- Location
- Cambridge, UK
drawer #typoquibble
Out of the Blue (Into The Fire)
- Thread starter von hitchofen
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
grrrr! will fix
Closing In
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
text deleted thread defunct
Last edited:
Commander Fleming, RNVR
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Are you Mr Alexander?"
"Depends who wants to know?" said Tony
"I do, my name is Commander Fleming. We shouldn't talk here – what are these things?" he said, pointing at the concrete buildings.
"Hardened Aircraft Shelters" said Tony
"For sheltering aircraft from bombs?" asked Fleming
"No, just rain. YES, OF COURSE BOMBS! You f—. Wait a minute, did you say Fleming?"
"Yes"
"Ian Lancaster Fleming?" asked Tony.
"How do you know my middle name? Have we met?"
"Der-da da-ner da ner-ner, der ner, da na-ner" sung Tony, tunelessly.
"What! Are you quite mad?"
"Never mind. Ian Fleming eh? How is Blofeld and Drax"
"I haven't seen them since school. Do you know them?"
"No" said Tony.
"Everything they have told me is true. Not only do you know the name of C, you know the names of minor
functionaries like Winterbotham and me"
"No, I don't. I don't bore myself with that kind of detail. That's Alex. He'll be along - any - minute - now!"
McCarthy streaked overhead in the Canadair Sabre, breaking the world air speed record in the process. McCarthy had three-and-a-half hours stick on a non-Orenda Sabre, as opposed to Tony's zero, so he got the pleasure of the test flight.
"WHAT. THE BLOODY HELL. WAS THAT!?"
"Jet Fighter. Loud, aren't they? They call it the Sabre - one of our small collection"
Alex lowered the tricycle undercarriage of the Sabre, and brought it into land.
"And you have been flying unauthorised and wholly illegal operations over the continent?" said Fleming.
"Is it illegal to attack enemies of the Crown, now?" said Tony, not admitting anything. " 'Bout time the Royal Navy started breaking the law a bit more often. How are the preparations for Operation Dynamo going?"
"You, know - about - Dynamo?" said an exasperated Fleming, as McCarthy taxied in.
"We know everything!" said Tony, walking away from the RNVR officer, who definitely WASN'T used to being treated like this. He was their social superior by far, after all.
Tony walked up to the Sabre, as Alex shut down the Orenda, and slid back the canopy.
"Good?"
"Excellent. Got her up to 520 knots and 55,000 feet - you couldn't do that in 2016. Not over Norfolk anyway!"
"Guess who's come to see us" asked Tony
"Dunno, Winston Bloody Churchill? You tell me."
"Ian Fleming"
"You sure? Fuck me."
"You're not my type. Commander Ian Lancaster Fleming, RNVR, he says"
"Jesus." McCarthy clambered down from the Sabre, went into No 92 to wash, and change into cleaner clothes, and flick through Andrew Lycett's biography of Fleming.
"Hello, my name's Alex, I understand you wanted to see me"
"Alex who?" he demanded.
"That's all anyone is getting it for now"
"It's McCarthy isn't it?" said Fleming.
"Might be. Might not. The Admiralty could have sent somebody I had no knowledge of, and I would have been none the wiser. But they didn't. Ian Lancaster Fleming – born Green Street, Belgravia, 28 May 1908, educated Eton and Sandhurst – victor ludorum at Eton twice. You were a stockbroker before the war. Do you still live in Ebury Street, number 22?
Fleming was poleaxed by this avalanche of personal information coming from a man he had only just met, as far as he was aware.
"Do you seriously think I'm going to answer any of that!"
"What, are you not that Ian Fleming, then?"
"You seem to have done your homework on me. You won't even tell me full name"
"You don't need to know it. Still working at Room 39, for Admiral Godfrey, Eh?"
"I.....You do realise tens, if not hundreds of people are scouring every available record, from the Inland Revenue downwards, to find out who you really are" said Fleming, trying to change the subject, and make Alex feel uncomfortable.
"Let them. I doubt they'll find anything hugely informative, about us."
"So you just appeared from nowhere – a man without a past?" said Fleming
"Pretty much"
"Pretty much? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Yes?"
