Out of the Blue (Into The Fire)

[von hitchofen]

As the Wehrmacht ploughed remorselessly on, across the French and Belgian landscape, the only people not shocked at the rapidity of the advance were all at Bentwaters.

In an information vacuum, McCarthy assumed the new government was merely searching for a way out of the conflict. Especially as Rab Butler was installed as foreign secretary, and as Halifax's representative in the Commons.

More political advancement for Glenavon had been stymied by the need to give four Labour MPs, (Greenwood, Bevin, Alexander and Dalton) and two Liberal MPs (Samuel and Sinclair).

~~~​

McCarthy had attempted to contact Wild Jack Howard, 20th Earl of Suffolk, but had only succeeded in contacting his partner in crime, Major Ardale Golding, by telegram and Howard's Secretary, Eileen Morden.

He was offering the C-4 North Star, with its five ton payload or 52 seats, and the Cessna 441 Conquest II with its nine seats.

Howard had only to read D2​O for him to get in touch with McCarthy.

Alex flew the DH Hornet across the channel, escorting the Conquest flown by Tony. The cruising speed of the 1984-manufactured turboprop was 260 knots at 35000ft



The two aircraft landed at Le Bourget, both ostensibly civil aircraft.

"Good man" said Howard

"All that D2​O weighs is about 451 pounds – what else is there to put in?"

"There's von Halban and his family – he has a one-year-old daughter, he doesn't want her growing up under the Nazi jackboot" said Howard

"Who would? What about Feldenkrais, Kowarski, Joliot-Curie and their papers?"

"By jove your know your stuff! All the Jew scientists want out. The Joliot-Curies? They have secured all their papers – they don't want their findings put to military use. " said Howard

There was part of McCarthy that agreed with their sentiment.

"If Paris does fall, I wouldn't want that windfall to be in Nazi hands."

"I'll get all those who want to quit, and their goods and chattels and the heavy water, here tonight. Could you come back again?" said Howard

"Yes – Hispano Suiza deep hole boring machines"

"Are you a mind-reader?" he exclaimed.

"What about the industrial diamonds?"

"You ARE a mind reader. I'm not letting those out of my sight!" said Howard.

The sense of panic in Paris was palpable, even though the nearest German soldier was two hundred miles away. The Dutch and Belgians may have been beleaguered, the British may been withdrawing from ports on the French and Belgian coast.

It took a special kind of defeatist to believe the war was over for France. Yet empty trains pulled into the chaotic railway stations at Gare de Lyon, Gare Saint-Lazare and Gare d'Austerlitz, and packed ones departed.

However, on the 27th May the Belgian government, without warning, chose to capitulate to the Germans. With nearly three-quarters of the country in the hands of the invading Germans, they could do little else. The cabinet fled to France, and finding themselves encircled by Germans, left for the UK via Boulougne.


A despondent McCarthy headed back to Le Bourget.

By the time he arrived back, the three drums D2​O had been loaded on, and the paperwork from the College de France, too. Von Halban and his family, Lev Kowarski, Bertrand Goldschmidt and his family, Guéron, were all there.

Tony couldn't take them all. Kowarski, Guéron, Perrin would have to wait, or stay behind.

McCarthy had no idea who they were, nor how valuable they would be in the future. The ones who spoke English were impressed by McCarthy's knowledge that the D2​O could be used as a moderator in an as yet unbuilt 'reactor'.

McCarthy left to flight check the Hornet. Howard said he'd pay to have it fully fuelled. He had. McCarthy took after the Conquest, and escorted it all the way back to the UK. He wasn't to let that precious aircraft and its cargo out of his sight. Tony landed it safely at Heston.

McCarthy then flew up the French coast.

Luftwaffe bombers were pounding Ostend, Nieuwpoort, and Dunkerque, where most of the troops, French, Belgian and British alike, were being carried away.

The Germans had already captured Bruges and Zebrugge, and a similar operation was being conducted to take Ijmuiden, in the Netherlands. The Dutch defenders were running short of men and ammunition, and with one third of the Netherlands in German hands, but the Vesting Holland largely still intact, the Sjoerds government was likely to surrender soon, no matter how intransigent Queen Wilhelmina was. The German troops tied down there were being shifted south for Fall Rot.

The Führer intended to feast heartily on the carcass of France, before tons of gold were spirited out the Treasuries of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. There were simply not enough troops to overrun the Channel ports.

Priorities, priorities.

Alex had not spoken with Charlie about what they had seen. They were English after all. But he could help but wonder how she was coping. The sight of the strafing of refugee conveys had done enough to dispel any sense of sympathy for the German aircrew he had killed. Below him, Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke of Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Division, had fourteen wounded prisoners shot, and then herded 95 more POWs from the 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 4th Battalion Cheshire Regiment, and gunners of the Royal Artillery, into a cowshed at Wormhout, and threw in two hand grenades.

Two British NCOs, Serjeant Stanley Moore and Company Serjeant Major Augustus Jennings threw themselves on the grenades.

Having failed to kill them all, the SS opened fire on the unarmed men riddling the cowshed with bullets from ZB vz.26 and ZK-383 machine guns.

Private Bert Evans and Gunner Brian Fahey were the only survivors, having been found by German Heer soldiers and treated by their medics. Their story would not emerge until the conclusion of the war.

They murdered ninety-three of them.

Over Ostend he dived the Hornet towards a formation of He111s, selected an aircraft, fired a one second burst into the bombers, and climbed away as the burning aircraft crashed into the Belgian flatland.

Between Nieuwpoort and Dunkerque, he attacked a formation of Do17Zs, using the same 'boom and zoom' tactics – the bomber crashed directly onto the beaches, in full view of soldiers queueing to get on the little boats taking them to the larger ships moored offshore.

The silver twin-engined aeroplane, that no-one could quite identify, roared low over the heads of the assembled soldiers. He was gone before he could tell if they were cheering or waving their fists.

As he climbed out and away from the beaches, he spotted a single Spitfire, operating at the limit of its range as it fought over the beaches. He also saw the looming shape of a Me110 closing in on it, too. He pushed the throttle towards the gate and within less than a minute was above and behind the Zestorer.

Günter Specht stared down the Revi gunsight.

"Now for number three!" he said to himself. These Spitfires were overrated.

The Me 110 shook under the impact of the 20mm cannon shells and his target was jolted out of the guns. He ordered Unteroffizier Fritz Fischer to bale out, as the flames gushed from the wing and engines. There was no reply. He baled out himself.

At low tide he would land in the shallow water at Dunkerque, breaking his ankle. He was taken prisoner, and put on ship to Britain, and miraculously wasn't beaten senseless by the dishevelled Tommy Atkins he shared the boat with.

Squadron Leader Roger J Bushell had managed to avoid the same fate.

Both his wingmen, Red 2 and Red 3 briefly formated on the barley grey, twin-engined aeroplane, noting its non-standard RAF markings, but could only watch in amazement as black smoke puffed from its engines and it accelerated away from them. Their Merlin engines were at full boost.

~~~​

The Reichsbevollmächtigter für der Vierjahreplan, Professor Friedrich Lindemann, arrived at Olen, Belgium, with his convoy of vehicles.

Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell - Wikipedia

"All the uranium ore, uranium oxide, is to be collected and transported, by me to the Reich Sonderforschungsinstitut, at Göttingen, by order of Reichsleiter und Generalfeldmarschall Göring"

Over four tons of refined uranium had materialised in one of the sealed Hardened Aircraft Shelters at Bentwaters, unbeknown to McCarthy, et al.

"This is Doctor Ewald Häussler of the office of the Reichsgesundheitsführer…

"Conti" said Lindemann with a discontented sigh.

"Herr Conti has ordered the Uranium be transferred to Berlin for conversion to medical radium, Herr Professor."

"Has Conti issued your unit with sidearms, Doctor Häussler?"

"We are doctors, Herr Professor"

"Well, in that case, it seems you must defer to us!"

Führerprinzip in action, thought Lindemann.

Eine einzige Bombe, eine ganze Stadt, they had told him.

 

[von hitchofen]

McCarthy was tired. He had insomnia, and his dermatitis was playing up again. Thank heavens for hydrocortisone cream, and Fucibet. He hadn't slept a full seven hours since he had drank himself to sleep with a four-quid bottle of Tempranillo on the night of the 24th May. (Drink the cheap stuff first, thought Alex.)

Tony was the opposite - slept like a log and always wanted to find something to shoot down or blow up. Alex had twenty-six kills to Tony's seventeen. All those hours wasted on War Thunder had paid off in the end.

What Alex wanted to do was destroy inanimate objects, Luftwaffe bombers on the ground, power stations, coal hydrogenation plants. But the Tucano, the only aircraft that could that, was Tony's baby.

The C-4 North Star was a great aircraft, but it was labour intensive to fly - Alex needed Tony as pilot or co-pilot, and Charlie to operate the radio, leaving Polina on her own. Not a good idea. Sometimes he wished she had been with Ana, rather than him.

