their guns were firing rapidly now — he was almost numb to the sound and fury of the British guns, pounding away at the Germans — and he was grimly aware that it was only a matter of time before the Germans scored a hit on one of the British ships. He studied one of the enemy ships as he saw a flash and smiled as he realised that one of his ships had scored a direct hit, striking the German ship directly on its forward turret.

King George V rang like a bell. Fraser bit off a curse as the deck rolled under him, wondering just where they had been hit; judging from the way the ship had moved, the shell had come down on the starboard armour. Damage control teams rushed through the ship as the Germans scored a second hit, moments before fire from two British ships bracketed the German battle-cruiser, sending it leaping out of the line of battle. Fraser smiled as the Royal Navy paid off an old score. The Scharnhorst had been a pain in the neck ever since the Germans had built it and sent it out on raiding missions. His expression fell as the Germans scored several hits in quick succession on Prince of Wales. Both sides were scoring regular hits now, while their smaller ships dashed around and tried to make torpedo runs or prevent the others from making torpedo runs.

“Signal to all ships,” he ordered, as one of the German battleships was enveloped in a bright light. He hoped, for a second, that they had hit it hard enough to kill it, but the German ship shrugged off the blast and kept coming. “Execute Armageddon in one minute.”

“Signal sent,” the radioman said. There was a long pause, during which the King George V rang again. Smoke billowed from the Prince of Wales. She was taking a pounding, and Fraser prayed that she would last long enough to take part in Armageddon. The timing was important here. In order to bring all their weapons to bear on the advancing German fleet before the enemy could take advantage of his brief moment of exposure, Fraser’s ships would have to execute their turn quickly and efficiently. “All ships acknowledge Armageddon in one minute, sir.”

Fraser counted down the seconds in his head. The Captain barked the order at precisely the right moment and the mighty battleship began turning in the water, bringing all of its batteries to bear on the German ships. It was a trickier manoeuvre than it might seem — there was a very real danger of collision if it wasn’t done properly — but the British Navy had practised it endlessly to iron out the flaws. The battleship shook again, violently, as a German bombardment smashed into the main armour covering the battleship’s vitals, but then the main guns boomed, instantly doubling the amount of fire-power that could be brought to bear on the German ships.

“Sir,” the radioman said, “Prince of Wales is…”

The battleship finally gave up and fell out of line. Her main batteries continued to fire on the German ships, but she had lost her conning tower, her interior seriously damaged by German shells. Fraser found himself praying that the Germans didn’t recognise the ship’s weakness. If they pounded her again, they might punch through to the ship’s magazines and detonate the shells stored there.

Prince of Wales exploded with a fireball that rivalled anything he’d ever seen.

If there were survivors, if some of her crewmen had managed to get out of the ship and into the water, the destroyers would have to pick them up.

The smaller ships were hopelessly out of place in such a crash of the titans. As long as the Germans kept coming forward on that course, they were going to find themselves being hammered twice as hard as they could dish out. They would have to alter course themselves.

The Graf Spee fell out of line and heeled slightly to port. The Germans built very good ships, Fraser remembered, and they didn’t seem to have had the ill-luck of seeing the magazines exposed and detonated. The battleship wasn’t shooting any longer, but was still floating, even if it had fallen out of line. The chaos was awesome, scary in a way that impressed even Fraser. The massive castle of steel was dying, but in its final moments, trying to take down one of its enemies.

And the mad slaughter went on.

* * *

“Come about,” Generaladmiral Förste ordered as he watched the Graf Spee burn. It would only be a matter of time before the ship sank. They couldn’t raise anyone on the battleship, it would have to be assumed lost. They’d sunk one British battleship and seriously damaged two more, but the British were pounding them harder than he had feared.

He barked out more orders as the fleet altered course, moving so that they would head on a parallel course to the British ships, but heading in the opposite direction, widening the range enough to allow him to catch his breath. The destroyers and other smaller craft would distract the British — under the right circumstances, a destroyer could take out a battleship — while his forces completed their manoeuvre, and force them to chase him. A stern chase would be a long one, one that he knew the British would lose. They wouldn’t want to risk coming too close to the land.

“Jawohl, Herr Generaladmiral,” the operator said. The mighty ship shuddered as it altered course; it seemed as if the Tirpitz’s first major action would be her last. “The remainder of the fleet acknowledges.”

If I lose all these ships, my country will not forgive me, Förste thought, coldly. Hitler himself had maintained a passionate interest in the heavy battleships since they had been constructed, although that hadn’t been matched with an interest in actually sending them out to be shot at, something that many in the Kriegsmarine resented. The ships they’d had in 1941 could have ended the war under much more favourable terms than they’d ended up with in 1943. The combined German battleships would have been able to outfight or outrun anything they’d met.

“Concentrate fire on target nine,” he ordered as the fleet completed its long manoeuvre. For a moment, a single British ship was incredibly exposed, and as every battleship in the German fleet poured fire onto her, she broke open and exploded faster than Förste believed possible. The British were altering their own course, trying to come about as they realised what the Germans were trying, but it was too late. “Set course for home.

The battleship came under heavy fire as the British ships struck back. Förste gripped onto his chair and held himself tightly as the battleship vibrated under the impact of the British shells, before one of the shells finally scored a hit on the bridge. Förste died without knowing what had struck him and vaporised his body; while the secondary bridge would take over command of the ship, the German fleet had lost its head.

* * *

“They’re making a run for it,” Fraser breathed as the German ships completed their own manoeuvre, attempting to make their way back to Kiel. The German anti-shipping aircraft had taken a beating, but he would bet good money they were trying to scramble everything they had to save their fleet.

He frowned. They didn’t have long to inflict major damage on the German ships.

“I want all ships to give chase,” he said grimly. The Germans would probably be vectoring in U-boats and other unpleasant surprises. They were supposed to have the entire area heavily mined. He didn’t want to risk his ships if he could avoid it. “Continue firing until the Germans break contact.”

The battleship shuddered again as the German ships fled and the British ships moved in pursuit. Fraser watched as the Germans slowly opened the range. A stern chase was always a long one, and judging from the way the Germans were moving, it was also going to be one that the British would lose. Shells were splashing down around the German ships, sometimes finding a target, but mainly striking the water. The Germans had taken terrible losses, but they still had four battleships and they would remain a threat.

It tore at him to issue the order, but he knew his duty. “Signal all ships. Break contact and fall into line with the flagship to proceed to Scapa Flow.”

“Aye, sir,” the radioman said. The battleship was smoking in several places, but as the reports came it, it became clear that the King George V hadn’t been seriously damaged. The same couldn’t be said for several other ships; the Germans had hammered them badly. Who knew what would have happened if the Germans had sought mutual immolation rather than trying to break contact?

The radioman looked up at him. “The fleet has acknowledged. They have damage reports ready.”

“Later,” Fraser acknowledged wearily. There was one final duty to be done before he could rest. “Send a signal to London…”

Fraser knew just what to say. There would be time for a full report later, one that counted the cost and the gains of the engagement, but that could wait. Churchill had said that London needed good news, and that was what Fraser intended to give them. He would give them the best news possible.

He stroked his beard as he spoke. “Tell them… that we have met the enemy, and he is ours.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

Felixstowe, England

“How bad is it?”

Kapitän zur See Christian Wulff winced at Rommel’s tone. He’d found himself without a role after the Hans Bader had been damaged by British shellfire and he had ended up as the Kreigsmarine’s liaison officer to Rommel’s headquarters, on the Felixstowe docks.

Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck would have liked to have supported his friend, but his own mind was reeling. There had to have been a mistake somewhere, surely?

“The British took a beating, but for the moment… to all intents and purposes, the Kriegsmarine no longer exists as a fighting force,” Wulff admitted. “The core of the fleet was savaged by the British, who sank all of the carriers and most of the battleships. The remainder are seriously damaged. The British destroyers and torpedo boats proceeded down the Channel and attacked one of the supply convoys in broad daylight, while their submarines hit other convoys that sailed with reduced escorts because of the demands of the battle-fleet The net result…”

He broke off and controlled his voice with an effort.

“The net result is that we are unable to guarantee the safety of our convoys,” he said. “Until we manage to regain control over the Channel, the British are effectively able to block us from reinforcing the lodgement here and sink anything we send over to resupply you.”

Rommel’s face darkened and replied coldly, “I see. It wouldn’t be the first time that the Kriegsmarine has failed to live up to its promises. Can we rely on the Luftwaffe to make up the shortfall?”

Obergruppenführer Marius Grieger, the Luftwaffe’s representative on Rommel’s staff, hesitated just long enough to earn a glare from his superior. “I have been assured that every transport and fighter in the Luftwaffe will be attached to your force with instructions to haul across everything that you need. The RAF will attempt to interdict the transports, but by the sheer scale of our efforts, we will prevent them from cutting your supply lines entirely.”

“It sounds excellent,” Baeck said carefully. “How much can we get through per day?”

Grieger named a figure. Baeck swore and noted, “Herr Obergruppenführer, a single armoured division needs much more than that each day. We have a stockpile that we built up here over the weeks, but we are going to be digging into that almost immediately and at current rate of expenditure, we are going to be running short of almost everything in two weeks. If the British mount an attack, that stockpile will shrink much faster. I dare say that we couldn’t hold out for more than a day or two before the stockpile runs out completely.”

“We have will and determination on our side,” Hauptsturmfuehrer Grauer Wulfenbach proclaimed. Baeck glared at him and was dimly amused to see Rommel do the same. “We have the right and might to see us through this crisis.