"Everyone has an Achilles Heel. We will find it." threatened Fleming.
"I'm sure they do. Women and alcohol for you – good job you've got two heels" mocked Alex.
"Look, you bas..."
"All you lot seem to do is come here, threaten us, say you'll arrest us, then leave empty handed. Can you see a pattern emerging? We are trying to help you, that is ALL we have every tried to do." said Tony
"We have risked our lives for our country, given you top secret information that is in the public domain where we come from, and this is how you treat us?" added Alex.
"We can find someone else" said Fleming, mistaking a lack of deference for outright contempt.
"To do what?" said Alex, as Fleming lit a cigarette.
"If you are going to smoke that, I'm going somewhere else. Rauchen Verboten – the only thing me an 'itler agree on"
"I loathe non-smokers – and it's 'Hitler and me', you proletarian halfwit"
"Charming. I gave up smoking at thirteen. I found a cheaper habit, and then lots of much moreexpensive ones. I can be just as an unpleasant little shit as you. Believe me I've barely even started. You said you wanted to talk. So talk"
Fleming dropped the cigarette, and ground it theatrically into the concrete.
"FOD" said Alex
"What?"
"Foreign Object Debris. Dangerous to my aircraft. Pick it up. I said PICK. IT. UP. This is my property, not yours. Turkish tobacco, from Morlands, eh?"
He did. And bit his tongue, remembering Godfrey had given him a job to do.
"You are the same chap that sent all the cryptographic stuff to a location in Oxfordshire?"
"What, Bletchley Park, Station X, Ultra all that, Yes"
"And you have a high performance aircraft at your disposal – one that should have impressed by the air force so it could be evaluated, anyway."
"From my cold dead hands, but yes" replied Alex, testily.
"Where did you obtain the information from?" demanded Fleming
"Wherever any normal person obtains information. From books. Look, I've been over this with Wint-. He hasn't told you anything, has he?"
"Ultra is the holiest of holies. Sacrosanct. I didn't even know about it until I was told to come and recruit you. We can't have people in the general population knowing about it, when they haven't even signed the Official Secrets Act!" said Fleming
"Yeah, well if you ARE trying to recruit us you are doing a piss-poor job. I'm, WE are the best source of information you have regarding Enigma, and the immediate future of the war, not that the Navy can do much about that, besides sink U-boats"
"We are doing the utmost!" said an exasperated Fleming.
"So what's the GRT loss from our Merchant fleet? 100,000 GRT? 200,000 GRT? And this is before the Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Gniz, Gnez..."
"Niesnow" said Fleming.
"- get out there. How big a backlog of Kriegmarine intercepts from Y service have you got? Eight months?"
"It would help if neighbouring neutral countries weren't aiding and abetting the U-boats"
"Oh, that old saw"
"You don't think it's true" asked Fleming
"Dunno, it was a lie in my version of..."
"Version of what?"
"I'm just relieved you didn't want me to parachute into Berlin in the dead of night to circumcise Hitler with a rusty potato peeler" said Alex, trying to lighten the mood.
Tony smirked evilly.
"No, old boy, nothing like that"
"So you want me to fly up and down the coast of the Irish Republic, looking for U-boats flying tricolours?"
"Especially the coast of Donegal, Lough Swilly, and the rest of the Treaty Ports. My bosses are deeply concerned that nothing unseemly is going on in those ports, as regards our enemies. Though I wouldn't put anything past the bogtrotters"
Tony winced.
This man is an utter cunt thought Alex. Not that I expected anything else
"Bogtrotters? What a delightful turn of phrase you have. Next you'll be telling me how dreadful those Jews are. Well bollocks to that. I will tool around off our coast hunting and sinking U-boats if you want, but fuck bothering the Irish."
"The Irish are a plague and a pestilence, always have been." said Fleming
"There's a lesson there. Don't treat people like dirt for 400 years. I'm sure if Hitler were to bleed to death in a bizarre potato-peeler accident, I'm sure De Valera would be first out of the trap with his condolences. But you can't judge a people by the government of their land."
"You will fly from Speke airfield, near Liverpool, and deposit any film you take..."