The adverts in the Daily Express and The Times McCarthy had placed, calling for qualified pilots had been a dead loss, no takers. All heading for the RAF, the poor sods.

~~~​

Godfrey had watched the film. The destruction of the two submarines and Hun seaplane had tacked on the end almost as an afterthought.

"Pound has got to see this!" said Godfrey.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, KCB, KCVO watched the 16mm footage in a darkened theatre.

"Who did you get to film this?" asked the First Sea Lord. "Cotton?"

"Sidney Cotton has been taken by the RAF, despite all that we offered him. The chap who took these pictures goes by the name of MacBucare"

"Probably an assumed name, Sir Dudley" said Fleming.

"Tell him to fly over the Treaty Ports at night!"

"These were taken at night, Admiral. The clock in the top-right hand corner says 01:16 AM." said Godfrey

"Good lord, so it does. The numbers on the left hand side of the screen are longitude and latitude then? How does it update so frequently?"

"We don't know. This is the Heinkel aircraft that crashed on the Isle of Sheppey, as no other German planes of that type have been reported as downed." said Godfrey. An aircraft burst into flames on screen

"The one with magnetic mines? I thought that came down at night."

"The same night, Admiral. It can only be that one, sir" said Fleming.

"Give that man a DSC"

"This is the attack on a submarine - the U-9 - we think, HMS King Orry picked up survivors from it. It's this one that's perplexing us. This is almost certainly the U-22 which sank between the southern tip of the Isle of Man and the coast of Newry."

"Why?"

"This pilot sank the U-9 off the coast of Belgium, then flew cross-country in blackout conditions to Liverpool, where he flew out sea, found a second U-boat, and sank THAT"

"We've given men Victoria Crosses for lesser achievements than that" said the Admiral of the Fleet

"He's a civilian, this MacBucare"

"Then make him a Navy officer quickly, so I can tell CIGS and Stanhope and stick a bloody medal on him!"

Sir George Ball sat in his office, appalled at the calibre of men he had to rely upon, and sighed. Two men sent to break into this 'McCarthy' character's home had appeared charged with going equipped for burglary at Cambridge Assizes, and now neither of them were of any use.

Another man, released from Wormwood Scrubs at the outbreak of war and previous thought to hard-headed and reliable, had been scared stiff by something at Bentwaters, and no amount of money would tempt him to go back.

At least the retainer to the Woodbridge landowner was paying off, with reports of flights leaving and returning. Now a four-engined aeroplane had been seen!

Sir Stewart Menzies looked at the bespectacled Old Etonian. Nick Elliott was the son of Claude Aurelius Elliott, ]current Head Man at the school, and a Trinity, Cambridge man to boot. He also gone to the same brutal Dorset prep school as Ian Fleming, though not at the same time.

It was a small world.

He had just returned from the Netherlands, where Elliott had organised the rescue of the Vic-Wells ballet touring company by a dredger from Ijmuiden. Everyone has to start somewhere.

'Mingis' slapped a file down.

"This is the chap McCarthy. We think that's his name. We don't have much. He's in Suffolk, smuggling people in and out by air, scientists and the like. He's linked up with Lord Suffolk, another rogue actor."

"What do you want me to find out about him, Sir Stewart?"

"Anything. He's a tabula rasa. Like he's come from nowhere. The RAF claim he's been shooting down and bombing the Hun off his own bat, and there's nothing they can do to stop him, I suspect they don't want to - but he's making them look bad. Your friend from Pop, Fisher, he's in the RAF ?"

"Yes, sir"

"Find out whatever you can!"

"Glowing Man of Rendlesham"
appears again
A glowing apparition of a man
has been spotted again by a
motorist on the Woodbridge
Road.The wife of the motorist,
Mr Babbitt, had to be
revived with sal volatile,
after she fainted with shock.

The apparition, said to be yellow
or green in colour, has been seen
three times after dark, by motorists.
Martha Chadbourne, 34, of Woodbridge,
broke her kneecap when she fell
from her bicycle two weeks ago.
She fled screaming in terror
when ghostly figure appeared
to come towards her.


Villagers and farmers are
undecided whether to blame
the excavations of burial
site at Sutton Hoo, or the
new aerodrome built on the
edge of Whitmore Wood.

The figure is sometimes
seen carrying a dazzling
white or blue lamp.

The Rector of Woodbridge,
the Reverend Goderich,
assures Daily Times readers
not to panic, and believes
there is an entirely rational
explanation​

Eastern Daily Press, 19th May 1940​

[The ASB obviously prepared the locals for the appearance of a massive Cold War Airbase, and a number of very loud aircraft (locals will be somewhat used to this due to proximity to Martlesham Heath), but failed to take into account the psychological impact of a twenty-first century insomniac, wearing a retroreflective jacket and carrying a Maglite, on unlit country roads ]

McCarthy and Shannon got into the Tucano, which had three 500lb Elbit Lizard LGBs and one single 1000lb on board and took off from Bentwaters - the weather was clear, and McCarthy sat in the back seat in charge of the weapons.

As he crossed the Dutch coast at Ijmuiden he saw Bf110s and Blenheims, and they ignored the single- engined aeroplane. He followed the Noordzeekanaal to central Amsterdam. An opening in the cloud cover made the sunlight glint on the concentric canals of the Dutch city. Smoke still rose from parts of the city, despite the Gerbrandy government's capitulation, inevitable after the Belgians had themselves surrendered. Tony flew the Tucano over the vacant Dutch Royal Palace, and headed for the parkland just south-east of Centrum.

The Tucano circled the city using the forested park where the City Zoo was on the Plantage Middenlaan,

There were three trucks parked outside the building at the Plantage Kerklaan at number 36, connected to the City Zoo. Ford, Opel, MAN. McCarthy used the stylus to lock the laser ont o the middle truck.

"Bomb gone"

They waited seventy-six seconds

"Direct hit!"

The three trucks exploded into pieces, and the blast smashed the front of the building. Neither Tony nor McCarthy could not make the decapitated SS and Gestapo personnel and Dutch civil servants laying in the street.

Dust and smoke obscured the target. The explosion terrified the animals in the zone, and a giraffe collapsed and died of shock. The Tucano circled Amsterdam, desultory bursts of light Flak being aimed in their direction. Eventually the dust cleared the rear of the building was in sight again. All the emergency services had arrived, as had more German troops.

"Bomb gone" said McCarthy

The LGB streaked over the zoo and smashed into a first floor window. The blast disintegrated the entire building. Pieces of paper were visible in the dust cloud of the blast. A lump of rubble struck an orang-u-tang, killing it instantly. Sixteen people, four of them Dutch civilians, and a dozen Germans, one of them SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger.

Karl Jäger - Wikipedia

It took the Amsterdam fire brigade five hours to put out the fire in the Amsterdam Registry Office. The records of 70000 of Amsterdam's Jews were destroyed.

Tony flew on to the next location

The first stop for McCarthy was the 1,950m Eisenbahnbrücke at Wesel, over the Rhein.



It needed just one of the 500lb bombs to bring down one of the steel spans of the bridge into the river, and for good measure, Alex dropped the final bomb, the 1000-pounder on the viaduct section, on the flood plain leading to the bridge itself. The momentous explosion ensured the bridge would be unusable for months. On top of the damage done to the Rhine bridges in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the rail and road bridges in Belgium, it would make reinforcing Wehrmacht operations difficult.

On their return to Suffolk, their work was not done.

Tony wanted to attack the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk, Alex to rescue the Jewish scientists he had promised to rescue. Unfortunately Tony, Alex, Charlie would be required for the former.

The C-4 North Star took off, and Tony kept the aircraft at full take-off power as it climbed out - with three time-travelers on board, a friendly-fire incident was the last thing they wanted. Alex kept a close watch on the engine temperatures and revs, making adjustments to the throttle. Charlie operated the radio.

The aircraft climbed to 20,000 feet, and Tony flew south-west, taking advantage of the North Star's huge range. Over the North Wessex Downs, the North Star turned south and crossed the British coast between Southampton and Bournemouth over the New Forest, unscathed and cross the Channel. The plane flew down the Seine valley, circled Paris as it lost height, and landed at Le Bourget.

There were nineteen people, mostly scientists found by Jack Howard, and their families. Charlie, temporary loadmaster, loaded the Deep Hole Boring Machine formerly owned by Hispano-Suiza onto the rear cargo hold. It weighed two tons, and partially dismantled, it just about fitted. Fifty tons of other machinery collected by Howard was making its way to Bordeaux by road.

As Tony helped the passengers into the forward section of the C-4, up a hastily thrown together air stair constructed mostly from boxes and sandbags, a tall man in an Senior Army Officer's uniform, came up to Alex.

He was exceedingly posh, with many medal ribbons

"That is a marvellous aeroplane"

"Thank you" replied

"Does it belong to the Jews?" he said noticing the Star of David on the tail.

"It belongs to us. Me, Tony, Charlie"

"I wonder if you would be able to help us. I was under orders to head back to London from the British Military Mission here in Paris, but unfortunately my aircraft had an engine fire, and it will be hours before another arrives"

"The French aren't going to capitulate in the next few hours. I shouldn't worry" said Alex. Though almost anything could happen. One of the Frenchmen tapped Alex on the shoulder.

"Ne savez-vous pas qui il est? Il est le Prince de Galles!"

Cogs grinded in McCarthy's head. Prince de Galles?

"You are the Prince of Wales?"

"You don't recognise me?"

"I must be the only person here that doesn't recognise you". Tony and Charlie wouldn't, either.

Major-General Charles Edward Victor Christian Windsor KG, KT, GCB, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GCVO, GBE, TD, His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay and Earl of Chester, and his aide-de-camp, Captain Henry Valerian George Wellesley, Marquess of Douro,and his pilot, Wing Commander Edward Fielden MVO, AFC, climbed aboard the North Star up the same rickety stairs.

 

[von hitchofen]

Wednesday 29th May 1940 (continued)​

Across the universe, intelligent machine spoke to intelligent machine

They have neutralised one of our chrononauts!

We are aware of this.

Deliberately, and personally!

We are aware of this. Full coverage is being maintained.

That's a relief. I think limited contact is necessary.

We should not interfere to that extent. Not yet.

Why not!

Other chrononauts have been euthanized before, in this brane of the multiverse.

By accident, and not by design!

We should observe how THEY react, before WE react.

~~~​

The Hants and Sussex News, Feb. 25, 1920 reported "one of the most sensational discoveries and most mysterious cases of tragedy that we have been called upon to record" – a naked body of a man, found in a ploughed field, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England.

The mystery is in that there had NOT been a murder. A body had not been thrown from a car into this field. Here had appeared a naked man, not in possession of his senses. He had wandered, and he had died. It was not far from a road, and was about a mile from the nearest house. Prints of the man's bare feet were traced to the road, and across the road into another field. Police and many other persons searched for clothes, but nothing was found.

A photograph of the man was published throughout England, but nobody had seen him, clothed or unclothed, before the finding of the body. At the inquest, the examining physician testified that the body was that of a man, between 35 and 40; well-nourished, and not a manual worker; well-cared-for, judging from such particulars as carefully trimmed finger nails. There were scratches upon the body, such as would be made by bushes and hedges, but there was no wound attributable to a weapon, and in the stomach there was no poison, nor drug. Death had been from syncope, due to exposure. "The case remains one of the most amazing tragedies that could be conceived of."

The mystery did not immediately subside. From time to time there were comments in the newspapers. London Daily News, April 16 – "Although his photograph has been circulated north, east, south, and west, throughout the United Kingdom, the police are still without a clue, and there is no record of any missing person, bearing the slightest resemblance to this man, presumably of education and good standing."​

"Lo!" by Charles Fort, 1931

Alex wandered from the College to the train station, and traveled back to Great Chesterford on the stopping train to Liverpool Street. Just two stops and a short(ish) walk home to Rose Lane. McCarthy wanted to sleep, listen to some music, relax.

He opened the door, felt the chill inside – it was warmer outside than in. He sat in the front room, looked at the plastic model , the 1/8 scale aluminium Spitfire, and started to drift off.

The landline phone trilled. He picked up the receiver.

"Hello, Al...er Phantom" said McCarthy

"Lynx"

"Hiya Charlie. What's going on?"

"Tony"

"What's he done now?"

"Not come back! I'm beside meself"

"When did he take off?"

"Just after 8am, in the Mustang. I tracked him for about ninety minutes. The transponder broadcast for ninety minutes then stops"

"Shit"

"Maybe he's turned off the transponder by mistake"

"The transponder? You can't turn the transponder off."

The skin-crawling suspicion that enemy action had brought down his friend (he wouldn't have called him a close friend), and was a PoW, injured or dead.

"You can't?" asked Charlie.

"The off switch switches the display off, that's all. It goes off automatically when it's been immobile for 4 hours" replied Alex – <So I can find it and go back and bomb the wreckage> thought Alex.

"So he's been down in the sea for half-an-hour"

"Maybe he's been picked up by one of the ships. Anyway – I'm coming back. Get the Sabre and the Fury ready"

Alex got in the Range Rover, and drove to Hadstock, then Linton onto the A604, then onto A1902 at Long Melford, Sudbury, Lavenham, Hadleigh and Ipswich. A journey that should have taken one-and-half hours by 21st century roads took McCarthy fifty-five minutes, the 4-wheel-drive crossing harvested fields to cut corners.

When he got to Bentwaters, Charlie was fuelling the two-seat Sea Fury and the Sabre. The guns of both aircraft were kept loaded.

"So we are going to look for him?"

"I think we'll be lucky if we find the wreckage of the Mustang." said Alex, as Charlie and he loaded a Python-4 onto each underwing pylon. He hoped they launched as well from the Sabre as the Tucano. "Probably nothing if he went into the sea"

Charlie took off first in the Sea Fury, though McCarthy was only minutes behind her in the Sabrejet. Charlie kept an eye on McCarthy via the rearward facing camera in the Fury.

McCarthy check the Elbit DASH camera worked, integrated with the two cameras in the wing, the one in the rear fuselage and the fourth one in the tail surface. With the missiles unarmed on the Stores Management System, he test intercepted on Charlie's aeroplane – he thought it best not to tell her.

It took the Sabre ten minutes to get to Dunkirk, the Sea Fury T20 spent thirty-two minutes flying up and the the Straits of Dover. There was lots of wreckage floating in the sea, between the small ships, and the larger ships were wont to use their anti-aircraft guns at low-flying aircraft.

It was a waste of time. Charlie spotted three Ju88s bombing the town, and shot one down.

The pilot detached from the drogue the final time, he'd patrolling for four hours in the morning, then landed for fifty-eight minutes, then three and half in the afternoon. It was the endurance of the airframe that dictated the duration, not the pilot. He needed limited nutrition and no sleep.

His vision ensured he could see the burning Ju88, and the silver radial-engined fighter climbing away.

"I can't believe they are so stupid" thought the pilot of the F-86D

It would take minutes for the Sabre Dog to overhaul the Sea Fury.

McCarthy saw the black arrow head bearing down on Charlie's Fury.

"Uniform-Alpha approaching you from starboard side. TURN TO STARBOARD! Over!"

If the she obeyed Alex's instructions and turned into the attack she might collide with the attacker, if she turn to port the fast-moving aircraft would be in a perfect firing position.

The grey-silver blur passed feet away from the canopy of the Sea Fury

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" screamed Charlie into the throat mic.

McCarthy got a positive lock on the target, as it turned to reacquired the target. The Python-4 left the rail.

The Sabre Dog's pilots heightened situational awareness meant he sensed the missile bearing down on him, but in this aircraft he could do nothing. He felt the laser of the proximity fuse microseconds before the continuous rod warhead exploded under the tail of his aircraft.[



A liquid streak of orange fire bisected the sky.

P/O Ian Muirhead and F/L Freddy Ives of 151 Squadron watched the plummeting wreck from the deck of the SS Abukir

They could not decide if the aircraft that crashed into the sea off the port bow was a Spitfire or a Stuka.

Charlie found herself in a confused dogfight between Me109s and Boulton Paul Defiants – she shot down a Messerschmitt off the tail of a turret fighter, just as the gunner in the turret baled out. Strips of metal streamed away from the elevators and the rudder was shot away completely.

The aircraft wore the codes PS-P. Charlie escorted the damaged aircraft flown by P/O Desmond Kay to Manston, where it landed heavily. Of Tony, or the P-51D he was flying, there was no sign.



Total number of air-to-kills by McCarthy: TWENTY-SEVEN.
Total number of air-to-kills by Shannon: EIGHTEEN.
Total number of air-to-kills by Brandon: FIVE

 

[von hitchofen]

Thursday, 30th May 1940

At 8am, McCarthy took off in the Spitfire FR XIVe. Not the ideal aircraft for a long range patrol, but the centreline fuel tank would extend its range.

There was no reason to suggest the search would be any more futile than the day before's. The Royal Navy shot at him, as they had Charlie the day before. McCarthy flew inland.



He flew low over Creton Farm, Lestrem, in the Pas de Calais, and photographed the desperate attempts by the Wehrmacht to clear up the massacre inflicted on men 2nd Batailion, Royal Norfolk Regiment by the SS-Totenkopf Division, with the video camera in the wing, and the camera in fuselage.