Baeck gave him an icy look. The SS man had recited SS dogma, but he preferred a French doctrine. Fire kills. If the French had paid more attention to that, they might have reshaped the face of Europe instead of the Reich. The SS might boast of how capable it’s soldiers were — and the Waffen-SS was respected by even the regular army — but none of them were bullet-proof, like that American comic book character. Besides, if an eighty-year-old man could shoot down the great Otto Skorzeny, the others couldn’t be all that great. The BBC was still gloating over that incident.

“Once we run out of ammunition, we will be unable to fight,” he said. “We require time and we will not have that time. As soon as the British realise what they have done, they will move at once to attack us and reduce the lodgement to nothing.”

Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl spoke with a lazy precision, “There is a simpler question. How long until the supply lines can be re-established?”

“We need to relocate several destroyers and draw air support from the Luftwaffe,” Wulff answered. “We couldn’t send anything at night, for example, and supply lines would have to be altered at a moment’s notice if one of the British battleships came charging down the Channel. It will take us at least a week to be confident that we could get something across the Channel, and as long as the British are alert, they might take a bite out of it.”

“A week,” Stahl said. “Could we hold out for a week?”

Rommel commented as he nodded. “No German Field Marshal has ever surrendered. We will hold the line as best as we can, but attempt to avoid contact with the enemy as much as possible. If pressed, we will attempt a fighting retreat and hold the armoured units in reserve to seal off any major British penetration of our lines.”

“Good,” Stahl said. “We will keep the British population off the streets.”

Rommel glared at him and Baeck shuddered. Rommel had been furious when the Felixstowe Wives had been killed, and almost apoplectic about several other reprisals that Stahl had ordered, but there was no stopping him now that he had the Führer’s permission. Threatening to kill someone for disobeying orders was fine, and shooting someone caught in the act was fine, but killing people for no good reason was simply not acceptable. The wives, as far as anyone knew — even Stahl had admitted as much — had been innocent victims. How had they merited death? Killing people who had obeyed orders and done nothing to harm the Reich convinced others that they had nothing to lose. There had been a spate of killings, attacks and sabotage directed against the Reich. They couldn’t allow the distraction…

But Stahl had ensured that they would be distracted. Rommel ordered, “You will do it with as little violence as possible. I am calling up half your security force to support Das Reich and you don’t need the distraction.”

Stahl glared at him. “You don’t have the authority to order anything like…”

Rommel said pleasantly, but with an icy undertone of pure threat in his voice. Wulfenbach stared forward and was halted in his tracks by a glare. “It’s already done, Standartenfuhrer. You can complain to the Fuhrer later, but right now I have a war to fight. I will commandeer your men, your equipment, and anything else I need to win the battle against our enemies… or would you like to explain to the Fuhrer how you allowed us to be pushed out of England because you were more concerned about the limits of my authority than his great victory over the British? I allow a certain amount of informality, but even my patience has its limits.”

Baeck’s felt his hand fall to the pistol at his belt as Rommel’s voice hung in the air. He hoped that Stahl would recognise the threat before it was too late. Rommel had plenty of loyal men who would be quite happy to assassinate Stahl and blame it on the British insurgents.

Rommel, as supreme commander, had found a way to limit the damage Stahl could actually do and by assigning the SS men to Das Reich, they wouldn’t even be able to claim that they were being moved away from their own people. The commander of Das Reich would have no time for whining from the security forces.

“We can expect a British attack fairly soon,” Rommel said ignoring the tension in the room. “I intend to meet that attack and destroy it. Towards that end, I want a safe and secure rear area. You will not commit any acts of reprisal without my direct permission, understand?”

Stahl managed to look as if he was humouring Rommel. “Of course,” he said. “Herr Generalfeldmarschall…”

“Good,” Rommel agreed. He put the map on the table and pointed down at the various defensive lines. “I want the remains of 7th Panzer to remain here, supported by…”

* * *

“That… man,” Wulfenbach burst out, as soon as they were alone together. The fury in his voice was no surprise to his commanding officer. “How dare he speak to you like that?”

Stahl gave him a pleasant smile. “Like what?”

“Like he was in command,” Wulfenbach protested. “No Wehrmacht officer has the right to dictate to an SS man under any circumstances…”

“Be quiet,” Stahl commanded, allowing some of his own anger to show. Wulfenbach would never make field grade unless he learned to be more adaptable under pressure. His only good attributes were an unshakable loyalty towards the SS and a unflinching attitude towards the more unpleasant, but necessary, acts that the SS needed to commit from time to time. “There are political issues here, understand?”

He cut Wulfenbach off before he could make more than a token comment. Wulfenbach continued explaining to his dense underling, “The Reichsführer-SS wanted to ensure that Occupied Britain becomes mainly an SS state controlled by us for the benefit of the SS and the Reich, as what is good for us is good for the Reich. The recent change in the war situation is not necessarily to our advantage. If our illustrious Generalfeldmarschall is unable to prevent the British from stabbing back into our lodgement, the invasion will come to an end and we will be lucky not to fall into British hands.”

“They will not succeed,” Wulfenbach protested. His voice dropped into a brainwashed monotone. “We are the Masters of the Will, and the Will is the Key to Success.”

“There are times,” Stahl said without any hope that Wulfenbach would understand, “when I think that the training and induction courses include too much propaganda and too little common sense. The British intend to launch as powerful an attack as they can muster, one that will aim to punch through the defence lines and push us into the sea. We need Rommel to handle that part of the invasion, which means, for the moment, doing as Rommel orders.”

Wulfenbach worked it out slowly. “So what are we going to do?”

“What we have been ordered to do,” Himmler had issued them his orders personally, and Stahl was determined to see that they were carried out. Of course, if he failed, he meant to ensure the Army got the blame. “We’re going to keep Felixstowe and the surrounding area as peaceful as possible.”

He yawned suddenly, ignoring the shock on Wulfenbach’s face as he continued, “And that will keep us occupied and free of any tint of the blame for failure. Yes, we may fail and lose the lodgement, and if that happens, the SS must not be blamed, understand?”

Wulfenbach nodded slowly. Stahl said. “Good. You are dismissed.”

Stahl’s mind raced as soon as Wulfenbach closed the door behind him. He still hadn’t solved the mystery of what Brigadefuhrer Franz Deininger had been doing with the French tart, something that only fed his frustration. Had Deininger organised his own torture and interrogation? Stahl doubted that Deininger had that sort of courage. It was possible that he might have done just that and somehow hidden it from Stahl and his investigators, or maybe his crazy tale was true. He’d been packed off back to Berlin, and was probably shaking his head in relief at having left Occupied Britain, but Stahl had gotten something out of it. He removed his tunic before standing.

He went into the next room. He had wanted to keep the girl close, and no one would bat an eyelid at an SS man taking a local mistress. He ordered, as he undid his pants, “Stand up and bend over the bed. Now, bitch!”

“Jawohl, Herr Übermensch,” Janine said as she bent over. Deininger, Stahl considered, had definitely found a spectacular piece of ass. Sweet, obedient, and very aware of what could happen to her if she failed to obey. “I am here to serve.”

* * *

“Fuck you,” Gregory Davall growled as soon as they had all appeared in the hidden shack. “I don’t fucking care any longer.”

McAllister looked at him grimly. “What have you done with James?”

“I sent him to one of his friends and asked them to take care of him for a few weeks,” Davall hissed. “How the fuck do we tell him that his mother died because his father was too much of a fucking coward to give himself up?”

He punched the ground hard enough to hurt. “The poor boy doesn’t really understand, not yet. Did I ever tell you that he got married to one of the Davidson girls? Oh, they were just toddlers at the time, but they pretended to be husband and wife for a few days until they got bored of the game. He doesn’t even understand that he won’t see Sally again, let alone his mother and…”

“You had no choice,” McAllister said. “Kate was dead the minute they took her…”

“How can you be so fucking cold?” Davall demanded. “What are you made of?”

“I know that the Germans have done this everywhere and will do it here unless we stop them,” McAllister hissed. “I work in the docks, remember? I worked with Frenchmen, Danes, even Spaniards who landed and came out for some rest and relaxation. They talked after a few drinks, Greg. They talked about their lives under the Nazis. There wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t have wanted to live in Britain or America instead, not one… and do you know why? It’s because the Nazis were slowly making their lives unliveable!”

“We all knew what the Nazis were doing up here,” Davall said tapping the side of his head. He moved his hand to his chest. “We just didn’t believe it down here. I have been involved in this movement since 1940, in one role or another, but very few of us really believed just how bad it could become…”

“It’s going to get worse,” McAllister said. “The Germans talk as well, you know, and the BBC was right. They lost a lot of ships at the hands of the boys in the navy.”

“Our boys,” Davall said.

McAllister shrugged. As someone affiliated with the Merchant Navy, he tended to hold the Royal Navy in a certain kind of contempt. He replied, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Germans have lost most of their supply lines.”

Davall shook his head. “So?”

McAllister blinked and stated, “So? So the Germans are going to be short of food, fuel, weapons… everything they need to fight the war. What that means, as far as we are concerned, is that the Germans are probably going to start putting people on short rations…”

“Well,” Davall snapped, “they’ve certainly reduced the town’s population a little, haven’t they?”

“And they’re going to start restricting us even more,” McAllister continued. “I must say that I find your attitude a little odd… because a little bird told me that the Germans are about to face the might of the British Army.”

Davall looked up, feeling, for the first time, some real hope. “The Army is going to get the Germans out of here?”

“They hope so,” McAllister said. He had taken over some of the communication duties when Davall’s mood had turned too black and depressed. “They want us to do as much as we can to hammer the Germans, cutting their supply lines, harassing their rear areas…”

“Encouraging them to make more reprisals,” Davall added mournfully.