"Like fuck I will. The sortie will originate from an airfield of my choosing, namely THIS ONE, and terminate there. I will choose what areas I patrol, but I shall only patrol at noight, so I will. And I will attack any submarines on the surface that I do detect, so you had better move HMS Tinfish somewhere else Norway perhaps, or keep your boats submerged. These are my terms. Take them to Admiral Godfrey or leave them"
"You can't just…." said Fleming, losing his temper in the face of his technological superiors.
"Yes I can. How is the British state going to stop me? I won't meekly submit to its demands, as you've probably gathered."
"What about the Blitzkrieg? We can't do both." interjected Tony
"What is it, 22nd of May, the Frogs will capitulate in less than twenty days time, anything we do over there besides shoot down 'Inkels is a dead loss. Have the Germans reached the channel coast yet?"
"I, er, don't" said Fleming, oscillating between anger and bewilderment.
"We could probably find out quicker than you could" said Tony
"Now, bugger off back where you came from, please. Leave us in peace while we help you fight your war. It's not our war."
Tony took off in the Spitfire FR XIVe at 0838hrs, and flew south across Kent and the Channel. He dropped below 5,000 feet. Clear as day, he could see German soldiers on the beach at the Somme estuary at Le Crotoy. They waved beer bottles at him as though he was a kraut too.
There were Germans on the southern bank of the Somme, too.
Alex was right, the bastard.
He took photographs of the German troops and vehicles with the oblique F.24 camera in the Spitfire's fuselage.
McCarthy took off from Bentwaters at 2102hrs 23rd May 1940 the same day, in the TseTse Mosquito, with Charlie being the navigator/FLIR watcher. The underwing fuel tanks contained 75 gallons of avtur and 30mm gun was loaded with APDS and SAPHEI ammunition. Navigation over the blacked-out landscape of Britain was not easy, but the Ferranti FIN1020 INS, and the constant radio signal from Bentwaters at 121.5Mhz made it easier than relying on dead reckoning alone. Even so McCarthy headed out into the North Sea
Shannon took off twenty minutes later, with two drop tanks under each wing of the Super Tucano. He headed west. That datalink sent all the sensor data from Shannon's aeroplane to McCarthy's, and thence back to Bentwaters.
Soon Alex was over the Thames estuary and heading towards Northern Ireland.
The FLIR camera in the port wing brought up a target in the air almost immediately. Alex was transfixed by the spinning propellers of the He115 floatplane.
~~~
Gefreiter Lingenfelter looked out into the pitch dark. He could see the moonlight reflected in the sea. That
was it. A light blinked on the horizon. A lighthouse? There was a tremendous thump, and the whole seaplane shook, another, and the port float fell away from the aircraft. An orange ball of something passed by Lingenfelter's head. He could feel the heat through the perspex.
Oberleutnant zur See Hohenstein could see the wing and engine were aflame. He nursed the crippled aircraft to a beach on the Isle of Sheppey. All the crew survived. Two unarmed magnetic mines were recovered from the wreckage of the Heinkel.
Moments later Alex spotted two heat sources on the horizon. One was MV Sigurd Faulbaum. The other was its surfaced stalker, the small, stealthy U-9, a Type IIB submarine
German Type II submarine - Wikipedia
It was commanded by U-boat ace Oberleutnant zur See Wolfgang Lüth and he and his crew of twenty had sunk six ships already.
Kapitän zur See Wolfgang Lüth - German U-boat Commanders of WWII - The Men of the Kriegsmarine - uboat.net
The small submarine did not have a deck gun, and the electric motors would not work for long without resorting to the diesel engines. Despite the fact that the ship had sunk a French submarine, Lüth did not trust the torpedoes to work underwater.
Lüth flicked the Overstolz cigarette into the sea, as the torpedoes ran,
All of the torpedoes were gone, and this would be a last hurrah before returning home to Wilhelmshaven in a few days time.
He ordered the gun crew manning the 2cm Flak gun the conning tower and back inside the boat.
Water splashed up, and the sound of gunfire reached Lüth' ears.
The ship shook and flashed as the boat was hit by four 30mm bullets struck and penetrated the submarine's hull. There were yells of panic as water poured into the punctured hull under pressure. There were five more gut-churning impacts. The U-9 was doomed. But what had killed her? No ship, besides the stricken Sigurd Faulbaum in the distance could be seen, nor could any aircraft.