McCarthy used the superior speed of the Spitfire to avoid combat.

~~~​

"Well," said Alex – "If the other lot have gone from the Heinkel He178 to the F-86 Sabre in less than eight months, we might just as well give up now"

"You shot it down, though" said Charlie.

"Only 'cos I decided to load the Sabre with the AAMs – we'd have both been toast otherwise, that guy was flying out of his skin. No-one flies over enemy territory any more" said Alex.

"Thank GOD for that!" said Polina "Why the fuck did it take Tony's death to get to this?"

"We don't know if he's dead yet." said Charlie.

"He might have defected to the Nazis. Everyone has given up hope here in Britain. The war is more or less over, and Hitler has won." said Polina

Polly had a point. Churchill and Roosevelt were like Tony, missing in action. Say what you like about him, without the steadfast presence of WSC, and his stubborn refusal to openly and publicly admit defeat, galvanised the country to keep fighting when all seemed lost.

It appeared all the doughty defenders of liberty had been wiped out in the Great War, or the Flu epidemic, or both, leaving a ruling class of fascist sympathisers, habitual anti-semites and 'peace-at-any-price' appeasers of varying political allegiances. Some papers were even calling for Mosley for PM.

"We are leaving." said Alex.

"We're what?" asked Charlie.

"We are leaving, going, abandoning them to their fate. Get everything you want to take with and load it into the North Star, the four-engined transport (he clarified, for the benefit of Polly)."

"Where are we going?"

"America. We've all got US passports – "

"We have?"

"Yes, we won't be refugees."

"You didn't tell us!" said Polina.

"What about the other aeroplanes!"

"Burn them. Destroy them. The Mustang's gone anyway. What's the point. Rolls-Royce have got my P-51B as well."

"Even the Hornet, the Sabre, the helicopter?"

"Yep, the lot. The Mosquito will be the easiest to destroy. Do you really want the Germans, or even a Mosleyite British government, getting their filthy hands on them? You were right all along, the British state are the most ungrateful employers around. We've risked our lives for them, time and time again, and for FUCKING WHAT?"

~~~​

Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Godfrey and Commander Fleming picked exactly the wrong time to visit Bentwaters.

"Well, I can tell you the truth about my sources, or I can tell you a lie. The lie is plausible, but unprovable, the truth is utterly fantastic and completely unbelievable. Which would you prefer?"

"Do not play games, Mr McCarthy, the truth." asked Godfrey.

"I'm a time traveller, from a parallel universe seventy-six years ahead of this date"<silence>

"DO YOU SERIOUSLY EXPECT US, TO BELIEVE THAT!" exclaimed Godfrey..

"You have no real choice. Jet propulsion is not only possible, but desirable. One day, manned naval aircraft will fly as fast as the shells your battleships fire. Airliners capable of carrying five-hundred, six-hundred passengers will be commonplace, submarines will be powered by nuclear reactors and will be at sea for months, rather than weeks. Men will walk on the moon, and there will be a woman Prime Minister of the UK and a negro President of the USA.

"Rubbish. Pulp fiction rubbish. What in God's name is a 'new clear reactor' anyway?" said Godfrey.

"And devices not much larger than a table mat will be able to show colour moving pictures." McCarthy produced an iPad Air 2. Colour pictures of aircraft filled the screen. Then moving pictures of a vividness and clarity none would have experienced. "This is my Sea Fury when it wore Royal Canadian Navy markings. The prototype of that aircraft flew in 1945. It was designed to operated from an aircraft carrier, and when it was manufactured, in 1951, it was sold to the Royal Canadian Navy…"

"Good Lord. How does it work?" said Godfrey.

"Very well, thank you very much." said McCarthy. Black-and-white footage of Furies landing on carriers followed.

"The Canadian Navy don't have a carrier!" exclaimed Godfrey.

"Yet, Admiral, yet."

"How did you come to obtain a military aircraft of such power?" said Godfrey.

"I was rich enough to buy it. It was superseded by much more capable, faster aircraft, and was sold to an American, who used it for air racing. It passed through a number of civil owners until I bought it, for just over a million dollars"

"Preposterous! Why on earth would the Navy want to buy such an ridiculously expensive aeroplane? One that is as expensive as entire County class cruiser? You are stark, staring bonkers!" said Godfrey, his tone of voice and incredulity rising simultaneously.

"Aircraft from the Second World War, and immediately afterwards, like the Sea Fury are immensely valuable and rarity value. And there is inflation of course, seventy-five years of it. (Just be thankful you won't live to see the F-35 Lightning II!) The actual aircraft could probably be made for the cost of two Spitfires, maybe less. You will need when you see what the Japanese, the Germans and Americans will have coming off the line. I come from a time when this era has been picked over in minute detail, by academics and rabid amateurs like me. A Spitfire is by far the most expensive and most popular surviving aircraft of the Second World War, because of its important role in saving Britain from defeat in 1940, along with the Hurricane, and of course radar,

"What on earth is radar?" interjected Fleming.

"You have the Type 79 radar on HMS Sheffield and HMS Rodney, do you not? Radiolocation, radio detection and ranging, radio direction finding – same thing, different names. The FuMO 23 Radar has already been installed on the Bismarck, as you can see here, but not….yet on the Tirpitz"

"I can see why the RAF wanted you arrested" said Fleming."No civilian should know these things, outside of the contractors who make the things for us. You will find yourself inside a prison cell if you continue in this manner"

"What, explaining to you that you don't have a monopoly on state secrets? Why on earth would I tell anyone outside the military what I know? What benefit would I derive from it, besides the warm glow of telling the taxpayers of this country what they are getting for their money. I've been flying over their radar stations for months now – you think they would have got the hint, by now."

"If you attack the Bismarck and Tirpitz at their anchorages, before they are seaworthy, you would be welcomed into the protection of the Royal Naval Reserve" said Godfrey.

"No" said McCarthy

"What?" exclaimed Fleming.

"I said no. I'm almost certain I won't do that. My friend has already gone missing over Dunkirk, and your bloody ships have already fired upon me and Charlie. Forget it.Go back to Doddery Dudley, the First Sea Lord, and tell him – "

"How dare you refer to him in that manner!" said an outraged Godfrey,

" – You know he is sick, don't you? Is he still giving orders over the heads of his subordinates, Whitworth, Vian?" I've done more than most Naval officers to turn the tide of this war. Shot down aircraft, sunk U-boats. I'm a civilian. I'm not interested in obeying orders, giving orders, chains of command, tin badges for risking your life. Why would I do that for a politicians that are just going to surrender, whatever I do, whatever anyone does?"

31st May 1940.

Six Days

I think tomorrow's come, I think it's too late​

"What a repulsive individual" said Godfrey.

"I agree wholeheartedly. Heaven forbid he should become publicly known" said Fleming. "Horrible accent, not one of us."

"Terrible garlic breath, too. Like talking to a Frenchman. If Pound hears he's shot down as many aircraft as he claims, he'll want him on the payroll, given a gong and all over the papers – one in the eye for the RAF, and back in Glenavon's good books"

~~~​

Professor Briscoe placed his report on the table.

"Spare us the full technical details." said Sir Vernon Kell

"On the contrary, this is most fascinating." said Briscoe

"Tell us" said Lt Col Menzies

"I was expecting to be analysing a typewriter's ink, or a printer's ink, &nbsp;as the document had been clearly not been typed, nor photostatically reproduced. However, this was a not a chromatography job. I had to resort to emission spectrography." said the Professor.

"And?" said Kell, clearly irritated.

"It was carbon, and iron oxide, and a polymer, possibly polystyrene. Melted onto the paper, then solidfied as it cooled"

"Meaning what?" said Menzies.

"The carbon was fused to the paper using heat, at a temperature of 270° Fahrenheit at least. The presence of iron oxide suggests electromagnetism was used, too. I know of no commercial enterprise that uses such a technique"

"Wouldn't the paper catch fire at that temperature?" said Kell

"No. The machine that printed each document is almost certainly unique."

"Thank you, Professor" said Menzies. Briscoe left.

"The man who manufactured these documents must be a technical genius" said Kell.

"Not only that, he is privy to a wide range of state secrets, concerning our operations, our techniques. He must be found and questioned immediately. Dansey is the best man for the job

"This is clearly a matter for internal security. The source lies within the Air Ministry, Fighter Command, or the Government Code and Cipher School" said Kell

"There is but one man who is the relay between Station X and the Air Ministry – I trust him implicitly. Also he knows nothing of the technicalities of cryptography, which is solely the preserve of Station X. Both the director and deputy director of Station X were in receipt of this information, rather than the source of it. The GCCS is an arm of the Secret Intelligence Service. We are quite capable of policing ourselves, thank you." said Menzies, testily.

"How on earth did he sink the Kriegsmarine submarines? How did he find them? The report from the captured U-boat personnel says they were attacked without warning, with a high-velocity, quick-firing gun"

"Only two of them were sunk, and one of those were scuttled, so Godfrey tells me. Nothing has been released to the press, yet."

~~~​

"You look terrible, darling" said Alex.

"I've been sick" said Polina.

"It's probably stress. We've been cooped up here too long. Have you had some rehydration liquid?"

"Can't keep anything down. I want to see my friends again! I should be back at school."

"I can't conjure your friends out of nowhere – the school has no record of you, the house in Belsize Park we checked out – the people living there in 1940, are living there now."

"So what do we do?"

"The US. California. As far as away from the horror as possible. You always wanted to live in the US"

"What will we do for money?"

"Write songs, score Hollywood films! Fly aeroplanes! Patent loads of things. Invent magnetic recording, video recording, LP records, the laser, before anyone else does."

~~~​

"We destroy anything that has a turboprop, or an axial or centrifugal flow jet." said McCarthy.

"What, even the Cessna, Tony's Cessna?" said Charlie.

"Oh, most definitely, it's mine now." said Alex.

"He might still turn up!" said Charlie.

"Nothing so far. He's got six days, we aren't leaving until June 5th, at the earliest."

"We should give the Sea Fury to Hawker, and the Mosquito to de Havilland. The Spitfire, to Supermarine, maybe?" said Charlie. "But not the jets? What if the British do decide to fight on?"

"Is it our problem? Everything we have done has achieved nothing. The Germans are as deep inside France as they were in our 1940, and the British have been driven out of Europe, and there is no Churchill to unite around. He might have made a hash of Britain's place between the USSR and the USA later in the war, but at least he kept us fighting. We have no idea what the Nazis might demand from us...them."

"You could fly the Mossie to Hatfield, the Hawker to – "

"To Langley, their factory" said Alex.

"You land, I land, get in the Chipmunk, and we leave." said Charlie

"The Chippie couldn't keep up with the Mossie", said Alex.

"And if the RAF send up Spitfires to shoot us down, or the AA shoot at us, again?" said Alex, "it's too risky. And I want to take the gun out, and destroy that as well. Or take it with us. Imagine what the 30mm Oerlikon would do to a B-29, or B-36. Imagine what the turboprop would do to the endurance of a maritime patrol aircraft."

"Hatfield and Langley aren't military bases, the RAF can't track us on radar like you said, and what crime have we committed? It's not as though we have stolen anything. Quite the reverse!" said Charlie.

 

[von hitchofen]

"Honestly, I cannot imagine why charges against individuals such as these had not been placed sooner, given the gravity of the secrets they are in possession of." said the Attorney General, Sir Donald Somervell. He hadn't even been shown the worst of it.

"Naval intelligence were rather hoping they would be the goose that laid the proverbial golden egg. Unfortunately they have instead a rather broody mother goose" said Sir Vernon Kell.

"You could have interned them under 18B" said Somervell , unamused.

"We might be able to arrest them under 18A, as they may be aliens - however SIS and the Foreign Office, and the Secretary of State for the Dominions, feared they might be Americans, or Canadians" said Kell

"You mean, you are not sure even what nationality they are?" replied Somervell.

"We assume that McCarthy, also known as MacBuckair, is British." said Kell.

"Whom were they passing the secrets to?"

"Erm....er"

"Well?"

"His Majesty's Government."

"You mean these persons were passing secrets to the government, and you want them arrested under the Official Secrets Act?" said Somervell, incredulously."Presumably all of these secrets were already known to the government?"

"Not all of them, no. But they would of enormous use to the enemy if they were made public" said Kell.

"I don't doubt it. But why are you seeking charges under the OSA? You could have got them previously under Section 6 of the 1920 Act, but of course since Royal assent was given to the 1939 Act, that course is no longer open to any Lord Justice. You only have the names for one of the four men – "

"Three men, one woman"

"You have no names, but for this one, and you aren't even certain of that. How did you obtain this McCarthy's name?"

"Via the Land Registry"

"He's a landowner?"

"In Suffolk, Essex, Wales, and central London, my Lord"

"I can't see the state securing a conviction under the OSA, even if the trial was held in camera. Good lord, we should not be seen prosecuting landowners for supplying information to HMG, under the OSA, any more than we should MPs reporting to Parliament – your heavy-handed approached last time required new legislation. Detain them under 18B if you must, and question them then."

Kell left.

"Befuddled old fool" said Somervell.

Dawn, Sunday 2nd June 1940.

It took three hours of cramp-inducing oily work to remove the 30mm Oerlikon KCA, its loading mechanism and the ammunition magazine in the bomb bay from the Wooden Wonder. McCarthy removed all the strange black boxes under the pilots seat (presumably the datalink) and smashed it with a ball peen hammer, burying what remained.

After years of desiring one it was strange how ambivalent he was about the Mosquito. It was far less fun to fly than the Hornet, needed constant adjustments. Maybe flying the Hornet first, a refinement of the aerodynamics deployed in the Mossie, had been a mistake.

Alex and Charlie had photographs and video footage of the airfield and knew where each of them would land.

Alex would gaffer-tape the Mosquito Pilots Notes to the instrument panel, leave a tube each of REDUX adhesive paste and gel in the cockpit – then do a runner to the Chippie and flee.

Test flights had shown the DHC-1 Chipmunk was far too slow to keep up with the older, twin-engined fighter.Charlie would pilot the Cessna 441 Conquest II, despite have no hours on multi-engine turboprops, and not many hours on tricycle undercarriage aircraft.

They communicated via the UHF Airband radios in both aircraft, safe in the knowledge that nobody else would be listening in to their frequency.

Alex lowered the undercarriage of the twin-engined glazed-nosed unarmed aircraft and landed it on the grass runway, and taxyed to a spot near the factory end of the runway.

It was 0636hrs on a summer Sunday morning.

Charlie landed the Cessna safely alongside the DH-98 Mosquito.

Alex climbed out of the wooden aircraft not long after the propellers stopped turning, clutching the UHF radio in his hands. He had left the Pilot's Note facsimile and the adhesive tubes – along with instructions on use – in the cockpit.

He did not even close the hatch behind him. Charlie opened the fuselage door of the Cessna 441, and Alex climbed inside, and strapped himself in. Charlie rolled the dual control aircraft down the runway and into the air.

The whole operation had taken less than forty minutes.