“You don’t have anything else to lose,” Rigby said. “You’re free and easy.”

Davall almost smashed him in the nose.

“I’ve lost my wife,” he complained. The raw pain in his voice made the others flinch. “They want one final effort, right?”

“Right,” McAllister said. He reached out and placed a comforting hand on Davall’s shoulder. “You could sit this one out if you want, Greg. No one here would think any less of you…”

“Count me in,” Davall replied harshly. He wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass him by. “There is one condition. The SS bastard, Stahl, I want him dead and screaming in Hell. I don’t care anymore about rules or something that will let the bastards in London allow him to get away with his crimes. I want him dead!”

In the distance, an owl hooted softly. Davall frowned at the reluctance in McAllister’s voice and understood, but he was beyond caring about anything, but revenge. “That won’t be easy. Greg, I’ll come with you, but he’s well protected.”

“Or so he thinks,” Davall said, hearing the noise of a fox moving through the undergrowth. The old thrill was gone, replaced now by a cold murderous desire… and an understanding of what it would take to get at his enemy and kill him. “Guess who he’s taken into his bed.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

South of Colchester, England

Alex DeRiemer watched Monty addressing a group of officers and stood back, as he reassured a pair of them and issued final orders to the others, remaining calm all the time. He didn’t understand how Monty could be so calm. After nearly a week of heavy preparation, the counter-attack was about to begin. Hundreds of tanks, thousands of guns, tens of thousands of soldiers… all emplaced and prepared for the greatest offensive the British Army had ever launched. Few of the lads had really expected to be fighting a war in their backyards, but they had responded splendidly. Montgomery was confident of victory. DeRiemer hoped he was right. The Germans might well have other surprises up their sleeves.

He rubbed the bruises on his arm. No one had expected Kim Philby, of all people, to be a German spy. If his experience had been like the other spies who had been rounded up and interrogated, Philby had believed he was spying for the Russians, something that bothered Churchill greatly. The Communists had a wide appeal that the Nazis lacked, and they might well have subverted others… and, if the Germans had understood that, they might have subverted hundreds who didn’t really know who they served.

MI5 had put together an entire series of teams working on the question of just how much Philby had told the Germans, but a person in his position could have told them almost anything from the files. Hollis, at least, had had the dignity to commit suicide once he’d figured out the truth. The others, most of whom had come from Cambridge, didn’t wanted to believe the truth. Churchill had cracked a joke about how Oxford boys were more loyal to the country, but the truth was that they no longer knew who to trust. The only advantage they had was that the Germans might not know that the remainder of the spy ring had been broken.

DeRiemer had urged Churchill, as strongly as he dared, to leave Skorzeny’s death a mystery. Churchill had turned it down; the chance to gloat on the BBC about how Skorzeny had been killed by an old man was too good to pass up, particularly with the reputation the Germans had created for their champion. He had done most of the things they said he had, but in the end, he’d taken it a step too far. Even DeRiemer hadn’t known that Churchill was armed. The Government of Britain would survive.

Monty strode over and clapped a hand on DeRiemer’s back. “Welcome back, hero. How’s the Prime Minister?”, needling DeRiemer just a little. Churchill’s praise of DeRiemer’s actions under fire had spread far and wide. DeRiemer didn’t want to admit that he barely remembered what had happened. As far as he was concerned, he had flunked his first trial under fire.

Churchill hadn’t accepted more than a quick check-up by the doctor. The Prime Minister had shrugged off Skorzeny’s death before returning to his office and cheerfully informing the nation — and the Germans — that the rumours of his death were gravely exaggerated.

“The Prime Minister is fine,” DeRiemer answered Monty, keeping a web of complex emotions off his face. “He wants a final progress report before the attack is launched. Do the Germans know that you’re coming?”

“I’d be surprised if they didn’t know,” Monty said grimly. “I’d like to hope that we obtained perfect surprise, but under the circumstances, I would be astonished if they didn’t have any idea that we were coming. We’ve been probing the German lines with infantry and commando forces of our own for the past week, but the Germans haven’t been probing us with anything like as much vigour, something that worried us and actually had us standing to attention in the face of a possible attack.”

DeRiemer lifted an eyebrow. “You expected an attack?”

“Any attacker needs to know the positions of the enemy and the lay of the land,” Monty said. “The German probing attacks before their massive assault against the Colchester Line were intended to scout out our locations and identify formations in their positions, but they reduced their operations for a few days before the operation began, in hopes of catching us off guard. If they were doing the same here…”

He shrugged and continued, “Be that as it may, we have all four forces in position and prepared for the offensive. Once I blow the whistle, everything we have will advance against the enemy, under cover of thousands of guns and as many aircraft as we can scrape together. One of the stay-behind units managed to put a German airfield out of action, hampering their attempts to resupply themselves from the air, so the Germans will have to send aircraft in from the continent. That gives us an advantage.

“At the same time, commando teams we have inserted behind enemy lines and the forces trapped in Colchester and the smaller towns will make their own attacks,” he concluded. “The Germans will have to respond to multiple threats at once, each one potentially lethal on its own, not unlike they did to us the night they landed. We’ll break their force, break them, and then race to Felixstowe.”

“I hope you’re right,” DeRiemer said slowly. “How long until the offensive?”

Monty checked his watch. “Two hours. Do you want to join me in the command vehicle?”

DeRiemer considered it. Truthfully, he would have preferred to return to London, but Churchill had wanted a personal report — had even seriously considered coming north himself to join Monty. It had taken the combined efforts of several people to talk him out of that, but DeRiemer still worried about it; Churchill, he was starting to suspect, didn’t want to live on past the end of the war. He’d been removed from office once, only to have to watch as the next government betrayed the country he had fought so hard to protect; he didn’t want to do that again. The world was changing and Churchill, the bulldog Prime Minister, was slowly growing out of place.

“I’ll remain with you for the moment,” DeRiemer said. He owed Churchill that much. “What happens if the assault fails?”

Monty looked disgustingly confident and said dryly, “It will be back to the drawing board. Don’t worry about it too much, Alex. This assault has everything going for it. If it fails, it will be through lack of determination on our part, and the men have all the determination that they could need. The German atrocities have ensured that for us.”

* * *

All along the line, British, American and Commonwealth soldiers waited impatiently. Huddled in bunkers, they nervously checked their weapons and wrote letters to loved ones. As they prepared for the big push, thousands of the men prayed that their faith in Monty was justified.

Some were filled with foreboding as they worried over their first combat action. Others relished the thought of finally going into battle and taking the offensive. These eager beavers had never experienced battle either. The combat vets took care of the details and didn’t think about the big picture or the future. It would come when it came, and not a moment before.

For the survivors of the Home Guard units, this was their chance for revenge. They had been born and bred in the occupied areas of the country, and the news about the German atrocities had shocked them deeply. Some of them were the only survivors of their towns and villages, others knew that their relatives and friends were in the hands of the Germans, and felt a cold determination to return and free their loved ones. After weeks of combat, the Home Guard was impossible to distinguish from a regular army unit, and their preparations mirrored the rest of the line as they readied themselves to face the heartbreaking scenes they were sure to face in the very near future. One way or another, they were going home.

Monty sat alone in his command vehicle. He had no one to turn to for reassurance. The loneliness of command gripped him firmly and refused to let go. He’d maintained a brave face in front of DeRiemer, but it hit him now that if he failed, the Germans might just have a chance to strike back and still win the Battle of Britain. He maintained a confident appearance… and he knew, now, that he wasn’t confident at all. He had issued all of the orders, made his plans and trusted in his subordinates to carry them out, but what if they failed?

Ten miles to the north, the German soldiers checked their own weapons and supplies, knowing that they were desperately short of both. They trusted Rommel, had more faith in him than they had in the Fuhrer, but they knew just how short the supplies actually were. They weren’t beaten, not yet, but the exhortations from Radio Berlin to stand and fight were more demoralising than looking up and seeing a wave of British tanks advancing towards their position.

Two miles to the south, the gunners prepared their weapons and checked their targeting coordinates. They had been ordered to plaster the German lines before the assault began and intended to hammer them into dust, but they had to be careful; in places, British and German forces were so close together that fratricide was almost bound to occur.

All along the line, they waited…

* * *

Colonel Harry Jackson braced himself as the guns fired in unison, a shattering roar that seemed to erupt from right behind him, sending shells arcing up, and down onto the German line. The blinding flashes and deafening explosions in the distance watered his eyes and rang in his ears as the shells detonated, hammering the Germans.

He winced as the first shells crashed down around his headquarters The Germans were shelling them in an attempt to break up their attack before it could be launched. The weight of German shells seemed lighter, somehow, than it had been before; the noise, too, somehow seemed less deafening. Jackson wondered in a moment of dark humour if the Germans had intended to deafen them all. The first taste of shellfire had been terrifyingly loud, but he’d grown used to it.

The first line of tanks rumbled forwards, their commanders watching carefully for any Germans trying to block their path, and Jackson waved to his men. They trusted him now and so they streamed out of the trenches, heading north as fast as they could move behind the tanks. It wasn’t quite certain where they would meet the Germans; their trenches were surrounding Colchester itself and spreading out in a barrier, but no one really controlled the no-man’s land between the two sides. The noise of the tanks was drowned out completely by the shells, still crashing down on the Germans, and Jackson hoped that that would give them the advantage of surprise.