Alex watched as the stern propellers of the U-9 protruded from the sea as it sank. He could see three dinghys filled with nineteen warm bodies.
Alex turned the Mosquito north-west.
Eventually the navigation lights of the Tucano came into view.
Tony was already circling another surfaced Type IIB boat, at a respectful distance.
"Is it one of theirs, or one of ours, Over?" asked Tony.
"Looks like the one I've just sunk. No deck gun. Going in. Out"
Kapitänleutnant Karl-Heinrich Jenisch was decapitated by a thirty-millimetre round as Alex attacked his boat. Sixteen out of twenty rounds ruptured the ships hull, only eight Kriegsmarine crewman escaping from their stricken U-22.
Apart from some ineffectual Triple-A north of Belfast the rest of the sortie was uneventful, and teacher's pet Tony took some IR footage of Fort Dunree and Lough Swilly. Unsurprisingly, there were no U-boats.
Typical Norn Iron, shot at by your own side.
Flying over the lights of the Republic of Ireland made navigating the coast much easier, and both McCarthy and Shannon had over an hour of fuel reserves left when he landed back at Bentwaters at 0315hrs. Not a bad night's work.
McCarthy wondered if the contraption Charlie had devised to point a 16mm cine camera at the 30-inch monitor would work.
Total number of air-to-kills by McCarthy: TWENTY-ONE.
Total number of air-to-kills by Shannon: SIXTEEN.
AFVs/MET destroyed by uptimers: 72 German/2 British/1 Dutch.
Maritime craft destroyed by uptimers: 2 U-boats
"Depends who wants to know?" said Tony
"I do, my name is Commander Fleming. We shouldn't talk here – what are these things?" he said, pointing at the concrete buildings.
"Hardened Aircraft Shelters" said Tony
"For sheltering aircraft from bombs?" asked Fleming
"No, just rain. YES, OF COURSE BOMBS! You f—. Wait a minute, did you say Fleming?"
"Yes"
"Ian Lancaster Fleming?" asked Tony.
"How do you know my middle name? Have we met?"
"Der-da da-ner da ner-ner, der ner, da na-ner" sung Tony, tunelessly.
"What! Are you quite mad?"
"Never mind. Ian Fleming eh? How is Blofeld and Drax"
"I haven't seen them since school. Do you know them?"
"No" said Tony.
"Everything they have told me is true. Not only do you know the name of C, you know the names of minor
functionaries like Winterbotham and me"
"No, I don't. I don't bore myself with that kind of detail. That's Alex. He'll be along - any - minute - now!"
McCarthy streaked overhead in the Canadair Sabre, breaking the world air speed record in the process. McCarthy had three-and-a-half hours stick on a non-Orenda Sabre, as opposed to Tony's zero, so he got the pleasure of the test flight.
"WHAT. THE BLOODY HELL. WAS THAT!?"
"Jet Fighter. Loud, aren't they? They call it the Sabre - one of our small collection"
Alex lowered the tricycle undercarriage of the Sabre, and brought it into land.
"And you have been flying unauthorised and wholly illegal operations over the continent?" said Fleming.
"Is it illegal to attack enemies of the Crown, now?" said Tony, not admitting anything. " 'Bout time the Royal Navy started breaking the law a bit more often. How are the preparations for Operation Dynamo going?"
"You, know - about - Dynamo?" said an exasperated Fleming, as McCarthy taxied in.
"We know everything!" said Tony, walking away from the RNVR officer, who definitely WASN'T used to being treated like this. He was their social superior by far, after all.
Tony walked up to the Sabre, as Alex shut down the Orenda, and slid back the canopy.
"Good?"
"Excellent. Got her up to 520 knots and 55,000 feet - you couldn't do that in 2016. Not over Norfolk anyway!"
"Guess who's come to see us" asked Tony
"Dunno, Winston Bloody Churchill? You tell me."
"Ian Fleming"
"You sure? Fuck me."