~~~​

Wilkins completed his report. There was only one conclusion he could come to. He walked into Wing Commander Winterbotham's office.

"Well?"

"We received a telegram from the Lockheed Corporation, and that, as we expected, the XP-38 prototype was damaged in a crash-landing last year, and a redesigned version of theirs is yet to fly. They only told us this after the order placed by the ourselves and the French for the model 322. No others have been sold or exported to anyone."

"And?"

"My conclusion that the aircraft in question, having discounted the XP-38, the Cunliffe-Owen OA-1 is at Boscombe Down, the Blohm und Voss Bv138 is too slow and too distinctive a shape, the Focke Wulf Fw189, was the same, so that leaves was a design previously unknown to us, or the Dutch de Schelde S21."



"But why would a then neutral country fly an aircraft under development over a country at war?"

Wilkins had no answer.

Air Marshal Boyle slapped the bulging file down on the desk.

"Combat reports, eyewitness reports, Observer Corps report, Dispatches from the front, all full of reports of unidentified aircraft shooting down enemy aircraft, escorting them back to base, strafing targets, bombing them even, Winterbotham" said Boyle. He pronounced it 'strarfing'. "And we have no idea what these aircraft are, who is flying them,"

"We know where they are taking off and landing from – Bentwaters in Suffolk" said Winterbotham.

"You know what the last act of the Dutch government was before it surrendered, Winterbotham?"

"No sir?"

"They made the two pilots who flew over Rotterdam Commander of the Militaire Willems-Orde, the highest award for bravery under arms that they have. If it was those chaps from Suffolk we are going to have to admit we have a rogue, independent air force operating from our soil.

~~~​

Alex said he wouldn't fly over enemy territory, but if the enemy came to him?

He couldn't sleep, and he heard the drone of bombers overhead just before 2am. They didn't sound like RAF Wellingtons. The Sabre was kept ready for take off, and Alex pulled on his flight suit over his night attire, removed the chocks, strapped himself into the cockpit, started the engine, and took off.

The engine noise of the Sabre woke everyone in Woodbridge. The distance between where McCarthy was and where the bombers were was forty-six miles. The Sabre covered it in six minutes. He overshot the trio of Dornier Do17Zs, and they dumped twenty-three SC50 bombs on to RAF Mildenhall.

The commander of the formation, Hauptmann Ehrenreich had visited the station as a guest of the RAF in 1937. Six miles away McCarthy acquired the bomber he was flying using the DASH helmet. The dark visor slid down as the Python-4 left the rail. The missile had barely accelerated to Mach 2 when it hit the hot leading edge of the Dornier's port wing. The explosion engulfed the aeroplane, killing the crew instantly. The aircraft broke up and Ehrenreich landed back at Mildenhall.

McCarthy managed to locate a second bomber. The Do17Z was in the centre of the gyro gunsight, and fifty or sixty 12.7mm bullets ploughed into the aircraft. The flame from the engine fire ruined Alex's night vision.

He abandoned the battle.



The next morning one of the Hardened Aircraft Shelters, was opened up and the tractor pulled the Hawker Sea Fury T20 was pulled out. The de Havilland Canada Chipmunk was pulled out, too. The doors were closed

A furious-looking man in tweeds walked over the wet spring grass towards the three people.

"You three, just what do you think you are playing at?"

"Flying, it's called, mankind has been doing it for the past thirty-seven years, I believe."

He was almost transfixed by the John Deere 6125R tractor McCarthy had used to pull the Sea Fury, but returned to admiring the radial engine fighter and the inline engined trainer.

"You aircraft have been disturbing my wife, my hounds and my livestock." said the man with the red face.

"Glad to hear you've got your priorities right." replied Charlie.

"Well I think you'll find this nation has been at war for a year or so" said Polly

"One of the perils of living next to an airfield, I'm afraid." said Alex.

"This was a place of simple country pleasures until you appeared – "

"I'm sure it was..." interjected McCarthy <I don't know how his wife puts up with him>

" – taking off in the middle of the night, disturbing my sleep – "

"Defending the country, risking our lives, shooting down enemy aircraft" interjected Alex

" – a likely story, you aren't even a member of the RAF! Why have you got women and children wandering around your –"

"I AM NOT A CHILD!" interjected an indignant seventeen-year-old Polly. Teenagers did not exist in wartime Britain. At some indeterminate point boys became men, and girls became women.

"MY BEST FRIEND IS MISSING IN ACTION, DEFENDING THE LIBERTIES OF RED-FACED OLD GITS LIKE YOU!" said a justifiably angry McCarthy.

" – why my idiot brother sold you that land to build your aerodrome, I have no idea. I have been taking pictures of your blasted flying machines and sending them to the Air Ministry."

"Are you one of the Kemball family, then?"

"I AM LORD RENDLESHAM, OF WANTISDEN MANOR, AND I SHALL COMPLAIN ABOUT YOU TO MY MP"

"Well, luckily for you, it will all stop, when the Prime Minister begs Hitler not to invade, and sues for peace." said Alex. "You'll have to bring it up in the House of Lords, as well" said McCarthy – the man stormed off – "Don't you know there's very nearly a war on?" said McCarthy to the retreating peer.

Anyway, Charlie climbed into the Chipmunk while Alex climbed into the front cockpit of the two-seat Sea Fury. It was carrying the minimum amount of fuel needed for the journey The empty fuel tanks had been filled with nitrogen by Alex and Charlie.

Alex was going to bale out of the Sea Fury as any problem, however minor, manifested itself.

Before flying east, he flew the Sea Fury over Wantisden House at 100 feet, at full take-off power. Below the windows rattled and the beagles and the foxhounds barked and yelped. Childish. But fun.

The flight had been uneventful, and there weren't any problems.

McCarthy had to go around Langley once after ballsing up his first approach, and his successful landing was best described as 'bouncy' – the sturdy undercarriage of the Sea Fury saving McCarthy's blushes.

McCarthy taxied over to some camouflaged aircraft, and cut the engine of the Sea Fury, and clambered out.

The element of surprise had been dissipated by the two attempts and landing, and people were running over.

McCarthy was stood admiring P5219 and P5212, the Tornado and Typhoon prototypes.

"What the blazes do you too think you are playing at?"

"Delivering you a brand new aircraft, free of charge, nearly new, only slightly bent, with combat experience . Performance is out this world."

Not only had McCarthy delivered the aircraft - but its revolutionary (for 1940) wing folding system, the Hispano Mk V 20mm cannon, and the only Bristol Centaurus installed in an airworthy aeroplane. The aircraft used an annular oil cooler which was built into the leading edge of the cowling and cooled by an engine-driven fan. The engine exhaust system avoided the use of a collector ring and gases were dis- charged through individual exhaust pipes mounted in front of exit louvres on each side of the fuselage.

The engine mounting was affixed to six shock absorbing rubber-packed mountings, to reduce vibrations from the large engine.

Nearly all the innovations were based on a German design that had been itself flying for a year, and kept a closely guarded secret by its manufacturer, Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH. That aircraft had been tested with no fewer than four different powerplants to demonstrate its versatility.

"I'd like you keep clear of those two aircraft, they are on the secret list!"

"The Tornado and Typhoon prototypes? The Tornado is going to be built by Avro oop north in Manchestoh, because that's where all the Rolls-Royce Vultures are going for the Manchester. The Typhoon's engine is fitted too close to the leading edge of the wing that you'll get severe vibration and the slipstream buffeting the thick wing roots. I'll bet you are getting compressibility problems with wings that thick, too. Make sure you tell the designer, Mr Camm. Oh, and tell the test pilot that the aircraft will start to come apart where the front fuselage and rear fuselage join is. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already."

"I am the test pilot"

"Rather you than me!" McCarthy climbed into the cockpit, & started the Chipmunk, taxyed onto the runway and took off with his passenger.

~~~​

McCarthy was towing the bullet damaged single-seat Sea Fury to the edge of the field when a posh, bespectacled young man walked up to him.

"Hellair, you must be McCarthy"

"Must I?"

"Erm, you're not?"

"I am, yes"

"You put an advertisement in the Times requesting for aviation engineers. I am one. I wondered if you might offer me a position here", which was more of statement by the man, than a question.

"Do you always turn up for job interviews, unannounced? I don't even know your name."

"I'm uh Watkins, Albert Watkins, I used to work for Armstrong Whitworth"

"A likely story. Why would you leave with all the war-work that needs doing?"

"Um, er. I had a disagreement with the Director of Engine development, Mr Tresilian."

Oh really, though McCarthy.

"This disgareement - was it over bore-stroke ratios, sleeve valves over poppet valves, cylinder boring techniques,float carburretors over fuel injection - or was the drawing office using too much paper?

"Er..."

"You seem more a 'keys-to-the-executive-washroom' type than what I was looking for - and things have moved on since then. Thank you for your interest.

"Oh..."

"Have you ever worked at 54 Broadway, or stayed at St. Ermin's Hotel?" asked Alex.

St Ermin's Hotel - Wikipedia

He replied 'No', but the look on his face suggested otherwise.

'Albert Watkins', also known as Nick Elliot, walked off, his career in espionage off to bad start.

McCarthy poured petrol into the cockpit, and over the wings of the Sea Fury, then walked fifty feet from it, picked up a wine bottle full of methanol and petrol, lit the rag stuffed into the bottle, and threw it at the Sea Fury.

"I name this aircraft...inferno"

The aircraft ignited instantly, a sheet of orange flame engulfing it. After fifty seconds, McCarthy moved further away. Ten minutes later, the fuel tanks exploded. After twenty-eight minutes, Charlie drove up in the six wheeled Carmichael fire engine, and sprayed it with flame-retardant foam.



The Sea Fury was completely destroyed. The folding wings had fallen off and the undercarriage had collapsed. McCarthy had removed the 20mm cannon and any 21st century electronics, and put them on the North Star.

McCarthy did not feel very much, as the Sea Fury had never been his property. He wondered how he would feel after the destruction of the Spitfire, the EC130, the Hornet, the Sabre and the Vampire.

There was one last mission McCarthy wanted to fly in the Super Tucano, and Charlie and he began preparing for that sortie.

But in actual fact there would be three further sorties.

Total number of air-to-kills by McCarthy: TWENTY-NINE.
Total number of air-to-kills by Shannon: EIGHTEEN.
Total number of air-to-kills by Brandon: FIVE

 

[von hitchofen]

There was still no sign of Tony.

Alex drove Polina into Woodbridge to post the two items to

Secretary of State for Air
c/o Air Ministry
Adastral House,
Kingsway,
London, W.C.2​

The larger one contained this.



The second smaller parcel contained a black Coutts Silk credit card, and two books, compact potted histories of each aircraft.



From each book anyone could discern the future of the war, if not necessarily in this universe.

The two men had access to an Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately it was well out of sight, in a Molniya orbit, 23,732 miles away from Earth

It served as relay to a Deep Space Explorer craft of their galactic civilization that had sought refuge in this dimension, in this version of the milky way. A giant ellipsoidal vehicles nearly eight kilometers long, packed with a dropship bay, sensors, computronium for the Artificial Intelligence, and interstellar and intrasolar drives of varying types and specifications. Nearly 0.8 precent of its mass and volume was reserved for transapient biological lifeforms, and/or augmented and baseline humans, but there were none on board.