His men kept their heads down as they advanced, following the tanks as they picked up speed, trying to punch into the German lines before the Germans knew that they were there. The streak of a German antitank rocket, coming from a position that might once have been a small hamlet before both sides had fought over it, knocked out one tank, but the remainder kept going and the infantry assaulted the German position, carefully avoiding the machine gun fire from the remains of a house.

“Two prisoners, sir,” Sergeant Wilt reported after taking the ambush position. Jackson nodded. “They’re both infantrymen. The others fought and died.”

“Send the prisoners back to the rear, alive,” Jackson ordered tightly. They didn’t have the manpower to guard them indefinitely, and the two men had to be protected as POWs. He wouldn’t have put it past some of the soldiers to kill them in revenge. “The remainder of us will continue to advance.”

The landscape was torn and cratered. The area had once been a small town, but the Germans had assaulted it during their massive offensive. The Royal Irish Guards who had guarded this town had been added to the lists of heroes of the war. As the tanks spread out, Jackson’s men assaulted the position, knowing that it was a linchpin of the German defences surrounding Colchester. The Germans wanted to keep the forces in Colchester trapped… and now, with the Germans being attacked from the south…

Jackson looked up as the sounds of shooting and explosions from the north redoubled. At a guess, the thousands of infantrymen who had been trapped in Colchester and were turning the city into an impregnable fortress had launched their offensive, stabbing a knife into the German back. The enemy would be wise to order their forces to fall back before they were burned between two fires, but they didn’t seem aware of their danger; they fought and held the remains of the town as tenaciously as Jackson himself had held a similar town.

Inch by bloody inch, the town was cleared of the Germans, leaving nothing behind. The armoured divisions moved on towards the German lines, but the main roads had been blocked and mined. He saw a tank skid to a halt as a mine detonated under its treads, ruining the track. The other tanks headed off the road, around the tank, and continued to advance. He keyed his radio and called in the result, expecting engineers to come forward while the infantry cleared the area of German forces and continued the advance on Colchester.

They advanced, slowly, towards Colchester. He could see the city in the distance, a place he had never visited before and knew almost nothing about save only for the fact that the Germans had surrounded it and the British defenders had refused to allow them to take the city. The fighting was still being waged in the distance, but for the moment, Jackson and his men were caught in a peaceful lull which faded as a German aircraft raced overhead, launching a series of rockets at an advancing British unit. Jackson picked himself off the ground and barked, ordering the men to advance again. They were on the verge of hitting the lines around Colchester and hammering the Germans right where it hurt. The fighting raged on as they encountered a German defence line, one very well dug in and prepared… and then it just broke.

Jackson blinked in confusion. “What the hell?”

Sergeant Wilt understood and said as a long flagpole was extended with a tattered and singed British flag hanging from the staff. “They just got hit from the rear. That’s a British officer.”

The man facing them as the soldiers approached, warily was definitely wearing a British uniform… and was surrounded by other British soldiers, who were securing the handful of German prisoners. The Germans looked battered and scared. Just for a moment, Jackson saw how young most of them were and almost felt sorry for them. Their crimes, however, demanded nothing but the most serious punishment. He watched dispassionately as they were marched away.

“Major Massingbird,” the newcomer said. Rather than saluting, he held out a hand. Jackson gripped it in surprise. “Colchester Home Guard. Welcome to Colchester.”

Jackson laughed out loud.

“Thank you,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to be here.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

Near Colchester, England

Despite himself, Oberst Frank-Michael Baeck was beginning to understand how the British must have felt back during the early days of the invasion. They hadn’t known just what was going on, they hadn’t realised where the real threat lay… and because of that, they hadn’t been able to shove the Germans back into the sea before it was far too late.

Now, there were four major assaults going on, two from the south and two from the west, backed up by a massive aerial offensive and an insurgency campaign behind the lines. The Germans had thought that their rear was fairly secure but the British were showing them just how inadequate their imagination was and it wouldn’t be long before Colchester’s besiegers were completely annihilated or captured.

And Rommel was standing there, thinking. Baeck wanted to scream at him, in the desperate hope that Rommel’s genius could get them back out of their hole and back to a position of mastery. The British insurgents hadn’t managed to cut all of the telephone lines to the HQ, either the ones they’d commandeered or the new ones they’d laid to improve their secure communications, and reports kept coming in but Rommel did nothing.

“Field Marshal,” Baeck said finally. “What are your orders?”

Rommel’s eyes were elsewhere. Perhaps he was contemplating the complete collapse of his career along with the lodgement. The forces out along the defence line were hopelessly small for the task of blocking every British attack. “They promised that we would have all the resupply…”

His head snapped up suddenly. “I want you to order a general retreat from the Colchester Line and the other outer defence lines,” he ordered. “We’ll fall back on Ipswich and use the defences there to buy time.”

Baeck didn’t want to say it, but there was no choice. Falling back on Ipswich would allow the Wehrmacht to create a smaller defensive line that could be more easily defended once they concentrated their forces.

More reports came in. British aircraft had broken through the Luftwaffe’s perimeter and had strafed a company of German soldiers on the ground. “We cannot leave our forces strung out to be destroyed piecemeal. Order Das Reich to move forward and cover the withdrawal back to Ipswich. That British assault force is likely to be the most important to foil.”

Baeck nodded and said, “Jawohl, I shall issue the orders at once.”

In the distance, the noise of shellfire grew louder. “Field Marshal, should we not prepare our own retreat to Ipswich?”

“I suppose,” Rommel said, his mind clearly heading elsewhere. “Send everyone who isn’t essential to Ipswich now, and we’ll follow them if the British bring this place under direct threat.”

* * *

Obergruppenführer Dolphus Taenberger cursed as he finally received his orders. It had taken nearly a fortnight to reorganise Das Reich into something the Waffen-SS could be proud of and now he was being ordered to stand his ground and prevent the British from sealing up a neat little trap for the German forces. He’d listened to the reports and read between the line. The British had punched a massive hole in the German defence line and were well on their way to encircling the German forces before they could escape. Whatever shine Rommel tried to put on it, it was defeat, and the best Das Reich could do was prevent the retreat from turning into a complete rout.

“Advance,” he barked, and the massive force rumbled into motion. Das Reich, like all of the redesigned Waffen-SS forces, was almost a small army in its own right. It was a combination of an oversized Panzer Division, an infantry division and a small artillery section. They were supposed to have the best equipment and its own private air force, but with the war situation having taken such a turn, they were forced to improvise more than Taenberger would have liked.

They were already weaker than he cared to be, and some of his men hadn’t trained with the remainder of Das Reich in fact, were little more than glorified thugs and bullyboys. They might have worn the same uniform as Taenberger himself, but they would never have qualified for the Waffen-SS. Their only reason for existing was to keep subject populations down. The only men lower than them were the extermination squads.

He raised his binoculars as he peered into the distance. The British assault was fading, judging from the declining number of explosions in the distance, but he was experienced enough to know what that meant. The British advancing forces were so close to the German forces that the British guns were holding their fire, in fear of accidentally slaughtering their own forces. The British may have beaten 7th Panzer, but Das Reich was a whole different kettle of fish.

A red-hot pain tore through his shoulder, and he gasped in pain, just as the infantry unleashed a hail of shots into a small tree. An Englishman tumbled out of the tree, breaking his neck as he hit the ground. The infantry dismounted and attacked, discovering several more armed British civilians trying to hide. Taenberger allowed one of the medical corps-men to bandage his wound, commenting on how the Gruppenfuhrer should go to the rear with such a wound, but he glared the corps-man into silence. There were tales of SS men who had fought on despite the most punishing wounds, and he wasn’t going to leave his men just because he’d been shot.

The infantry held up the British civilians for his attention. Taenberger dismissed any thought of them being a stay-behind unit at once; their tactical thinking had been appalling. They should have been able to kill him from a much longer range with that weapon; the Waffen-SS didn’t think highly of many British weapons, but the Haig Sniper Rifle was definitely respected. There were four of them in all, three of them young men and one young women, all trembling in fear.

Taenberger didn’t bother to mince words. “Where do you come from?”

“Down there,” one of the men said, trying to put a protective arm around the girl. His captor smacked him on the head; Taenberger nodded in approval. Judging from their appearance, they were brother and sister, rather than lovers. “Sir, I…”

“Shut up,” Taenberger commanded. He glanced around at the tree. “Hang them, quickly.”

He ignored their pleading screams, as the infantry strung them up quickly and efficiently. The pain in his shoulder was making it hard for him to think straight. The SS rules of engagement were very clear. A village that harboured insurgents was to be destroyed to discourage the others. Rommel wouldn’t be happy, but judging by the progress of the war, Rommel would likely be removed from command soon. He summoned his orderly, ordered a map, and examined it quickly. they should just have enough time.

Das Reich left the four bodies dangling in the breeze and advanced against the town. The civilian population was trying to keep their heads down, but it didn’t save them, not when the infantrymen broke into houses and arrested everyone over the age of ten. There was some desperate fighting, but without any real weapons, it could only have one outcome. Das Reich had carried out similar tactics in Russia; by now, despite the Aryan appearance of the villagers, they were hardened to their task.

“Burn them,” Taenberger ordered, as his men finished herding the adults into the church. The flame-thrower unit set the church ablaze as Taenberger remembered mocking the assignment. Now, he had a lopsided grin on his face as the church became an inferno. The SS had destroyed churches in Russia and it pleased Taenberger to watch as the small building burned, taking its entire congregation with it. The flames would probably spread further, perhaps burning down the village and the children, but Taenberger no longer cared. The pain in his shoulder was throbbing.