"You're not my type. Commander Ian Lancaster Fleming, RNVR, he says"
"Jesus." McCarthy clambered down from the Sabre, went into No 92 to wash, and change into cleaner clothes, and flick through Andrew Lycett's biography of Fleming.
"Hello, my name's Alex, I understand you wanted to see me"
"Alex who?" he demanded.
"That's all anyone is getting it for now"
"It's McCarthy isn't it?" said Fleming.
"Might be. Might not. The Admiralty could have sent somebody I had no knowledge of, and I would have been none the wiser. But they didn't. Ian Lancaster Fleming – born Green Street, Belgravia, 28 May 1908, educated Eton and Sandhurst – victor ludorum at Eton twice. You were a stockbroker before the war. Do you still live in Ebury Street, number 22?
Fleming was poleaxed by this avalanche of personal information coming from a man he had only just met, as far as he was aware.
"Do you seriously think I'm going to answer any of that!"
"What, are you not that Ian Fleming, then?"
"You seem to have done your homework on me. You won't even tell me full name"
"You don't need to know it. Still working at Room 39, for Admiral Godfrey, Eh?"
"I.....You do realise tens, if not hundreds of people are scouring every available record, from the Inland Revenue downwards, to find out who you really are" said Fleming, trying to change the subject, and make Alex feel uncomfortable.
"Let them. I doubt they'll find anything hugely informative, about us."
"So you just appeared from nowhere – a man without a past?" said Fleming
"Pretty much"
"Pretty much? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Yes?"
"Everyone has an Achilles Heel. We will find it." threatened Fleming.
"I'm sure they do. Women and alcohol for you – good job you've got two heels" mocked Alex.
"Look, you bas..."
"All you lot seem to do is come here, threaten us, say you'll arrest us, then leave empty handed. Can you see a pattern emerging? We are trying to help you, that is ALL we have every tried to do." said Tony
"We have risked our lives for our country, given you top secret information that is in the public domain where we come from, and this is how you treat us?" added Alex.
"We can find someone else" said Fleming, mistaking a lack of deference for outright contempt.
"To do what?" said Alex, as Fleming lit a cigarette.
"If you are going to smoke that, I'm going somewhere else. Rauchen Verboten – the only thing me an 'itler agree on"
"I loathe non-smokers – and it's 'Hitler and me', you proletarian halfwit"
"Charming. I gave up smoking at thirteen. I found a cheaper habit, and then lots of much moreexpensive ones. I can be just as an unpleasant little shit as you. Believe me I've barely even started. You said you wanted to talk. So talk"
Fleming dropped the cigarette, and ground it theatrically into the concrete.
"FOD" said Alex
"What?"
"Foreign Object Debris. Dangerous to my aircraft. Pick it up. I said PICK. IT. UP. This is my property, not yours. Turkish tobacco, from Morlands, eh?"
He did. And bit his tongue, remembering Godfrey had given him a job to do.
"You are the same chap that sent all the cryptographic stuff to a location in Oxfordshire?"
"What, Bletchley Park, Station X, Ultra all that, Yes"
"And you have a high performance aircraft at your disposal – one that should have impressed by the air force so it could be evaluated, anyway."
"From my cold dead hands, but yes" replied Alex, testily.
"Where did you obtain the information from?" demanded Fleming
"Wherever any normal person obtains information. From books. Look, I've been over this with Wint-. He hasn't told you anything, has he?"
"Ultra is the holiest of holies. Sacrosanct. I didn't even know about it until I was told to come and recruit you. We can't have people in the general population knowing about it, when they haven't even signed the Official Secrets Act!" said Fleming
"Yeah, well if you ARE trying to recruit us you are doing a piss-poor job. I'm, WE are the best source of information you have regarding Enigma, and the immediate future of the war, not that the Navy can do much about that, besides sink U-boats"
"We are doing the utmost!" said an exasperated Fleming.
"So what's the GRT loss from our Merchant fleet? 100,000 GRT? 200,000 GRT? And this is before the Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Gniz, Gnez..."
"Niesnow" said Fleming.
"- get out there. How big a backlog of Kriegmarine intercepts from Y service have you got? Eight months?"