One attached the electrodes to his scalp, and connected himself to the Satellite Communications System, which was in turn connected to the receiving parabolic antennas at a secret location in the Arctic North of Europe

Uplink Successful.
Preferred Comms Mode: Intracerebral.
Connection Terminates at: Deep Space Explorer Ayn Rand [location 14768912.02456 by 2495674.30079 Jovian tidal orbit.]

AR: What is it?
Humanoid: Hello, Ayn Rand. Baseline subject: McCarthy. Presence of three, possibly four other chrononauts confirmed.

AR: BAD.
Humanoid: Is receiving direct aid from Godmode Heretic Ultraverse of unconfirmed extent.

AR: WORSE.
Humanoid: WE HAVE TERMINATED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE ONE CHRONONAUT.

AR: Improvement, but an escalation. Our opponents will not overlook this.
Humanoid: I sustained corporeal loss in the process.

AR: No adverse consequences, I hope.
Humanoid: Alpha. All biomod systems fully functional at high level of efficiency.

AR: Good.
Humanoid: We require aid.

AR: Dimensional refuge status compromised. Continue mission or abandon. Zero blame. Zero consequences if latter.
Humanoid: If we continue?

AR: Dependant on outcome in this brane of Universe.
Humanoid: We need material assistance.

AR: State kind.
Humanoid: 21st century equiv-tech weaponry, aircraft, ships. Global Navigation Sputnik System. Anti-ship ballistic missiles. Strategic AI.

AR: Must contact biont hierarchy.

<Communication break>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

On Earth, thirty-three hours pass, Kawaguchi sleeps, his implants power down, and the satellite drops below the horizon, then rises again.

AR: No.
Humanoid: We need material assistance!

AR: Conflict continues with politico-economic entity. British Empire. END IT.
Humanoid: It is beyond our powers – we have spent half a century preparing ground for a white peace between the Necessary Evil and British-American co-dominion. Confrontation with Marxist-Leninist Imperium will occur within the next earth year.

AR: Evidence?

~~​

Two hours elapsed as the Ayn Rand evaluated the uploaded evidence.

AR: Possible. Chances of successful positive resolution remote.
Humanoid: We need material assistance! With it, we can return things to our adavantage!

AR: Your call is important to us.

Outlook initially Class 1 to 2. Have contacted Deep Space Explorer Stephen Hawking and Hyperspace Macronode Kurzweil. This brane of universe regarded as Class eight potential loss, bordering on Class nine. Potential for harmful exposure and forced assimilation too great. Hyperdimensional extraction measures initiated. Deep Space Explorer Konrad Zuse will remain on station.
Humanoid: We should abandon?

AR: Deep Space Explorer Konrad Zuse will oversee.
Humanoid: Question not statement.

AR: Deep Space Explorer Konrad Zuse will oversee. Decision remains with you. Your total personality erasure will not be permitted. Break all NSDAP/IJN connections. Avoid capture at all costs. Are you an effective team?

Humanoid: We are.
AR: Remain on station. {ends}

Uplink interrupted.

The Deep Space Explorer Ayn Rand departed what was consensually assumed by almost sentient lifeforms, to be 'reality'.

~~~​

The Admiralty had not issued orders to attack any Kriegsmarine shipping, but they hadn't forbidden him to either. There was little they could do to stop. McCarthy sent a telegram to Fleming telling him about Unternehmen Juno.
Operation Juno - Wikipedia
The northern foray of the battleships (or battlecruiser if you prefer) Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The Norway campaign had disappeared from public consciousness. British and French troops were being evacuated from Narvik in Operation Alphabet.

McCarthy had not forgotten it. He had seen the room dedicated to the victims of the sinking of the HMS Glorious at RAF Digby. McCarthy would telephone Fleming after the attack had taken place, and he would get the RAF to verify any damage through photo-recon.

The Super Tucano carried a 1,135 litre drop tanks under each wing, a 500 litre drop tank on the centreline hardpoint, along with two 500lb bombs and one 250lb bomb, all fitted with the Elbit Lizard guidance unit and fin kits. McCarthy thought they had overloaded the aircraft already, and debated whether taking Charlie as well in the back seat. Could he do the job alone?

All the fuel was required to get the Super Tucano from Bentwaters to the Norwegian coast, five hundred miles away, and to loiter in the hope the two battleships and their escorts of destroyers would pass beneath them.

The weather was lousy all day on the 5th of June 1940 – and McCarthy was not going to fly the aircraft in the dark, that overladen. At last at 1700hrs there was a gap in the clouds, some blue sky. At 1732hrs, at full take off power, the Tucano – needing 90% of the 8,940 foot runway to unstick, flown by both Alex and Charlie.

McCarthy had no intention of doing anything other than flying straight-and-level over the North Sea to Norwegian coast at 10,000 feet and 280 knots. The plane struggled to reach 220 knots and 8,000 feet.

Slowly, as the fuel burnt off, the Tucano climbed. It still took the aeroplane one hour and fifty-six minutes to cross the North Sea. Alex dropped the centreline drop tank once it was drained, to save on weight and drag, and the Tucano crept towards its cruising speed of 280 knots. The only devices that had any chance of detecting the plane were the three working FuMO 22 sets fitted to ships the uptimers were hunting broadcasting on 368MHz, but the speed of the unknown aircraft was too great for accurate gunlaying.

McCarthy orbited over the ships off the coast off Egersund at 15,000 feet, above the drizzly clouds. Alex and Charlie would have to go below the clouds to 10,000 feet to designate the targets they intended to hit.

Charlie designated one of the destroyers as instructed. The 250lb bomb dropped from the hardpoint.

"Bomb Gone"

The DADNE-filled bomb struck the Destroyer Z15 Erich Steinbrinck between the funnels. The screen whited out. The screen whited out, with blurry objects flying in all directions.

On the Gneisenau, Vizeadmiral Wilhelm Marschall had called Kapitän zur See Harald Netzbandt, Kapitän zur See Kurt-Caesar Hoffmann of the Scharnhorst, Kommodore Hellmuth Heye of the Admiral Hipper, Kapitän zur See Erich Bey of the Z20, Fregattenkapitän Rolf Johannesson of the Z15, Fregattenkapitän Theodor Detmers of the Z10, and Fregattenkapitän Hubert, Freiherr von Wangenheim of the Z7, to a Captain's conference.

The Vizeadmiral had orders to bombard Harstadt, but reconnaissance sorties from the Arado seaplanes on the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had confirmed the British was evacuating Narvik, and that were richer pickings to had north of Trondheim.

An Oberfähnrich zur Seeinterrupted the meeting to tell Kapitän Johannesson, that his ship had struck a mine.

The commanders went up the bridge.

The Z15 was listing badly, and the Z20 had come up alongside to take on board its crew. There was dispute whether a torpedo or mine had caused the explosion. Some of the crew had claimed it was a bomb, but there was no sign of any aircraft

Charlie had painted the laser on the Admiral Hipper, but Alex told it was too small a ship. It looked big enough to her. She painted the laser at a bigger battleship.

The 500lb bomb dropped from the hardpoint.

"Bomb Gone"

The 500lb bomb struck the Gneisenau on the superstructure below the armoured bridge, by pure chance killing Marschall, Netzbandt, Hoffmann, Heye, Bey, Johannesson, Detmers and von Wangenheim instantly. There would be very little to bury. The armoured conning tower was wrecked.

Anti aircraft guns began firing wildly in all directions.

"Let's drop the bomb and get out of here"

Charlie painted the laser on the conning tower of the other huge battleship, aft of the radar antenna and rangefinder.

"Bomb Gone"

It felt like hours waiting the impact, but the screen whited out, masts collapsed, chunks of metal splashed into the sea.

Alex pushed the throttle forward, turned and climbed. They had not been any closer than 3 kilometres to any of the ships they had attacked.

The Z15 Erich Steinbrinck broke in two and sank, with the loss the loss of 38 of her 325 crew.

The damaged, leaderless ships limped back to Kiel using their secondary controls - the Admiral Hipper carried on to bombard Harstad, and sinking the tanker Oil Pioneer en route, then returning at full speed to Wilhelmshaven.

The Kriegsmarine had been humiliated, once again.

Dusk was falling, and Alex and Charlie climbed above the weather and flew home.

The telephone by Fleming's bed rang. His sleepy voice said "Fleming?"

"Sorry to wake you, sir." said the female voice at the other end. "We received a phone call and a telegram, both intended for you - all it says is 'Urgent. Salmon STOP Gluckstein STOP Two Holes in One END MESSAGE"

Fleming sat bolt upright. It couldn't be true. Could it?

~~~​

Glenavon held the card and the banknote to the light. The strange silver patch said '20' and '£' depending on which angle you held it. There was a intricate watermark of the face of the monarch, a Queen, a smug looking woman with pursed lips. What about the Prince of Wales ? The black 'Coutts' card he would have to show to Jasper.

The map, the dog-earred, well thumbed atlas, presented an appaling vista of future Britain if that was what it depicted. Tiny villages, like Harlow in Essex, Bracknell in Berkshire, and Crawley in East Sussex had sprawled to vast proportions. An autobahn appeared to have encircled London, with others radiating out from it. Conurbations called 'Telford' and 'Milton Keynes' appeared as if from nowhere.

Airports proliferated – a massive one serving London at Heath Row near Hayes, another near the aforementioned 'Crawley' called 'Gatwick'.

Worst of all, Glenavon's estate at Bassingbourn Hall, had been concreted over to facilitate the construction yet another airport, called 'Stansted'.

 

[von hitchofen]

For someone worth over £1 billion, and holding the last Dukedom given to a commoner, Harry Stirling should be oozing self confidence. But that's not the appearance he gives out. From the faux-Elizabethan turrets of his Cambridgeshire stately home, Icknield Grange, you would think he could see into the future. Still the majority shareholder in Massive Dynamics, the multinational his illustrious grandfather built up from almost nothing, Harry has resisted getting directly involved in the day-to-day running of the business. He says "it's not a job I feel good at, and other people can quickly sense that, and I don't want to be the one who goes down in history as the one who ran it into the ground, or into foreign ownership". He prefers leaving it to his extended family, and hiring hard-nosed Chief Executives.

Despite the tragic death of his father in an vintage aeroplane crash when he was three years old, Harry prefers his role as the chief pilot of the National Air and Space Museum, from its massive base at West Malling, Kent.

It's clearly the thing he's most proud of, owning as it does the pioneering prototype aircaft his father helped develop, including from the propeller-driven Vanguard and Hornet, of World War Two fame, the Vampire jet fighter and the Brittania jet airliner, all in flying condition.
​

Sunday Telegraph magazine, 19th July, 1998​

7am, 6th June 1940.

Where can you run to?
What more can you do?
No more tomorrows,
Life is killing you.
Dreams turn to nightmares,
Heaven turns to hell,
Burned out confusion,
Nothing more to tell​

McCarthy took off from Bentwaters again, alone in the Super Tucano. The Spitfire XIV, Hornet, Vampire, and Sabre were gathered together the edge of Whitmore wood, towed there by Alex and Charlie next to the burnt out Sea Fury. Charlie had managed to convince Alex not to destroy the unarmed Cessna 441 Conquest II and Eurocopter EC130, and instead lock them in one of the Hardened Aircraft Shelter.

Polina was writing a Raspberry Pi program to make the electric locks on the shelter impregnable.

McCarthy used the laser designator to paint the Hornet in the centre of the group of aircraft. The 1000lb LGB detached from the hardpoint on the wing, and moments later the massive explosion blew the Hornet and Sabre to shreds, and the blast wave and fragments from those two aircraft wrecked the Griffon Spitfire and Vampire.

That was it, nothing more.

Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari arrived at Denham airfield in Berkshire, from Lisbon, and was hurriedly transported to Brocket Hall, the home of Lord Brocket, to try and out thrash out an agreement acceptable to Hitler and Halifax regarding the conclusion of hostilities.

His Majesties' Trawler Bartlett arrived at Grimsby docks, and the unknown man in a brown coat disembarked from it, and he was hustled aboard a sealed train at Grimsby Docks railway station which had been cleared of onlookers by the Borough police. The LNER train travelled south, via Louth, Boston, Peterborough and onto Hitchin station, where he was driven to Brocket Hall, where Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin could thankfully change his clothes, which smelt of fish.

Alex then did something he promised he would not do again. He turned the Super Tucano south and flew towards the French coast. There were two 250lb LGBs remaining on the aircraft's underwing pylons.

A footnote or an aside in a book he'd read recently, had popped into his mind. His destination was the village of Oissy, 13 miles west of Amiens, 32 minutes flying time from Bentwaters.

At Bentwaters, Charlie did what she could to ready the North Star for its long flight across the Atlantic. The job mainly consisted of filling the aircraft with fuel. Alex had used the old Ernest K. Gann joke of "The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it's on fire".

Charlie hoped this wasn't a bad omen.

Alex crossed the coast at Le Treport, into disputed territory, if not enemy territory. He headed to Amiens, then out towards Oissy. The high-resolution camera had no trouble picking out the parked Kubelwagen on a road outside the village. He designated the target, and dropped the 250lb bomb. Moments before before the impact of the bomb he saw a figure walk behind it. The explosion obscured everything. McCarthy did not stay to see the dust clear.