He barked orders and Das Reich commenced moving again, spreading out and trying to avoid possible mines. They encountered soldiers and almost opened fire before they realised that they were Germans, fleeing the battlefield, heading back to the lines around Ipswich. Taenberger felt growing rage and hatred in his breast, seriously considering just opening fire and ridding the Reich of such weak stock, but that would just be wasteful. The handful of vehicles that passed Das Reich were commandeered and added to the defence line; the remaining soldiers were allowed to pass unless they wanted to stay. It wouldn’t be long before the British forces arrived… and by then, Taenberger wanted to be ready. He would have preferred to advance, but conserving resources was the order of the day…

Behind them, the church collapsed in on itself in a fiery geyser of destruction.

* * *

Flying Officer Bentley saw the tanks on the ground as his Tempest headed north and took a moment to identify them as British. He waggled his wings as he flew onwards. It always made the tankers happy to know that they had air support, particularly since the Germans had introduced the world to the concept of aircraft serving as tank-busters. The soldiers on the ground could take heart in knowing that he was going to deal out some of the same hell to their enemies as their enemies had been dealing out to them.

The scene below was completely chaotic. The Germans appeared to be in headlong retreat towards Ipswich, but how long would it be before they regrouped and counter-attacked? The Germans were masters at counter-attacking against enemy forces that punched too far forward , but Monty was careful to ensure that his rear area was secure before pushing forward. His forces would also have to take care when advancing. The Germans would have pulled out all the stops to try and delay them, including mines and an entire series of ingenious booby traps. Bentley peered down at the ground, taking care to avoid any German aircraft that might be prowling around, when he saw the smoke plume rising up into the sky.

Odd, he thought. The flames were rising up from a village, one that seemed to be deserted. The fires were spreading out of control and, judging from some of the marks surrounding the village, the Germans had passed through recently.

He ground his teeth as he followed the tracks, finally locating the German force, digging into a perfect blocking position, one that would allow them to hold up the advancing 2nd Armoured Division for hours. He keyed his radio and made a call, sending an update to the gunners which would be moving forward with the other elements of the army, before selecting his rocket pods and racing down to hit the Germans before they could react. They knew he was in the area. He raced towards them, taking aim, and launched the first spread of rockets as he passed over the Panzers. The first rocket blew apart a Panzer as he raced overhead, the others scored their own hits and then he was up again, racing to avoid the handful of shots from the anti-aircraft gunners.

Take that, he thought, as the Tempest clawed for air. He’d made a Zone Call, summoning every gun within range to devote all of its fire to hammering the German position, and as he watched, the first shells began landing around the German force. The advancing British infantry and tanks would have a much easier time of it. Bentley smiled to himself and checked his weapons before flipping the Tempest around and searching for new targets. There would be hundreds more out there needing his attention.

* * *

The German position held out for nearly an hour before the combination of shellfire and the advancing infantry finally cleared them out. Jackson watched from his vantage point as Sergeant Wilt led the offensive right into the heart of the German position, either securing or finishing off injured Germans. Jackson followed him as soon as most of the Germans had been removed. The Germans had been planning a real surprise, with several dozen Panzers and various other vehicles in position to launch an ambush, but that hope had come to an end with their discovery and the massive bombardment called in on their heads.

Serves you right, Jackson thought, as he peered down at one of the bodies. There was no mistaking the black uniform and silver insignia that each man wore; the lightning bolts and sideways ‘Z’ were very familiar. The officer he was looking at had a bandage on his shoulder and an explosion had taken off a good part of his face. From the rank insignia, Jackson was sure this was his opposite number. This man had clearly been in command of the SS force

Jackson could speak and read German — it was a requirement these days for any senior army post — and the Germans looked to have been Das Reich. They had a bad reputation from the Russian front as being as fanatical and unpleasant as any other German unit, matched only by the awed respect some of the survivors had exhibited when they had talked about its sheer prowess at fighting. If they had remained unnoticed long enough for the British forces to stick their head into the noose, who knew what would have happened?

“Move the prisoners to the rear and let’s move on,” Jackson said. Monty’s follow-up units would be clearing out the remaining Germans as they advanced towards Ipswich, but organised German activity now was limited. A series of brutal and local counter-attacks had exploded in the British face, some of them throwing back oncoming British troops for hours.

He paused to watch as a line of tanks rumbled past, some of their crewmen waving to the infantry as they paused to catch their breath and have a cigarette. The tankers looked as battered as everyone else, but just being on the offensive was enough of a thrill to keep them going, far from the dark days when they had fallen back and fallen back again. Jackson knew that the war wouldn’t end when Felixstowe was liberated, but perhaps the Germans would see reason and not continue the war, or maybe even overthrow Hitler and…

It was an hour later when they discovered the village.

It hadn’t been on the list of primary locations to secure, it was something for them to do while Monty consolidated his gains and prepared for the final advance. Jackson and his tired infantrymen had walked along the road, noticing that the SS Panzer Division had come down it from all the damage its passage had done to the road, and finally reached the burning village. The flames were dying down now. The church was barely recognisable as such, but the remains of scores of bodies were easy to recognise, as were the handful of surviving children in the village. The Germans had just left them there to die.

He heard the noise of some of his soldiers being sick and cursed the Germans under his breath. They had thought they understood war and the effects of war.

Jackson stared into the distance, towards Ipswich, and vowed revenge.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Felixstowe, England

The small body of SS men looked nervous as they walked down the road. Their swagger, their normal ‘we’re the masters around here and don’t even think of questioning us’ attitude, their confidence in themselves… all of it was gone. They were armed with weapons that the British civilians didn’t have — hell, most of the British civilians didn’t have any weapons at all — but somehow they looked as if they expected to be kicked at any moment. Their leader, a fish-faced man holding his rifle in a white-knuckled grip, was a known rapist. He’d raped a girl last night, only to be arrested by the police and released instantly. The policemen had all been taken into one of the German detention camps the same night, just in case. The Germans were losing their grip over the country.

Gregory Davall observed the Germans with the hungry gaze of a predator as they marched closer. He’d seen more Germans than he ever wanted to in his life, but this group was the worst; they marched as if they thought someone was going to draw a gun and start shooting at them. The remaining SS security forces had given up trying to control entire sections of the town. They were trying to conserve their forces… and, if what the Grey Wolves had heard was true, half of them had even been sent to the front. If they were all like the sorry specimens approaching them, the British Army would be at Felixstowe within the hour… but somehow he doubted it. They could hear the sound of guns in the distance, but there was no sign of liberation, not yet.

“Now,” he ordered, and Lucy slipped out of the house. Lucy was the wife of one of the Grey Wolves, a blonde girl who could easily have passed for the German bitch who had registered Davall and Katy, so long ago. He watched as Lucy slipped up to the Germans and told them, tearfully, that there was a group of unarmed men in the house plotting insurrection and would they please come take them away before they got her and her family killed? Davall had feared that the Germans would do the smart thing and call for reinforcements before they came crashing in, but instead they ran up to the door, weapons extended, and charged into the house. They ran into the kitchen, and the Grey Wolves surrounded them, weapons pointing directly at their chests.

“You have a choice,” Davall said in perfect German. He’d been practising for his role. “If you surrender now, your lives will be spared, and you will be shipped back to the continent as soon as possible. If you fight, you will die here with the others.”

The German leader, sweating, let go of his weapon. The others followed suit a moment later. Lucy slipped back indoors and looked down at them for a moment before heading up to her bedroom. She wasn’t going to be involved any longer. If the Germans managed to hold onto Felixstowe, she would have to go into hiding, but Davall intended to ensure that the German grip on the town fell apart completely.

“Strip,” he ordered, once the Germans had been searched for hidden surprises. They had been carrying a surprising number of weapons on their uniforms, from ceremonial knifes to smaller knifes and even a few grenades, all of which the Grey Wolves added to their collection. The Germans, stripped down to their underwear, were rapidly handcuffed, gagged, and urged down the steps into the basement where they were chained to the wall. Davall suspected that they might manage to escape eventually — it was a lot harder to gag someone effectively than it was in the American cowboy films — but by then, one way or the other, it would all be settled. “Remain here, and you will not be harmed.”

The German uniforms didn’t fit perfectly, but they could all pass reasonably well, provided that they didn’t have to talk to the enemy for long. Three of the Grey Wolves spoke perfect German, but their accents wouldn’t be perfect. The only way they would succeed in infiltrating the HQ would be through surprise and speed. They checked the weapons, noticing how few rounds each German carried, and marched out of the house. Davall forced his face to remain blank as he caught the eye of some of the townspeople. They didn’t see him, but only the SS man, wearing the hated uniform. He might be killed by one of his own people.

The Germans buzzed around like a hornet’s nest. Davall saw dozens of SS officers running backwards and forwards, some of them seemingly without any clear idea of what they were doing, while still others were heading out on commandeered vehicles. The SS vehicles they’d seen back at the start of the invasion were gone, replaced now by British vehicles, none of which had really been designed for security purposes. They approached the barracks gate expecting to be challenged at any moment, but instead the guards let them in and waved them towards an officer. Davall guessed that the officer wanted a report of what was happening on the streets, but they didn’t dare try to fool him. The officer could quite possibly know all of his men by sight. The Germans might have looked alike in the black uniforms and coal-scuttle helmets to the watching British, as if someone had hewn them out of cold clay, but the Germans could probably tell the difference between them. Davall led his men towards the main entrance to the barracks, just as a crowd of men burst out, heading towards the exit and out onto the streets. There would never be a better opportunity…

Davall lifted his German-made assault rifle and opened fire. The others followed suit. Caught by surprise, the Germans were hacked down quickly and efficiently. The guards at the gate, expecting a British raid from the outside, turned too late. Two of Davall’s men gunned them down before running to the gates and closing them completely. The Germans on the outside would know that something had gone badly wrong, but it would take them time to realise what had happened and by then, Davall hoped to have completed their task and vanished into the side streets.