"It would help if neighbouring neutral countries weren't aiding and abetting the U-boats"
"Oh, that old saw"
"You don't think it's true" asked Fleming
"Dunno, it was a lie in my version of..."
"Version of what?"
"I'm just relieved you didn't want me to parachute into Berlin in the dead of night to circumcise Hitler with a rusty potato peeler" said Alex, trying to lighten the mood.
Tony smirked evilly.
"No, old boy, nothing like that"
"So you want me to fly up and down the coast of the Irish Republic, looking for U-boats flying tricolours?"
"Especially the coast of Donegal, Lough Swilly, and the rest of the Treaty Ports. My bosses are deeply concerned that nothing unseemly is going on in those ports, as regards our enemies. Though I wouldn't put anything past the bogtrotters"
Tony winced.
This man is an utter cunt thought Alex. Not that I expected anything else
"Bogtrotters? What a delightful turn of phrase you have. Next you'll be telling me how dreadful those Jews are. Well bollocks to that. I will tool around off our coast hunting and sinking U-boats if you want, but fuck bothering the Irish."
"The Irish are a plague and a pestilence, always have been." said Fleming
"There's a lesson there. Don't treat people like dirt for 400 years. I'm sure if Hitler were to bleed to death in a bizarre potato-peeler accident, I'm sure De Valera would be first out of the trap with his condolences. But you can't judge a people by the government of their land."
"You will fly from Speke airfield, near Liverpool, and deposit any film you take..."
"Like fuck I will. The sortie will originate from an airfield of my choosing, namely THIS ONE, and terminate there. I will choose what areas I patrol, but I shall only patrol at noight, so I will. And I will attack any submarines on the surface that I do detect, so you had better move HMS Tinfish somewhere else Norway perhaps, or keep your boats submerged. These are my terms. Take them to Admiral Godfrey or leave them"
"You can't just…." said Fleming, losing his temper in the face of his technological superiors.
"Yes I can. How is the British state going to stop me? I won't meekly submit to its demands, as you've probably gathered."
"What about the Blitzkrieg? We can't do both." interjected Tony
"What is it, 22nd of May, the Frogs will capitulate in less than twenty days time, anything we do over there besides shoot down 'Inkels is a dead loss. Have the Germans reached the channel coast yet?"
"I, er, don't" said Fleming, oscillating between anger and bewilderment.
"We could probably find out quicker than you could" said Tony
"Now, bugger off back where you came from, please. Leave us in peace while we help you fight your war. It's not our war."
~~~
Tony took off in the Spitfire FR XIVe at 0838hrs, and flew south across Kent and the Channel. He dropped below 5,000 feet. Clear as day, he could see German soldiers on the beach at the Somme estuary at Le Crotoy. They waved beer bottles at him as though he was a kraut too.
There were Germans on the southern bank of the Somme, too.
Alex was right, the bastard.
He took photographs of the German troops and vehicles with the oblique F.24 camera in the Spitfire's fuselage.
~~~
McCarthy took off from Bentwaters at 2102hrs 23rd May 1940 the same day, in the TseTse Mosquito, with Charlie being the navigator/FLIR watcher. The underwing fuel tanks contained 75 gallons of avtur and 30mm gun was loaded with APDS and SAPHEI ammunition. Navigation over the blacked-out landscape of Britain was not easy, but the Ferranti FIN1020 INS, and the constant radio signal from Bentwaters at 121.5Mhz made it easier than relying on dead reckoning alone. Even so McCarthy headed out into the North Sea
Shannon took off twenty minutes later, with two drop tanks under each wing of the Super Tucano. He headed west. That datalink sent all the sensor data from Shannon's aeroplane to McCarthy's, and thence back to Bentwaters.
Soon Alex was over the Thames estuary and heading towards Northern Ireland.
The FLIR camera in the port wing brought up a target in the air almost immediately. Alex was transfixed by the spinning propellers of the He115 floatplane.
~~~
Gefreiter Lingenfelter looked out into the pitch dark. He could see the moonlight reflected in the sea. That
was it. A light blinked on the horizon. A lighthouse? There was a tremendous thump, and the whole seaplane shook, another, and the port float fell away from the aircraft. An orange ball of something passed by Lingenfelter's head. He could feel the heat through the perspex.