It was 107 miles to Couvin, in Belgium. The Super Tucano made it in 22 minutes. The site was surrounded by 20mm and 37mm Flak emplacements, and soldiers with Reichssicherheitdeinst personnel in assistance readied the site. A Fieseler Storch was parked on a strip of grass.

McCarthy was unsure which building to target, so he chose the central building, a former village school adjacent to the church.

He dropped the bomb.

He then saw on the cockpit display three vehicles approach the village on his cockpit screen - one was a Horch staff car, the other two were Mercedes-Benz 770s (McCarthy could not tell).

The bomb struck the school building and exploded.

The Reichssicherheitdeinst men, the Führerbegleitkommando men and the Führer himself cowered behind their vehicles. The Wolfsschlucht at Brûly-De-Pesche had had its security breached and exposed to enemy fire within seconds of the arrival the Führer himself.

Fuhrerhauptquartier Wolfsschlucht 1, Brûly-De-Pesche, Couvin, Belgium | LandmarkScout

McCarthy saw the cowering figures, and wondered if he should strafe them. He saw the 37mm and 20mm Flak guns and decided against. He'd missed his opportunity to kill Hitler. This time.

At least he had put the shits up the Führer.

Literally, Adolf had soiled himself as the building exploded without warning. Once a change of clothes had been arranged the Führer was flown in the Storch to the Adlerhorst at Ziegenberg at SS-Obersturmbannführer Bruno Gensche's insistence.

Every building at Brûly-De-Pesche would be demolished, over the next six month, and its previous occupants forcibly resettled elsewhere. Its name would be expunged from the maps of Reichskommissariat Belgien und Nordfrankreich, and that of Europe generally. No-one would really know why.

SS-Sturmbannführer Walter Schellenberg would be appointed by Heinrich Himmler to investigate who had leaked the location of the Wolfsschlucht to the French or the British. A culprit would be found, even though there wasn't one.

The idea that the RSD or FBK had been penetrated by the enemy was a horrifying prospect.

A second forward base for the Führer near Berry-au-Bac was built under the strictest of security. He would not need it.

Polly was back at Bentwaters, helping load the North Star with the things the uptimers did not want to fall into enemy hands – things that were extremely advanced (but could not be replicated), like the tablets, phones and laptops, sat-navs, and electronics from some of the planes – and things that could be easily replicated, like the travelling wave tube, the cavity magnetrons, the sub-machine guns, the assault rifles.

If Britain did make a deal with the Nazis, McCarthy would not hesitate to abandon Britain, destroying much of what had come back in time with him as he could, and taking as much information with him as the aeroplane would lift. Such a deal now seemed inevitable.

McCarthy flew the Tucano back to Bentwaters. There would be one last mission for the aircraft, but the weather meant it could not be flown on the 6th.

Fuck them, and their law!​

"You haven't flown this plane any further than Paris - and that was with Tony helping out, there's just two of us now, unless you expect Polly to help out" said Charlie.

"It'll be fine. We can land in Iceland, Canada if we have a problem."

"Most of it will be over the sea – you HATE flying over the sea!" said Charlie.

"If we fly high enough I won't see it, and we flew all the way to Norway in single-engined aircraft. I'm only crossing the Atlantic in a four-engined aircraft because we don't have a five-engined aircraft"

"How long's it gonna take?" said Charlie.

"About ten, eleven hours if we get up to max cruising speed, and there's no reason why we shouldn't – we only have one passenger, and about a ton-and-half of cargo."

"Anyway I've my last mission to fly" said Alex.

"Why can't I sit in the back seat with you this time? Why all the secret squirrel business, all of a sudden"

"It's too dangerous" lied Alex.

The House is changing fast, through deaths, resignations and military service; and many feel there is no object in their attending when there are no divisions or awkward question passed. It feels the war is being mismanaged, and we can do little about it. The nation wants us to stand up to Hitler, not make peace. Everyone on the backbenches says that to agree a peace treaty now would just look like capitulation to the rest of the world. Who else would we encourage to threaten us? We still have troops in France, after all – "​

Sir Frank Fremantle, MP (C) St Albans, June 1940.​

The Super Tucano buzzed into the air, a 250lb bomb under each wing. McCarthy appeared to head out sea,but after he had climbed out of sight, he turned west. Within minutes he was over the Eastern boroughs of London. The barrage balloon floated beneath the Super Tucano's wing, like a shoal of bulbous silver fishes.

McCarthy designated the target, and dropped the bomb.

Over London the asymmetric throb of the engines of a Heinkel He111 filled the air, unbeknown to McCarthy. Air raid sirens sounded. So many sirens, so many false alarms, thought almost every Londoner, tired of dashing to the damp Anderson shelter, the cellar or the cupboard under the stairs.

Crump.

The pavements in the West End shook, and a cloud of dust rose over Whitehall. The anti-aircraft guns started firing, the shells exploding below and away from the Tucano. The second bomb left the hard point.

The Poll Tax. Gulf War Syndrome. Bosnia. PFI. The Invasion of Iraq. Doctor David Kelly. 7/7. The Bank Bailout. The MPs Expenses Scandal. Austerity. Bloody Brexit. Referendum after sodding Referendum. Appeasement. And now, Dunkirk.

He remembered his arrests in at a rave in August 1992, and at Hyde Park, London in October 1994, an event that politicised, even criminalised his lifestyle choices. He remembered the police baton charge.

Do they learn nothing, those idiots below?

The 250lb bomb plunged through the roof, and aptly exploded over the 'No' lobby. The blast ripped apart the government benches, demolished the Speakers Chair, the Press Gallery and the Strangers Gallery

Britain had its 'Reichstag moment'.

He'd always hated that ugly building.The people of London who hadn't taken cover, gathered to watch the Palace of Westminster burn. Some people just want to watch the world burn. They would get their chance, on a greater scale than this.

[/URL]

 

[von hitchofen]

McCarthy disabled the ejector seat. He held onto the manual canopy release and prepared to roll the Super Tucano onto its back, and dive it into Tunstall Wood, while he bailed out.

In the end he decided against it, fearing he might injure himself baling out, leaving him incapable of flying the North Star.

Alex lowered the undercarriage of the turboprop aircraft, and put it down on the ground. Charlie came over to the aircraft to greet him.

"So what did you bomb?" she asked.

"Just a Luftwaffe airfield in Belgium", he lied.

"You promised to your daughter not to fly over enemy territory again!" said Charlie, aghast.

"Yeah, well you should know by now I'm a pathological liar. We need to destroy this plane."

"Why?"

"They'll hand it over to the fucking Nazis, when they throw in the towel, that's why. The British are going to surrender, with the French. We'll be the offshore island of the Greater German Reich"

"I can disable it, so it won't work, they won't even know what fuel to put in it. Just lock it way in the HAS with the container-load of engines. Nobody will ever get into them."

"OK. You win. Is the North Star ready?"

"Just needs the engines starting, and the cabin and cockpit pressurizing. "

"All my books are on board?"

"All the ones apart from the ones locked in your conservatory."

"They'd need a tank round to get through that glass."

"Look, this is ridiculous, we can't just dash off without Tony."

"Well you can stay behind and wait for him if you like. People like me will be put in camps"

"Only you know you are half-Jewish. If I don't come with you, who's going to administer your medication?" said Charlie, only half joking.

The spare engines had been placed in a locked 12 metre ISO container, and locked again inside another of the HAS. The Tucano was pulled in next to it. Charlie disconnected the Full Authority Digital Engine Control. A person would need the keys, and to get past Polina's Raspberry Pi-based security system, placed in a water-proof box by the door of two of the ten Hardened Aircraft Shelter, and one in the large hangar.

Lord Halifax, Clement Attlee and Rab Butler flew in de Havilland Flamingo to Tours, to where Paul Reynaud have removed the French government.

The way Reynaud explained it, the French army and air force were in tatters.

Halifax asked why the soldiers and aircraft garrisoned in Algeria had not been committed to the battle.

Reynaud said there was no point in weakening the defences of their overseas colonies if their allies were negotiating with enemy behind his back.

Halifax wore an expression of puzzled rectitude, and stoutly maintained he would remain at France's side.

The Comtesse des Portes, Reynaud's mistress, flew into a rage at the diffident Englishmen, accusing them that they would abandon the French, like the Belgians and Dutch already had. She lunged at Halifax with a short-bladed knife hidden in her Christian Dior dress.

The blade struck Halifax in the upper right arm, drawing blood (his left arm had been withered since birth, and his left hand was a prosthesis). If Attlee had not pushed her to one side the blade would have gone in his neck.

The British delegation sought medical assistance for the shallow knife wound in Halifax's upper arm, remonstrated with Reynaud and his ministers and departed in disgust. by the time they landed back at Heston, it seemed highly like would seek an armistice with the Germans before France.

On arrival Halifax, Butler and Attlee were told of the bombing raid on the Palace of Westminster.​

McCarthy taxyed the Canadair C-4 North Star out onto the runway.

The four Merlin-engined airliner's nose lifted into the air at VR and the wheels left the ground. Once it reached altitude Charlie set the waypoints on the Inertial Navigation System via the UHF signal being emitted from Bentwaters.

Hopefully, the North Star wouldn't end up over the Arctic circle, and Alex and Charlie wouldn't need to use dead reckoning to find the eastern seaboard of North America

The three uptimers headed east into an uncertain future.

As always with the Führer, it was best to start with the good news. The Wehrmacht was advancing on all fronts, besides the kessel around the Maginot line. It had been impossible to allocate any heavy artillery or Pioneer Corps men to Witzleben's 1st Army but Unternehmen Tiger would be mounted in the next seventy-two hours.

Canaris assured Hitler than the Abwehr emissary had arrived safely and would pass the Führer's wishes, and specific requirements, for an official armistice with the London government.

Hitler was told that General der Infanterie Erich von Manstein had departed his command post unannounced on the 6th June and had not been seen by the staff of XXXVIII. Armeekorps for three days.​

The blast damage to Commons chamber was total, there was literally nothing that could be recovered. The Members' Lobby of the House of Commons was also destroyed. Connecting doors were ripped off their hinges and all its windows were blown out, creating large piles of glass and debris. The maze-like layout of the Palace of Westminster had made the Auxiliary Firemen and Air Raid Precaution Warden's job much more difficult, but the fire in the Kitchen of the Commons dining room was quickly extinguished.

Blast damage had blown wood panelling off the walls, brought down ceilings, and two stairwells were blocked with rubble.

Being a Lord, Halifax could not view the damage to the House of Commons personally, but most of the War Cabinet could. Halifax's constitutional impediment was interpreted as indifference, a lack on concern on his part.

The foolishness of selecting Halifax as Prime Minister was becoming manifest to the press, to the establishment that chose him, and Halifax himself.

Halifax could not be certain any more that he could get any peace deal with the Germans, not matter how favourable, past the War Cabinet. His own Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon R. A. Butler, usually his most steadfast supporter, thought any armistice would be howled down in the Commons, by MPs now sat on the benches of Lords' chambers. Halifax and the Lords would have to decamp to the present Church House, Westminster

Church House, Westminster - Wikipedia

The smell of smoke, and the strange bitter smell of the explosives, would never leave the nostrils of Halifax, long after the renovation work on the Palace of Westminster had been completed.

9th June 1940​

Less than two hours into the flight of the three time-travellers had elapsed, and the signal emitted by the UHF radio beacon at Bentwaters had dwindled to nothing they were on their own, with just the INS calibrated via that signal to help guide them. It took about one hour for the noise of the four Merlin engines to stop being tolerable, and start being annoying, even with the crossover exhausts.

Five hours and twenty-five minutes into the flight, one thousand seven hundred and thirty six miles into the epic transatlantic flight the INS recalibrated itself.

McCarthy tuned the UHF radio of the North Star to hear the siren tone of the beacon.

"Jesus, Alex, turn that off" said Charlie

"How on earth? Everything else is just noise." McCarthy tried the other frequencies. Just the background radiation of the universe.

"Who knew we were coming? Receiving this frequency? The Germans?"

"Greenland was part of Denmark, but protected by the US. Didn't stop the U-boats putting weather stations on Greenland. And Canada" said McCarthy. "Seems rude not to investigate."

"We've got just 670 miles to go to our last waypoint, which is overland. In Newfoundland. Canada. And now you want to divert to fucking Greenland! Have you gone stark, staring bonkers!"

"No, the world has" replied McCarthy.


Baby' got an atom bomb
A mother fuckin' atom bomb
Twenty two mega tonne
I ain't ever seen so much fun
Baby gotta poison gas
Baby gotta heart attack
Baby gotta pain on tap
Baby gimme some of that
Baby got a satellite
Baby got second sight
Baby got a master plan
A foolproof master plan
Baby got purple hair
Baby got a secret lair
Baby got an army there

"Why the FUCK are we flying over the Arctic?" said Polina. At this latitude there was eighteen hours of daylight

"Your Dad, the greatest aviator of all time, is homing on a radio signal. Which only we could pick up. So we are on all wild goose chase for the source of this signal and using up our fuel reserves. And now, we are losing height…" said Charlie.

"Are we going to run out of fuel?"