“Move,” he ordered as he gunned down a German officer. They left bloody foot prints on the pavement, with dead or wounded Germans everywhere, but there was no time to finish off the wounded. The Germans on the inside should know that they were under attack and couldn’t be allowed to regroup, or the attack would fail before it had even begun. He unhooked a fragmentation grenade from his belt and tossed it into the lobby, before following in and shooting down a pair of German clerks who had been sheltered by their desks. The files that had recorded every detail of every person who lived in Felixstowe were caught and slowly burned to ash. Davall laughed aloud as he threw more grenades into the barracks, hearing the screams of Germans who were caught by surprise before they even had a chance to react and escape, let alone counter-attack

Their target would be on the second floor. He led the way up the stairs as quickly as possible. It would be just like the Standartenfuhrer to manage a quick escape and leave his men in the lurch. He had to be found before that happened.

* * *

Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl had lost control and knew it. The British offensive had been augmented by an entire series of insurgent attacks, and he’d given up ordering reprisals because he no longer had the men to do it. Rommel’s demands for men had weakened him to the point where he was trying to control a vast area with only a few hundred men. Although he hated to admit it, he had lost his grip over almost all of the countryside. The only place that was reasonably ruled was Ipswich and that, he knew, was because there were thousands of German soldiers in the city. It was all he could do to hold on to the vital targets and keep the roads to the port open… not that it mattered any more The supply ships had been held back as the naval war raged, by the time a winner emerged, Stahl was starting to suspect that it would be too late for the lodgement.

He glared across at the French whore on his bed. She was holding one of her hands to her jaw where he had punched her in a fit of anger. She hadn’t deserved his rage, but the cold knowledge that he was losing control of everything and that his career was in flaming ruins had driven him into a frenzy. What could he do to reverse the trend? He couldn’t think of anything, short of mass slaughter, and he didn’t even have the manpower to do that; the most he could do was kill everyone in the detention camps… and violate Rommel’s orders in the process. The SS would get the blame for the loss of the lodgement, and Himmler would be furious. Stahl had considered trying to find a way back to Germany, but without a major wound, that was impossible. The transport aircraft were reserved for wounded men and officers.

“Damn you,” he said, wondering if there was any way to convince Rommel to return his men. Without them, it wouldn’t be long before he lost control over the vital areas as well, and then the failure would be impossible to reverse. “I need the…”

The shooting broke out, so close to Stahl’s hearing that he almost fainted, and he snatched his personal weapon out of his belt. It sounded as if the British were attacking his barracks… and, oddly enough, it made him smile. Everything had just boiled down to the simple matter of staying alive, rather than trying to control and contain an impossible situation. He laughed and turned to the French whore, hoping to share his new understanding, only to see her flying at him, knife in hand. Sheer surprise kept him motionless for a long chilling moment… and then Janine buried her knife in his throat, sending him falling to the ground and into darkness. He was barely aware of her final kick to his groin before he died.

* * *

“Janine,” Davall cried as they broke into the office. Janine was standing over a very familiar SS officer, clothed in an oversized shirt that would have been white except for the blood covering her. She pulled her knife out of the monster’s throat. Davall felt conflicted. He had wanted to break him with his own hands, but he was also relieved that Janine was safe. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been better,” Janine said, managing a weak smile. Davall’s eyes tracked the bruises on her body and lifted a questioning eyebrow. Her voice hardened into a steely tone. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I see,” Davall said. Whatever Janine had gone though in her final days as a whore, it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. Davall didn’t want to think about what her captor might have done to her. “We have to get out of here!”

Janine picked up a robe, covered herself more appropriately, and followed Davall and his men into the next room. A handful of blonde typists sat there crying. Davall allowed himself a moment of disgust as he saw how the women trembled while Janine had killed her tormentor. He saw the blonde woman who had taken down their details, long ago, and shot her through the head, leaving the others to remain behind in the burning barracks. The Germans would be trying to organise a counter-attack, but as long as they didn’t know what was happening for certain, there was still a chance to escape.

He caught Janine’s eye and winked at her. One way or another, the Reich’s occupation of Felixstowe would never recover from what they’d done and maybe they would be able to escape completely before it was too late. They ran down the stairs, hearing shooting and explosions from all over the town, and escaped out the back gates as the Germans attacked the front, trying to recapture the barracks.

“Run,” he ordered shortly and caught Janine’s hand. It would be unsafe in the extreme to be caught out in the open in German uniforms; they’d have both sides out for their blood. “Keep running and don’t look back!”

* * *

It wasn’t, as Monty acknowledged privately, the most organised assault the British Army had ever mounted, but once they punched through the Colchester Line, the British Army regrouped and pushed on northwards towards the Ipswich Line. The Germans were on the retreat, hounded and harried by the British as they thrust forward to trap and destroy any stragglers. As they broke though the defences, the opposition tailed off. British tanks raced to the north, rumbling through towns and villages with bemused inhabitants holding out flowers and British flags for their liberators, trying to thrust as far north as possible before the Germans could regroup. In the wake of the armour, the infantry advanced, securing vital locations, clearing minefields. Along the way they were meeting up with insurgents and commandos for the final stage of the battle.

In his headquarters, Monty watched as the German lines formed around Ipswich and braced himself for the result of the final confrontation. He had learned his art in the desert, and then through endless exercises with his forces, but now he knew the cost of the coming offensive. If he won the battle, he would win the campaign, but the cost would be horrific. He’d stopped answering Churchill’s calls. Like him, all the Prime Minister could do now was wait.

* * *

The radio from Berlin cut in and out, but the gist of the message was clear. No German Field Marshal had ever surrendered before, and Rommel was absolutely forbidden to be the first. Hitler had spoken on Radio Berlin himself, warning the Reich of hard days of struggle ahead and inviting the people of Germany to join him in believing that the legendary Rommel could draw victory from the very jaws of defeat. Baeck watched Rommel, knowing as much as Rommel himself about their position, and saw no way out of the trap.

“No German Field Marshal has ever surrendered,” Rommel said slowly. His eyes looked down at the map, perhaps matching it to his memories of the combat zone and seeing only darkness. He understood what the situation meant. “No German Field Marshal has ever surrendered.”

“No,” Baeck agreed morosely. He was tempted to make a remark about there always being a first time, but there was little point; he needed, the Reich needed, Rommel to be thinking properly. “Is there any way that we can create a victory?”

Rommel shook his head slowly.

“The British are preparing to cut off Ipswich and advance on the port,” he said. “Once that happens, our defeat will become inevitable.”

His lips twitched humourlessly. “There’s little point in continuing the struggle.”

Even though Baeck had known that it was inevitable, he was still shocked to hear Rommel advocating surrender. It wasn’t in his legend. The man who had danced backwards and forwards in North Africa on a shoestring wouldn’t have surrendered.

He groped for words. “Is there truly no hope?”

Rommel nodded.

“Hans, contact the British commander and inform him that I would like to discuss an armistice,” he said. “Johan, inform the Reich that I am surrendering and accept no further calls from Berlin.

Then pass the orders to the defenders on the line and Felixstowe. They are to surrender, hand over their weapons, and comport themselves with the dignity required of German officers and men.”

He pronounced doom in a soft, almost heartbreaking voice. “The Invasion of Britain is at an end.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Felixstowe, England

The British Army entered Felixstowe as the sun slowly set in the sky.

Colonel Harry Jackson looked upon the town he’d known and served in — although he hadn’t liked it much — and felt like crying. Seeing the results of the final struggle for control, a struggle only ended by Rommel’s surrender, almost broke his heart. Buildings had been destroyed, the main street was pockmarked by bullets, and a handful of the town’s notables were hanging from trees, hung by either the Germans or the resistance fighters. It looked as if the Germans would get the blame, but he had his doubts.

The Germans had retreated or surrendered. Some had boarded the final ships and set off across the Channel, trying to escape the vengeance of the British, while others had scattered into the surrounding area, trying to escape and become guerrillas. They would all be rounded up, sooner or later, but until then Felixstowe would remain a dangerous area. Some of them, he suspected, would still be in touch with Berlin and remain underground until the war finally came to an end. Mere hours after Rommel’s surrender had been broadcast, a flight of German bombers had hammered London with impunity, a reminder that the Reich was still across the Channel and the lives of British citizens would be blighted by the threat of war. The Germans, deprived of most of their fleet, would be unable to mount a second invasion in a hurry, but somehow he was sure that they would find other ways to continue the war. They might expand the submarine campaign.

He shook his head. That was well above his pay grade. “Sergeant,” he said as the marching soldiers finally fell out of line. The citizens were happy to see them. Jackson had seen several soldiers kissed by girls and had turned a blind eye for once. They all deserved a treat after so long. “Fall out all the men who have family in the area and inform them that they have five hours of leave to visit them and discover how they are.”

“Yes, sir,” Wilt said, and busied himself issuing orders. “And yourself, sir?”

“Company A, follow me,” Jackson said. Company A was composed largely of regular army soldiers from Newcastle. Instead of visiting relatives, they had less pleasant task to perform. “Keep the remainder of the soldiers on a loose leash at the barracks.”

Wilt winked in understanding. “Yes, sir,” he said. The soldiers could have their celebrations at the barracks and the areas surrounding the barracks, which happened to include several pubs. “A very loose leash indeed.”