Oberleutnant zur See Hohenstein could see the wing and engine were aflame. He nursed the crippled aircraft to a beach on the Isle of Sheppey. All the crew survived. Two unarmed magnetic mines were recovered from the wreckage of the Heinkel.
Moments later Alex spotted two heat sources on the horizon. One was MV Sigurd Faulbaum. The other was its surfaced stalker, the small, stealthy U-9, a Type IIB submarine
German Type II submarine - Wikipedia
It was commanded by U-boat ace Oberleutnant zur See Wolfgang Lüth and he and his crew of twenty had sunk six ships already.
Kapitän zur See Wolfgang Lüth - German U-boat Commanders of WWII - The Men of the Kriegsmarine - uboat.net
The small submarine did not have a deck gun, and the electric motors would not work for long without resorting to the diesel engines. Despite the fact that the ship had sunk a French submarine, Lüth did not trust the torpedoes to work underwater.
Lüth flicked the Overstolz cigarette into the sea, as the torpedoes ran,
All of the torpedoes were gone, and this would be a last hurrah before returning home to Wilhelmshaven in a few days time.
He ordered the gun crew manning the 2cm Flak gun the conning tower and back inside the boat.
Water splashed up, and the sound of gunfire reached Lüth' ears.
The ship shook and flashed as the boat was hit by four 30mm bullets struck and penetrated the submarine's hull. There were yells of panic as water poured into the punctured hull under pressure. There were five more gut-churning impacts. The U-9 was doomed. But what had killed her? No ship, besides the stricken Sigurd Faulbaum in the distance could be seen, nor could any aircraft.
Alex watched as the stern propellers of the U-9 protruded from the sea as it sank. He could see three dinghys filled with nineteen warm bodies.
Alex turned the Mosquito north-west.
~~~
The Mosquito homed in the datalink of the Super Tucano, orbiting to the west of Liverpool. It took an hour to cross England diagonally at the Mosquito's cruising speed of 178 knots. There was a surprising amount of light sources on the ground, considering the black-out that was supposed to be in place.Eventually the navigation lights of the Tucano came into view.
Tony was already circling another surfaced Type IIB boat, at a respectful distance.
"Is it one of theirs, or one of ours, Over?" asked Tony.
"Looks like the one I've just sunk. No deck gun. Going in. Out"
Kapitänleutnant Karl-Heinrich Jenisch was decapitated by a thirty-millimetre round as Alex attacked his boat. Sixteen out of twenty rounds ruptured the ships hull, only eight Kriegsmarine crewman escaping from their stricken U-22.
Apart from some ineffectual Triple-A north of Belfast the rest of the sortie was uneventful, and teacher's pet Tony took some IR footage of Fort Dunree and Lough Swilly. Unsurprisingly, there were no U-boats.
Typical Norn Iron, shot at by your own side.
Flying over the lights of the Republic of Ireland made navigating the coast much easier, and both McCarthy and Shannon had over an hour of fuel reserves left when he landed back at Bentwaters at 0315hrs. Not a bad night's work.
McCarthy wondered if the contraption Charlie had devised to point a 16mm cine camera at the 30-inch monitor would work.
Total number of air-to-kills by McCarthy: TWENTY-ONE.
Total number of air-to-kills by Shannon: SIXTEEN.
AFVs/MET destroyed by uptimers: 72 German/2 British/1 Dutch.
Maritime craft destroyed by uptimers: 2 U-boats
Last edited:
Mystical Combat
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Friday, 24th May 1940
McCarthy drove the Daimler to London.
The large silver and black car drew admiring glances from all who saw it – they wondered who it belonged to, and most of all - how did he afford to run it?
McCarthy had 4000 gallons of mogas at Bentwaters, along with 4000 gallons of diesel, 10,000 gallons of Avgas 115 and 12,000 gallons of Jet-A.
In the dark depths of the North Sea, a huge submarine drilled into the seabed to harvest the crude
oilfrom what would be called the Ekofisk oil field. Hyperian nanocytes would convert the liquid
hydrocarbons into fuels, without the need for refinery heat and high pressure cracking towers.