"No, not yet. Doubt we will make it to New York now, though. Probably have to force land somewhere in Newfoundland. JESUS CHRIST look at THAT!"


"What?" said Polina.

"Runways. Buildings. Shit!"

"Ladies and Gentleman" said McCarthy over the intercom, "We will soon be arriving at Where The Fuck Are We International Airport, please make sure you have your passports ready"

Charlie went into the cockpit.

"YOU ARE NOT INTENDING TO LAND HERE? ARE YOU?"

"Ah, come on Charlie, where's yer sense of adventure?"

"It's a trap!"

"Well, Admiral Ackbar, it's got ILS, and I'm lowering the undercarriage...so it must be an elaborate trap."

Forty-five seconds later the tyres screeched on tarmac

"Where is this?" said Polina, as they walked down the stairs.

"No idea. Somewhere in Greenland"

"Oh great. So you've taken us from one windswept, isolated airfield to an even more windswept and isolated airfield in the Arctic FUCKING circle? You promised me New York, and California!"

"And I will, but let's investigate here"

"You are mad. Bat shit crazy. Utterly out of your mind" said the daughter to her father.

"Really? Looks like a fuel dump over there. If we refuel we can head straight to California"

"Oh, is there somewhere safe to land there?" mocked Charlie

"Well there's Edwards Air Force base, where the Space Shuttles used to land. Muroc, it was called then. Now."

"Was it a military base, then?" asked Charlie

"Probably. Why?"

"So we are just going to drop out the sky in this" – she pointed at the North Star – "and the US Air Force are just going to say, 'Hi buddy, nice plane you got there. Wanna go to Sunset Boulevard?' Bollocks they will."

"Stop bickering. What time is it?" said Polina.

"Just after 10 o'clock. Three hours behind GMT"

"In the morning?"

"10:07 PM. At night."

"Jesus, when does it get dark?" asked Polina.

"Not for 'nother three hours. Then five hours later the sun comes up again"

McCarthy went to examine the two extra large hangars.

He gazed through the window. He could not make anything out, everything seemed grey and blurred. Maybe six hours of listening to four Rolls-Royce Merlins had dulled his sense.

Someone touched him on the shoulder

"Charlie! Don't do that – " he turned around. He almost didn't recognise him.

"Tony?"

"Uh huh" replied the man.

 

[von hitchofen]

"How the FUCK did you get here?" asked Alex, of the apparition before him.

"I swam" said Tony

"All the way here from Dunkirk? Don't make me laugh"

"Well, it was a joke"

"This must be hell" said Alex.

"Gee, thanks, you can't have thought that much of me" replied Tony.

"Or a dream. Well, some kind of afterlife anyway. Turns out the credulous bastards were right, after all" said Alex.

"I'm not a ghost, I'm very much alive, as indeed are you." insisted Tony, holding out his hand "Go on, shake it."

"No thanks, I'm not sure where it's been"

"Go on!"

What the hell, thought Alex. The hand felt warm, smooth, and above all human.

"So how did you get to be here? And how do you look so young?" asked Alex

"I have the body of a particularly clean-living nineteen-year-old" replied Tony

"What if he wants it back?" asked Alex.

"It's mine now! Mine, all mine!"

"Don't take the piss. Explain" said Alex.

"Well, I was proceeding in a easterly direction, at approximately 350 mph IAS, congratulating myself on having shot down an Me110, when suddenly, jarringly, I woke up with tubes in my arm, up my nose and electrodes all over my head, laying in a bath full of giraffe spunk."

"Delightful. And I'm supposed to believe this?"

"I can only explain what I experienced, just as you asked" Tony continued, "Apparently, I met with a traumatic and agonising fatal incident not long afterwards, which my past self has apparently decided I should not be permitted to recall in any detail whatsoever. However a copy of my brain state and memories was held by the persons who sent us back in time. It was loaded onto a synthetic brain, and a new body was grown around it. The giraffe spunk was the...

"....growth medium for the new body?" interjected Alex.

"You are ahead of me, yes. I have been assured that it was not giraffe spunk" said Tony

"So you are the undead, cyborg, clone of somebody I used to know?"

"I'm still that person. You are having a conversation with the same Squadron Leader Antony Shannon MBE (Retired) that you knew and, well, tolerated."

"But your brain is a machine, and your body grown in a vat"

"The unfortunate side effects of total corporeal malfunction"

"Or death"

"Don't mention the d-word. Anyway, your brain is part machine, too, Alex"

"Don't be ridiculous"

"The implant that recorded my experiences and memories is doing exactly that for you, and for Charlie and Polly, too"

"I didn't consent to this!"

"We didn't consent to reverse time travel, either. Or being killed. It happened while I was asleep at your house, Alex, to you three in the moments between you leaving the motorway and landing in the golf course, several decades earlier. Neural lace, they call it. You'd need a computed tomography scanner to detect it, and there won't be one of those for thirty years..."

"Or they could just kill us, take our brains out and chop them up" retorted Alex.

"But they don't know it's there, only you and I do, and its almost impossible to extract information from a person once you have dissected their brain."

"Why can these selfish bastards who keep experimenting on us show themselves?" Alex shouted "C'MON YA CUNTS! C'MON AHT THE SHADOWS!"

"They don't currently inhabit this universe, not physically anyway. Not in the way our opponents do. They manipulate spacetime, and matter from a safe distance." said Tony.

"Yeah, that's what they told you. They are probably giant spiders, or amorphous translucent blobs" said Alex. "Why don't they just materialise an explosive device in 'itler's bunker?"

"Ideas have to be defeated. A Third Reich is still a Third Reich with or without Hitler. The other time travelers will try to manipulate whoever succeeds him into doing the same thing. Poland was going to be occupied whatever anyone did. It's the stepping stone to the USSR. Those collaborating with the Nazis are convinced the Communists have to be defeated so their civilization can form"

"How does that work? I'm too tired for this shit" said Alex, yawning.

"They are humans, post-humans, transhumans. They want the technological and cultural singularity to occur before the one of that of the post-humans that sent us back in time."

"And defeating the French and the British is part of their dastardly plan, too?" asked Alex.

"Yes. And they are halfway there. Reynaud resigned today, and declared Paris an open city. Pétain will call for a ceasefire tomorrow with an armistice to be negotiated. Seven days before it occurred in our universe."

"So, are you going to introduce me to the others?" asked the new Tony.

"They are just as tired as I am, well maybe Polina isn't, do you really want to scare the shit out of Charlie?"

"The posthumans are pleased with your work so far. Handing over the Mossie and the two-seat Sea Fury to de Havilland and Hawker. What happened to the rest of the aircraft?" asked Tony, even though he knew.

"I destroyed them."

"Even the Spitfire, the Sabre, the Vampire?" asked Tony

"All of them, well, not the Tucano, I dropped the bomb that destroyed them from that aircraft."

"Well, there are two Mustangs, both D models, here, to replace the one I lost. And the B-model you lent to Rolls-Royce." said Tony

"That's nice, but they ain't much use to us here."

"Its remoteness is to Narsarsuaq's advantage, but the distance from European targets would require a B-1B Lancer to continue operations. You dropped the bomb that destroyed the House of Commons, and damaged the unfinished Ministry of Defence building, from the Tucano?" said Tony.

"You know about that?"

"But of course. Do the ladies know?" asked Tony

"I haven't told them. How can break it to someone you trust that you've just bombed your own side?" said Alex.

"You had your reasons - reasons you can explain. The British were, and still are, pursuing twin track peace negotiations. The attacks on Westminster, and the bombing of Brûly-De-Pesche means any kind of mutually acceptable armistice is unlikely. Not impossible but unlikely. If it becomes more likely we will ensure pictures you took of the Les Paradis massacre, of the 96 prisoners-of-war from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolks and the 23 prisoners-of-war from the 1st Battalion, Royal Scots" said Tony

"Did I kill anyone? At Westminster?" asked Alex.

"Do you really want to know?" said Tony.

"I wouldn't be asking, would I, if I didn't"

"Your dramatic strike against the ruling class killed an auxiliary policeman and a telephonist in Parliament, and a nightwatchman in the Horse Guards Avenue building." said Tony.

"Shit"

"Gordon Farrant, Marjorie Watson, and Wilfred Overton. There is no evidence linking you to their deaths. Quite the reverse" said Tony.

"What do you mean?"

"A KG 55 Heinkel 111 has crashed on the South Downs of Sussex. It crashed an hour after your bombing raid. It was lost and damaged over France and had jettisoned its bombload. But the posthumans worked their magic, riddled it with 12.7mm bullets and killed all but one of the crew, Gefreiter Johannes Leonhardt, who will have little or no idea what happened. The only aircraft equipped with 12.7mm machine guns was our Tucano." said Tony

"I'm not claiming it"

"It might be attributed to you whether you like it or not, in the same way the death of von Manstein, and the Kriegsmarine Vice-Admiral and seven Captains you killed when you bombed the Gneisenau will be attributed to you" said Tony.

"I killed von Manstein? At Oissy? Shit. You know you have blocked the memory of your dea...demise? Could you wipe the memory of me bombing the Houses of Parliament."

"It can't be wiped. It can be made, inaccessible, irretrievable – but that is no guarantee it might re-emerge under duress. You would need to retain the neural lace. Such a vivid memory would need its continued presence." said Tony

"Would there be any side effects?"

"None. It would take place while you were asleep" said Tony

"Can you remove Charlie and Polly's neural - thingies. The idea of aliens living rent free in their heads creeps me out."

"I could remove them, I could also claim I had removed them, but you would not be able to confirm that I had, or hadn't. My employers insist on their continued presence, while you continue to risk you lives on their behalf." said Tony

"I don't like being a prawn in someone else's game" said Alex.

"Hahaha. That's all we ever were, Alex, just be thankful it is them, and not those collaborating with the Nazis, and the Japanese, that have taken an interest in us."

"Have the other lot infiltrated British society?" said Alex.

"Yes, yes they have" replied Tony.

~~~​

In Bordeaux, Pierre Laval heard the news that Phillipe Pétain had called for a cease-fire. His daughter had been bullying him to flee France since late May. The news finally convinced Pierre Laval to board the SS D'Artagnan, bound for New York, with his daughter.

Mussolini coveted the French territories - Corsica, Piedmont, Nice - jealously, but until he received confirmation that the British were definitely surrendering, he would stay his hand.

Lord Haw-Haw claimed responsibilty for the bombing, whereas Generalfeldmarschall Göring denied categorically that the Luftwaffe was in any way responsible. Goebbels had to intervene and claim the British had engineered the explosion to generate international sympathy.

A siege mentality was rising in Britain, and the attack on Parliament had forced the government's hand with regard to 'fifth columnists' and internment.

The British government called these people 'aliens' and had sorted them into three categories: Class A (high security risk) – 596; Class B (doubtful cases) – 6782; Class C (no risk) – 66,002. Class A aliens were rounded up and put in internment camps immediately, but most Class B and C aliens were imprisoned by the summer of 1940. Camps were set up at Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Bury, Huyton, Sutton Coldfield, Kempton Park, Lingfield, Seaton and Paignton to accommodate nearly 70,000 foreign emigrants, including some involved in war work. Max Born, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls were among them.

McCarthy would have been interned on the Isle of Man, as a Class A category alien, had he not fled.

Then a corpse was washed up on the beach at Folkestone. Winterbotham, Fleming and Hallings-Pott all identified him as McCarthy.

~~~​

A whey-faced McCarthy dragged himself from the bed into the heated building where the other three were.

McCarthy rubbed his eyes. Despite seven hours of solid sleep, he ached all over.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, who then nicked your wallet! What's wrong?" said Charlie.

"The way things are going, I would not be surprised if Beyoncé flew in on a purple pterodactyl and you turned into unicorn" said Alex.

A cormorant squawked outside, as if on cue. McCarthy jumped.

"Have you been at the 2CB, again?"

"No!"

"What's too-see-bee, when it's at home?" asked Polly.

"Don't ask. Too complicated" replied Charlie, "You are exhausted. Stressed. We all are. What is the matter?"

"I didn't sleep very well, I feel rough"

"You were asleep the whole time! I kept waking up. I dreamt I saw Tony, again, talking to you, but it was like I was on the other of a plate glass window – you couldn't hear me and Tony couldn't see you"

"I dreamt I spoke to him too, he said he'd given me two P-51Ds as replacement for the one he'd lost, and the one we gave to Rolls. Said they were in the hangar"

"What?"

"Polly can you put your coat on, and come with me, just to prove your Dad dreamt all this?" asked Charlie.

They walked the short distance to the hangar.

They opened the door.

As well as the two silver, RAF marked P-51Ds – there was a replacement Sea Fury (single seat)



And Mitsubishi Ki-83 – fitted with Pratt and Whitney R-2800-32W 2,450 hp engines in place of the Mitsubishi Ha-43 engines


as was the Grumman F7F-3 Tigercat parked next to it.



The replacement DH.103 Hornet was there too.

Despite each aircraft's very similar performance, they were each configured for a different role – the Hornet was a long range escort. The Tigercat a fighter-bomber. The Ki-83 an armed reconaissance aircraft, with a bank of cameras in the rear fuselage.