Jackson led the company of men over to the village green, composing himself as best as he could; this wasn’t going to be easy. The men sitting on the green, their hands laced together on their heads, looked as if they’d been abused; it would be difficult, if not impossible, to sort out who had taken legitimate injuries from the fighting from those who had actually been abused by their captors, assuming that anyone cared to try. Jackson wasn’t sure if he wanted to try, not after seeing the damage and the signs of Das Reich’s passing, but maybe he would have no choice. No one was certain how scrupulously the Germans had adhered to the rules of war, at least in relating to British soldiers, and it would be a mistake to give them an excuse to start abusing the British prisoners.

He saw the man in charge and waved to him. The insurgent looked like a bandit, but he was grinning from ear to ear.

“We rounded up these pigs for you,” he said, cheerfully. Jackson stared at him, finally recognising him as one of the local bartenders. He’d owned the Dangling Prussian. “Do you want to hang them over there or shoot them all dead?”

“I am taking them into my custody,” Jackson said flatly. There was little point in arguing, especially because part of him shared the desire to just exterminate the Germans and be done with it. “How many others are there in the area?”

The bartender shrugged. He waved a hand at a sobbing girl, her hair shaved off and her dress torn and ripped, pulled tight around her to hide as much as possible. “You might as well have her too. She slept with the Germans and lorded it over everyone else.”

“Thank you,” Jackson said tightly. He had orders to prevent any kind of revenge attacks until the government sorted out who was actually to blame and who had been placed in a position where they had no choice but to collaborate. “If there are any other collaborators around, you are to place them into my custody as well.”

The innkeeper stared at him. “But sir…”

“Don’t argue,” Jackson stated grimly, seeing the face of post-war Britain in his mind’s eye. It wasn’t going to be a pleasant place to live. “I want you to see to it personally, and not a one of them is to be harmed until they have a fair trial, understand?”

The innkeeper shuffled off, and Jackson devoted himself and his soldiers to securing and counting the prisoners before herding them out of town towards one of their former detention camps. The innkeeper and his men returned with some unwilling captives, mainly young women, although he had clearly taken Jackson’s words to heart. Only one of them had had her head shaved.

Jackson shook his head slowly. The invasion might have been defeated, but the scars would remain for a very long time. Families would be torn apart, communities would wage war on one another, feuds would be nurtured for years to come. Was such a country really worth fighting for? He imagined their possible future and saw nothing, but darkness.

* * *

Although there had been hundreds of acts of resistance in the final few days of the German offensive, it still surprised Gregory Davall to see how many people had come out of the woodwork claiming to have been insurgents all along. Janine — her role unknown to all but the Grey Wolves — had narrowly escaped having her hair shaved off, and since then, an armed Grey Wolf had remained with her at all times. Davall wouldn’t hesitate to shoot one of his former townspeople. Their gratitude was severely lacking, even though he had lost his wife as well.

“She was a magnificent woman,” he said to Janine as they stood together in front of the mass grave. The Germans had dumped all the bodies into the same grave. The townspeople were promised that the grave would be dug up and the civilians buried in a proper grave, but Davall wasn’t too keen on the idea. Kate would never have forgiven him for allowing her body to be disturbed after she was buried. “She deserved better.”

“I know,” Janine said. Her scars hadn’t healed much in the time between Stahl’s death and the liberation of Felixstowe, but dressed properly for once, it was much harder to tell that she had been hurt. Her appearance always made Davall smile. He’d seen her without clothes, in circumstances that should have embarrassed both of them, but now she looked more attractive than undressed. “What are you going to do now?”

Davall smiled sadly. “I’m not going to stay here,” he said after a long moment. “There are too many people who blame me, us, for the deaths of their wives, and they will be taking it out on us after a few days. I can’t gainsay them. Perhaps, if I had surrendered, it would have been easier for us.”

His voice broke off.

“I’m going to take James and go north,” he said after a moment. He didn’t miss the brief expression on her face. “Do you want to come with me?”

Janine reached out and gave him a hug.

“There’s nothing for me here either,” she said. “If you’ll allow me to come with you, then I will be happy to follow you anywhere.”

Davall kissed her and led her back towards the village green. Churchill was supposed to speak to the townspeople. He was the first of an endless stream of government ministers who would be coming to tell them how sorry they were that the townspeople had been put through hell and that it wouldn’t happen again. Particularly if the townspeople voted them in again. Davall suspected that there would be a few changes to the country in the next few years. There were hundreds of thousands of people with guns now, and the determination to use them. The next trade union dispute might get very interesting.

“Or maybe I’ll go into politics,” Davall mused as they reached the village green. The MP for the area had been in London during the occupation and had been strongly condemned for remaining there, rather than sharing the trials and tribulations of his people. Davall’s fighting credentials were first-rate. “What do you think of that?”

Janine considered it.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “What’s wrong with earning an honest living?”

* * *

Winston Churchill insisted on visiting the liberated area as quickly as possible, despite the unified opposition of Monty, Alexander and Alex DeRiemer himself. A company of soldiers had been devoted to his protection as he was driven along battered roads, passing British soldiers mopping up after the fighting had died down. They finally drove into Felixstowe as darkness fell. The streets were still brightly lit. A street party was going on that rivalled anything that DeRiemer had seen since the end of the last war, but then that had been a messy and inconclusive ending to the fighting. The British Empire might not have defeated the Nazi beast and killed it in its lair, but it was a clear and very conclusive victory. The invasion of Britain was over.

DeRiemer smiled as he took in the crowds. It was a strange mixture, from British servicemen to other Commonwealth soldiers, Canadians, Australians, Indians… all blending together into one strange mass. Three different bands were playing three different tunes, all trying to drown each other out and drag as many dancers as possible into the dance, while the inns had thrown themselves open and were pouring free beer into the hands of anyone who cared to take it. The soldiers, at least, were fairly disciplined. The townspeople, liberated from the Nazi shackles, danced and sang as if there were no tomorrow.

Churchill loved it. He was down off his stand and mixing with the crowd before DeRiemer, or any of his bodyguards, knew what was happening. Everyone wanted to shake his hand, to assure him that they wanted no one else as Prime Minister or to encourage him to join in the dance despite his advanced age. It was growing darker and darker, but the lights kept the town awake despite the blackout order. DeRiemer silently prayed that the Germans wouldn’t launch a spiteful attack on Felixstowe, just to pay off some of their hard feelings. He wouldn’t have put it past them.

“This is impressive,” Truman said from his position in the car. The American Ambassador had insisted on coming as well, and Churchill hadn’t forbidden it. Indeed, Churchill had been delighted to have a chance to show his friend what free people could do. The war was far from over, after all, and American help would still be vital in winning the next round. “There will be celebrations in America as well.”

“This was a battle,” DeRiemer said tersely. He thought cold thoughts about Project Omega and wondered grimly if the Germans had such a project. The Americans had been tight-lipped about their own progress. Who knew where they stood with such weapons? “We have not yet won the war.”

Churchill finally mounted the stand, and something reassembling quiet fell. “We have won a great victory,” he said, his voice echoing out over the village green. “We have defeated a German army on our own soil through the courage of our fighting men and the determination of our population to never bow the knee to Adolph Hitler and his Huns! We have fought and won the first of many battles of this war.”

His voice grew in intensity.

“This is not the beginning of the end,” he said grimly. “There will be much more blood, toil, tears and sweat ahead, with reverses that will challenge our faith in ourselves and victories that will make this one look small. This is, rather, the end of the beginning; we took on a surprise attack and defeated it, proving to Hitler and his men that we cannot ever be beaten! In their newly-built cities, they tremble now, tremble at the thought of their empire coming to an end as we prove to the world that they can be beaten. We have much to be proud of, in our way, but most of all we should be proud of the lesson we have shown the world… that the Nazis can be beaten!

“Across Europe, in France, in Norway, in Denmark, in Russia… they know, now, that the Germans were beaten,” he proclaimed. “Hitler’s Knights of the Iron Cross… beaten. General Rommel, the man who never lost a battle, lost one today. In countless hearts, a new hope of freedom burns now, with the fuel that you have provided them. They now think of freedom as a goal, something they can reach, and we will be there for them. This war will not end until we have marched into Berlin and burned the core of Hitler’s evil regime out of existence, but today, we have proven that it can be done.”

He lifted one hand in a gesture. “Tremble, Hitler, in your lair. Tremble, Himmler; tremble Speer, Goring and so many others, all men of hatred and evil,” he said. “Tremble, for the world now knows that you can be beaten… and you will be beaten. There is no place where you can hide, nowhere where you will be safe from us, if it takes us a hundred years. We are coming for you!”

The crowd went wild. If Churchill had meant to say something else, it was completely drowned out by the cheering and then by singing. DeRiemer felt a tear in his eye as the song rose in intensity, the first time that God Save The King had been sung in Felixstowe for months. Tomorrow, the citizens of Felixstowe would discover that Free Britain wasn’t an easy place to live, with rationing and economic problems, but for tonight, they could dance and sing.

Churchill stepped down and the three men stood together for a long moment, watching the celebrations DeRiemer looked up at Churchill, seeing the famous cigar moving in the air as Churchill’s face seemed to lock permanently into a mischievous smile, almost like a little boy contemplating a prank. Churchill’s sense of humour was a little odd, but DeRiemer wondered, just for a moment, what he was thinking. Taking his courage into his hands, he asked as much…

“Hitler,” Churchill said, a wry smile covering his face. “I was just wishing that I could see Hitler’s face when he hears the news.”

DeRiemer nodded in understanding. The two men had been enemies for so long that they defined their respective sides. They were both warlords, both very aware of their limited time on the Earth, and both a mixture of brilliance and stubbornness. And they loathed one another; if the source in Berlin was to be believed, Hitler had been furious to learn that Churchill had escaped death twice. Churchill had tried to have Hitler killed, but by the time he had signed off on Hitler’s death, it had been too late. Hitler had never been in any real danger.

Churchill’s smile grew broader.

“I suspect that the person who told him is dead by now,” he said after a long moment. “Hitler was never good at dealing with bad news.”

Together, they watched until the bonfire finally burned itself out, and then headed back to London. There was work to be done.

Epilogue

Berlin, Germany

The face of Adolph Hitler was frozen in a mask of pain.

He’d been raving at the unfortunate officer who brought him the story, screaming at him that Rommel would never surrender, would sooner die than surrender, and then he’d just stopped. Before Himmler could summon medical aid for the Fuhrer or clear the room, Hitler had fallen backwards with a strangled cry and collapsed on the floor. The SS doctor had pronounced it a massive stroke, and confirmed that it had not been an assassination attempt. The very relieved officer had been allowed to depart. Within minutes, the others in the room had departed as well. Kesselring and Speer, Himmler knew, would be preparing their own plans. When they met again, they would be competing for the throne.

Himmler left the doctor to move Hitler to somewhere where he could lie in state, although that might not be such a good idea if the doctor couldn’t alter his face. The building was already aware of what had happened, and word would have spread across the Reich by now; it would complicate an already-complex situation still further. There would be little room for a private strike for the throne, not with the eyes of everyone who mattered in Germany watching them. It would have to be a triumvirate, of course. The pressures of the war would demand no less; there was no room for a power struggle when Germany was fighting for its life.

He prided himself on his ability to think rationally under almost all circumstances, and even the defeat and Rommel’s surrender didn’t faze him. If nothing else, it was something that could be used to force some of Hitler’s other favourites out and it hardly meant the end of the war. The Kriegsmarine had taken a beating, the Luftwaffe had taken a beating but while the Reich’s ability to invade Britain had been wiped out, the British could hardly launch an invasion of the continent. The Americans had moved to support their British cousins, but that too only opened up new fields for the Reich. It was time to put Italy and Iran firmly in their place, either as subordinates to Germany or as more occupied states. Hitler’s affection for Mussolini and the Shah had kept them in power way past their usefulness. Now, without the Fuhrer, they could be brought to heel. Himmler suspected that they would see reason.

He had a trump card. The file sat in the SS castle, a file regarding science that Hitler himself had banned, because it had the taint of Jewish science around it. Himmler had no such prejudices, no real belief in the inherent failure of Jewish researchers. Besides, it would be simplicity itself to have the project reclassified as the work of German researchers. The only people who would know any better would be himself and the researchers, and both had strong incentives to remain silent. The author of the file had promised that they could have, with unlimited resources, a working model in less than a year, perhaps much less. With such a weapon, the world would be at Germany’s feet… and Himmler would become the master of Germany.

The war was far from over.

The End

Afterword

What was the decisive battle of the Second World War?

That’s not actually an easy question to answer. I polled a handful of people with limited knowledge of history and got the usual suspects; Midway, Stalingrad, Britain, D-Day, Kursk and even the Bulge. Those certainly are the battles that resound down the ages, but I am not convinced that they were decisive in any real sense of the word.

Take Midway, for example, immortalised by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya as ‘the battle that doomed Japan.’ It was certainly a spectacular and unexpected victory, with a result that looked astonishing, but how important was it in the long run? The American economic powerhouse was building up to grind Japan into powder; even if we reverse completely the outcome of the battle and postulate the complete destruction of the American fleet, the United States will still break even by 1943 and completely overwhelm Japan by 1944. Japan may survive into 1946, but under increasingly heavy bombardment; Japan will not win the war. Midway, in a broad historical sense, is meaningless.

The same can be said of Stalingrad, the Germans had extended their supply lines so far that disaster was inevitable at some point. Britain, even if the RAF had been defeated, the Germans would still have faced awesome problems in landing. Kursk and the Bulge came too late to offer Germany any hope of survival. Even if they had been reversed, the Allied economic power would have ground Germany into the dust. D-Day, of all the ones that were listed, had the greatest chance of altering the outcome of the war, but even so, the atomic bomb was on the way, the Allies had massive air superiority, and the Russians were pushing in from the east. A lost D-Day might have altered the final settlement of post-war Europe, but it wouldn’t have saved Hitler’s regime.

The more I looked into the Second World War — and it has exercised a fascination for me since I was a child — the more aware I became of the underlying economic factors that helped to determine the outcome of the conflict. The same factors that proved that Midway was meaningless, a short-cut to victory that the US had no right to expect, also prove that the actions or reactions of the powers involved in the war were often determined by their capabilities, both short- and long-term. The Axis Powers went into the war without the economic bases they needed to sustain their grab for world power and, eventually, lost the war. Japan’s mad decision to attack Pearl Harbour and Hitler’s even madder decision to add the United States to Germany’s list of enemies ensured that the Axis would lose. Where the decisive battle then?

Actually, I think there were two points that might have determined the outcome. The Battle of Moscow may well have been the last chance for the Germans to win the war outright. (Nothing could have saved Japan.) If Germany had won, they would have taken the USSR’s centralised command hub, captured one of the most vital rail and communications hubs, and quite possibly killed Stalin himself. The fall of the city would have shaken the Soviet regime to its foundations, encouraged rebellion against Stalin and the Communists, and made organising resistance much harder. The planners and engineers who made the USSR tick would have fallen into German hands. Without them, the process of salvaging and rebuilding as much of the USSR’s industrial might would have been almost impossible. Stalin or his successor might even have done a deal with Hitler to save what they could…

The second decisive battle is far less well known. Nomonhan. It is not a name to conjure with in the West, and yet it might have been far more important than it seemed back in 1939. The conflict started in earnest in late May 1939. A Japanese force, the Yamagata detachment, was sent by the Kwantung Army to defeat a Soviet unit that had crossed the Halha River into what the Russians believed was Soviet territory but the Japanese claimed as their own. It ended in a sudden Japanese disaster, as an entire regiment in the detachment was encircled and annihilated

The Kwantung Army - much against the will of Tokyo - decided to retaliate in force, and committed a full Infantry Division, the 23rd, and a number of additional units, among others two tank regiments. Japanese Army Air Force Units, which had missed most of the 1937 combat in China, also got to show themselves against the Soviet Union’s massive air force. The Soviets also gathered a fairly large force, including veterans of the Spanish Civil War. (Many of those experienced leaders were purged between 1939 and 1941 and were not available to face the Luftwaffe during Barbarossa.)

The Japanese attacked in the beginning of July, the 23rd Division crossing the upper reaches of the Halha while the mechanized elements struck directly at the Soviet forces on the right bank of the river. After some initial gains, large Soviet mechanized forces counter-attacked, and the Japanese were stopped some 3-4km:s from the Halha, their lightly equipped armour regiments shot to pieces by swarms of Soviet BT tanks. The Japanese renewed their offensive in late July, their forces then reinforced by heavy artillery from the homeland. This time the attackers were stopped dead in their tracks by the Soviet defenders. Then the battered Japanese dug in and waited for the Russians to make the next move.

It came on August 20th. Again the Japanese had underestimated the Red Army and its strength. It was a sort of dress-rehearsal for that masterly type of mass-attack that later would shatter the German Wehrmacht: heavily supported by both artillery and aircraft, numerically superior Soviet forces - spearheaded by mechanized units - penetrated the Japanese front on the Halha. Despite the Japanese reinforcements that were being rushed to the border, it was over in 10 days. The war in Europe came (the German invasion of Poland) before the Russians could exploit their victory, and the middle of September both sides finally agreed to a ceasefire. The Japanese had been soundly thrashed. In hindsight, it is hard to see how the Japanese thought they could win.

Stalin’s great fear, in fact, was that the Japanese would resume the offensive during 1941 and stab the Russians in the back. The Japanese, still stung, did nothing of the sort and instead headed south, towards Pearl Harbour. Stalin kept a large force on the border anyway and only reluctantly drew it down to send some of the toughest and most experienced units west to face the Germans at Moscow. What might have happened if the Japanese had attacked Russia instead?

This became the core idea of The Invasion of 1950. The Japanese avoided their thrashing at Nomonhan by not engaging the Soviet Union. The conflict wasn’t one that was inevitable in any sense of the word; they could have avoided it quite easily. Without that lesson, they decided to settle scores with Stalin at the USSR’s most dangerous moment and advanced northwards against Russia. This didn’t get very far — the balance of power didn’t change much — but it cost the Russians the Battle of Moscow. Hitler’s forces, instead of poking down towards Stalingrad, spent the first few months of 1942 rounding up the remainder of the Red Army in the area and then opening up links with Iran. More importantly, neither Japan nor Germany are at war with America… and slowly, ever so slowly, America slips back into isolation. The war has bankrupted Britain and without American help, it’s impossible to win, so, in the end, the British accept an armistice before German power builds up to a level where it can crush the British Empire. Seven-odd years onward, Germany decides to reopen the war…

Or maybe not. Alternate History is full of time-lines that are no more or less plausible than anything we have in the original time-line It serves as the setting for a story and I hope that you enjoyed reading it.

Christopher Nuttall, 2008

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All Comments Welcome!

Content

Christopher G. Nuttall
THE INVASION OF 1950
A Novel of Alternate History

Introduction

Author’s Note

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Epilogue

Afterword

Contacts