With the addition of the pod under the Tigercat wing, each could be transformed into all-weather/night fighter, without the need for an active scanning radar. The pod contained a passive mid-wave staring array Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR), navigation equipment with terrain contour matching radar, a 40,000-foot laser designator and Charge Couple Device (CCD) TV, and a long range IRST system. The targeting pod design facilitates the precision delivery of air-to-ground weapons at the longer ranges of today's precision weapons. The TV complemented the FLIR capability during daylight operation. The pod weighed 558 kilograms.

Next to that was the Martin-Baker MB5,



One Spitfire XVIIIe;

One Spitfire XVIe;



and two Consolidated PBY4-2 Privateers, the high ceiling of the hangar necessary to accommodate the tall tails of the two aircraft.



"Tell me I'm hallucinating, tell me they are not real. I can't stand reality being hacked about this. It's like they've probed my subconscious for all the planes I love and plonked them down here out of thin air." said Alex.

"That's precisely what I did do", said Tony. walking out from behind the Ki-83.

"TONY!" yelled Charlie.

 

[von hitchofen]

"Jesus, Tony I thought you were a goner." said Charlie. "How the fuck did you get here?"

"They sent me here" replied Tony.

"Who did? From where?"

"The people who sent us back in time, from the cockpit of my stricken aircraft" replied Tony.

"You've met them!"

"Spoken to them, yes. And requested these aircraft as gifts to you, should you choose to return to defend Britain, or supply any technology to the US when they become embroiled in the conflict"

"There's nothing we can do to change what's going to happen, not just the three of us and a clone of my dead friend" said Alex.

"Whatever you choose to do, you will be protected and supported. All of you. Having expended this much energy bringing you here, they will not permit you to come to any harm. G-FTRS, a recreated G-DHSS and G-MACC and the Super Tucano are both safe in the next hangar, as are the containers of spare engine. You can fly on to New York in the North Star or G-FTRS, but fuel for the Cessna Conquest will be hard to come by..."

"So that would make us dependent on you and the 'posthumans', whoever they are?" said Alex.

"Posthumans?" asked Charlie.

"Genetically or technologically enhanced human beings" said Alex. "Clony Tony is a bit cagey about his new masters"

"We have added additional soundproofing to the North Star to make the journey more pleasurable. Both the Cessna turboprop and the North Star have sufficient range to fly to Canada, the USA or back to Britain. The choice rests with you."

~~~​

The military in the UK was being shaken up. The commander of the AASF in France Air Marshal Patrick Playfair] was posted to India, and the Chief of the Air Staff himself, Cyril Newall, long-time victim of a whispering campaign by former Chief of the Air Staffs Trenchard and Salmond, was retired, made Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Bath, and promised a peerage and the Governor-Generalship of his native New Zealand when Viscount Galway retired. The AOC of Bomber Command,Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt was ushered in to take over.

Failure was no respecter of rank. Field Marshal Sir John Dill replaced Viscount Gort as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. General Sir Alan Brooke was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces.

Politically, Halifax removed Sir Horace Wilson as head of the Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary was replaced by the more congenial figure (to Halifax) of Sir Edward Bridges.

Arthur Greenwood and Clement Attlee, along with Sir John Anderson and the Secretary of State for Air, Lord Glenavon, surprisingly, were the most committed to fighting on.

"The country had to prepare for a war of nerves with the Germans," said Attlee to Halifax, "The French collapse occurred because of destruction of unity of confidence and morale of a people. Nation after nation had been swept aside because they had refused to face the facts about Hitler, preventing the essential unity of spirit of the civilised nations of Europe being translated into action. If we must face the barbarians alone, so be it"

The War Cabinet, and the Cabinet as a whole, voted to reject any peace deal.

In the USA, the Democrat Party selected New York front runner, District Attorney James Farley as their candidate to fight the Presidential elections against the Republicans.


Domestic politics, mostly unemployment (running at 14-15%) and organised crime (from which both political parties benefited from), were the central issues in the election campaign, with McCarthy making wiping out organised crime, through legislation and reconstructing the FBI, the centrepiece of his campaign.

With the fall of France, international politics gatecrashed both Hoover, and Farley's political careers. Herbert Hoover, who had been President since March 1932, was asked to stand for a third time. After the events of his two terms, he understandably refused his party's nomination.

No one had expected France to fall so quickly, and many in the US government blamed isolationism, neutrality and Herbert Hoover's equivocal support for France and Britain for the former's collapse.

And with Hoover's vice president William Borah dead, there was no anointed successor. Of the likely successors, Dewey was too young and too liberal, Vandenburg too isolationist and too lacklustre.

It came down to two compromise candidates. Governor James of Pennsylvania, and Governor of the neighbouring state of Niagara, Emerson Palmer. Palmer was eventually chosen and selected James as his running mate

Privately, both Farley and Palmer had promised unequivocal support for Britain, now it faced Germany alone, but refused to do so in public. Farley would not, for fear of alienating the Catholic and German vote, on which his victory would depend, and Palmer could not, out of fear of alienating the isolationist members of Congress, the Senate, and the Republican party generally.

The Democrats were still recovering from the disastrous presidential term of Al Smith, and the selection of Huey P. Long as Democrat candidate in the 1936 Presidential election, that swept Hoover and his vice-president William Edgar Borah back into office despite the continuing depression. The death of Borah in January 1940, meant the field was open for a new candidate. Palmer, Governor of Niagara was a compromise candidate and knew it, was fighting an election as a powerless incumbent.

A Democrat victory seemed assured.

Despite the Nazi triumph, committing the US to do all it could for Britain, short of war was not a vote-winning platform. In the short term, failure to do so meant continued economic contraction and diplomatic impotence for the US.

Adolf Hitler had a number of reasons for agreeing to an armistice with the French. He wanted to ensure that France did not continue to fight on from North Africa, which would provide another pretext for the British to fight on, and would drag in the Italians, and he wanted to ensure that the Marine National was not captured by the British. It would save the Wehrmacht driving deeper into France, and having to garrison large swathes France. He was willing to let have Lyons, or even Bordeaux as alternate capital. The critical damage the Royal Navy had done to the Kriegsmarine during the Norway campaign and Dunkirk operations had shown up the shortcomings of the German surface fleet.

Most of the Führer's future intentions were land-based operations. As always, defeating the Bolsheviks was his primary ambition and time, he felt, was short.

Leaving a French government in place would relieve Germany of the considerable burden of administering French territory, particularly as Hitler turned his attentions toward Britain – and Russia. Finally, as Germany lacked a navy sufficient to occupy France's overseas territories, Hitler's only practical recourse to deny the British the use of those territories was to maintain France's status as a de jure independent and neutral nation while also sending a powerful message to Britain that they were alone, with France appearing to switch sides and the United States remaining neutral.

The Führer suspected the British were playing for time, and imagined the explosions at their parliament had terrified rather than emboldened them.

~~~​

McCarthy flew the C-4 North Star over the Labrador Sea, with Tony acting as co-pilot and Charlie as radio operator.

Shortly after climbing to 20000 feet they detected the VHF signal broadcasting a homing signal on 121.5 MHz. The origin was somewhere on Long Island.

They made landfall just south-east of Cartwright, on the Labrador coast, and violated Canadian airspace. In 2016, the AN/FPS-117 radar at LAB-6 would have spotted them miles out to sea, and CFB Bagotville would have scrambled some CF-18s to investigated the uncorrelated target.

Nothing like that happened here.

McCarthy and daughter and friends were travelling in comfort, the noise from the four Merlins at 285 knots at 35000 feet. What aircraft the RCAF did have that was capable of reaching that speed and altitude had been shipped to the UK.

The North Star flew over the southern suburbs of Montreal, over the Cartierville polo grounds where the North Star had been/would be/might be built, and after two hours fifty-seven minutes flying time in Canadian airspace, they crossed into US airspace.

McCarthy piloted the airliner over Lake Champlain, and down the New York State-Vermont border, at 30000 feet. They flew over Fort Ticonderoga, and below them three Seversky P-35A were struggling to climb to the altitude the airliner was at.


McCarthy put the airliner in a shallow dive, which just made it fly faster, and the P-35s abandoned the pursuit. Their flight path took them over New York City at 8000 feet and 260 knots.

The passengers could see the tallest buildings in New York, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Bank of Manhattan Building, the Cities Service Building, the Singer Building, the City Investing Building...

They flew up Long Island in an easterly direction, over Mitchel Field, from whence the P-35 had taken off, over the Grumman works at Bethpage.

The source of the VHF signal was a guyed steel lattice mast 330 feet tall at….Montauk, Long Island.

"Why I am not surprised?", said McCarthy. "Probably something to do with Nikolai Tesla, too."

McCarthy turned the North Star 180° and headed back down Long Island, flying over Radio Row in Lower Manhattan, before climbing and passing over the Statue of Liberty, then over Plainfield, NJ, then Trenton before flying to the east of Philadelphia over Wharton State Forest, before then flying over Baltimore, birthplace of Edgar Allen Poe, the Duchess of Windsor and Avon Barksdale.

Before long the North Star was over the outskirts of Washington, DC. McCarthy flew over what ought to be Andrews AFB, but was just fields. McCarthy banked the North Star.

Washington National, Ronnie Reagan airport appeared to be a lot further north, too.

Charlie looked down and said – "No sign of the Pentagon"

"Not sure if they had started building it yet"

Two, large square buildings were under construction adjacent to Arlington National Century, however.

They circled the airport. There appeared to be a road bisecting the runway.

"Well, I'm not even going to try to land there...WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE?"

"What!"

"Those buildings!. By the Reflecting Pool. I don't remember those!" It looked like two eight-fingered hands of a giant had been dropped there.

"There's the Capitol." said Charlie. "Where's the White House?"

"I think we are over it"

From the East Garden, President Hoover and his Navy Secretary, newspaper owner Frank Knox looked up at the silver aircraft, glinting in the clear blue sky, not realising it's import.

"Something needs to be done about that airport" said the President.

"But not with taxpayer's money, alas" said Knox​

Four P-40A Tomahawks s had been scrambled from Langley Field, Virginia in response to the unidentified aircraft encountered by the P-35s, and the unauthorised flight over New York.

By the time the orders had reach the 27th Fighter Squadron the aircraft was over Washington itself. One aircraft had aborted its take-off after its V-1710-33 engine backfired.



Even these latest monoplane fighters struggled to climb to the altitude the North Star. This was a problem that was being reported with the B-17 and the new long-range Boeing B-20/PVB.

The two P-40A Tomahawks that reached the North Star were the only fighters McCarthy saw that day, and all McCarthy had to do to escape was push the throttle forward.

It became apparent to the USAAC pilots, that their aircraft were obsolete even though they were less than a year old. Roll on the Bell XP-45, P-46A Warhawk, and the Seversky XP-44 Rocket, they thought.

McCarthy landed at New York Municipal Airport, and Charlie, for all her sniping, was amazed at her boss/boyfriends flying skills, just as Alex was amazed at hers.

A World War One pilot watched the new aircraft land and taxi to into position. He wondered what aircraft it was, who made it and when he could buy one.

His name was Eddie Rickenbacker.

Alex, Polina and Charlie passed through the US citizens aisle at Customs at New York Municipal Airport. Charlie laughed at the American accent McCarthy used, more out of surprise than its inauthenticity.

"Welcome back to the United States of America, Mr McCarthy" said the Customs Official behind the counter, stamping the passport and handing it back to him.

A man with short hair, very black eyebrows and a firm handshake came up to McCarthy.

"Excuse me Sir, did you just land that four engined aircraft?" said the man.

"Yes, Yes, I did. Who might you be?"

"The names Edward Rickenbacker!"

"Like the World War One flying ace?"

"I am that World War One flying ace!" exclaimed Rickenbacker.

"Well, it's an absolute pleasure to meet you. My names Alex McCarthy"

"Like the Briddish bomber pilot, the one that sank the battleships?"

"Yes, exactly like the British air ace. I am he. I didn't sink any battleships, though."

Rickenbacker looked shocked.

"You...you…can't be…"

"I assure you that I am"

"The newspapers, the Briddish, say you are…" said Rickenbacker.

"What, dead?"

"Yes."

"Jesus, really?" said a shocked McCarthy "How so?"

"They found a body in the sea"

Tony looked away from Rickenbacker, and McCarthy

"Where, in the Channel?"

"Yes – I think, look I don't know the details" said Rickenbacker.

"Well it wasn't me, that's for certain." Alex glanced at Tony. Maybe one day we will find what happened. As far as I can tell I'm still alive. News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated, by the sound of things"

"They found piles of wreckage on your airfield, too. As though it had been bombed."

"The two aircraft I blew up? Well it wasn't mine. Sounds like wishful thinking on the part of the UK government. Speaking of whom, have they surrendered yet"

"No not yet. Kennedy, our ambassador there, says they will soon go the way of the French" said Rickenbacker.

"I don't doubt it. So would you like to look at my aeroplane, then?"

"Well, yes. They awarded you the Victoria Cross, as well!" said Rickenbacker.

"THEY...DID….WHAT!" exclaimed Alex, rather too loudly.