Off the coast of Namibia, a smaller submersible craft searched the seabed for diamonds.
oilfrom what would be called the Ekofisk oil field. Hyperian nanocytes would convert the liquid
hydrocarbons into fuels, without the need for refinery heat and high pressure cracking towers.
Off the coast of Namibia, a smaller submersible craft searched the seabed for diamonds.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/phot...-up-its-best-diamonds-from-the-african-seabed
McCarthy parked the car near Wanstead golf course, their agreed meeting place. Just the kind of lower class London suburb Fleming would avoid at all costs.Fleming pulled up in an Admiralty-owned Austin Ten.
"Excellent choice of vehicle. I had you down as a Rolls-Royce arriviste" he asked McCarthy, after climbing in the back seat.
"Unique is what it is" The Daimler would show any sports car of the day a clean pair of heels with its fuel-injected XK6 4.2 litre Series 3. McCarthy wondered what he would say about the Overfinch Range Rover.
McCarthy opened what looked like a large white book. No pages.
"What on earth is that?"
"MacBook Air" He clicked on Quicktime Player with the trackpad.
"Named after you. I have no doubt"
"Yes I am, Alex MacBucare"
"Fort Dunree, Lough Swilly, Republic of Ireland. As you can see, nothing doing" The black and white picture panned across the expanse of water.
"My superiors will want see this device."
"Well they bloody well can't – this technology never leaves my sight" said McCarthy.
"...and they want you to fly over at night, too"
"This WAS taken at night – see the time – top right hand corner?" It said 0131HR GMT. In the bottom left hand of the screen was the Longitude and Latitude, constantly updating.
"How can your camera see in the dark that clearly?"
"My eldritch ultraterrestrial magic. The powers I possess, 1940s man can only dream of. Ignore me at your peril"
"Where's the other chap"
"Tony? Couldn't make it." Fleming heard the 'boggler-boggler' noise of a idling diesel engine and a large camouflaged truck pulled up alongside the Daimler. "Charlie did, however."
"What the hell is that?"
"It's a shield, in case there are any snipers in those buildings over there"
"Good God man, we are British! We don't gun people down in the street!" said Fleming
"I don't trust you whatsoever. Don't take it personally, I don't trust anyone - I'm not even sure about the people who traveled with me, except Charlie"
The bullet-proof vest and cap concealed Charlie's feminine attributes. Polly was McCarthy's weak spot. The less 'they' knew about her, the better.
"Here's the edited highlights on 16mm cine film. Tell them I will do the same for Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg, Kiel." said McCarthy. It had the footage of the two submarines being sunk, and the He115 being shot down.
"Did you attack any enemy shipping" asked Fleming.
"You might think that, I could not possibly comment" said McCarthy
Charlie got back in the cab of the Bedford MK and drove it away, unblocking Fleming's Austin Fourteen. Fleming drove back to the Admiralty, glad he had something positive to show Admiral Godfrey.
McCarthy parked the Daimler, and walked up to the white and red brick South London house and knocked on the door to the conservatory on the front on the house.
A woman came to the door.
"Hello?"
"Hello there, is Sir Hugh in? My names, McCarthy, Mr Alex McCarthy"
"I'll tell him you are here"
A tall man with a thin moustache and piercing blue eyes came to the door.
"Mr McCarthy" he said flatly.
"Yes Sir Hugh, I've to come to....well...apologise really, I'm sorry....it's a pleasure to meet you, at last..."
"Is it indeed? You'd best come in. Conversations such as these are best not conducted on surburban doorsteps."
Dowding led McCarthy to his drawing room.
"First and foremost, I'd like to offer my heartfelt apologies for the part my overflight of London may have had in shortening career." said McCarthy
"Young man, you need not apologise, my career was at its end. Your acts were merely secondary to the political plots in the Air Ministry to have me removed. I had already been overlooked for the role of Chief of the Air Staff because my views were antithetical to those of the majority of the Air Marshals...."
"The Strategic Bombing enthusiasts?"
"Yes, but not only them. Fighter Command was consuming meagre resources that other commands coveted, not just Bomber Command, and I faced great internal opposition from above and below."
"Leigh-Mallory"
"I presume Newall has told you everything, then?"
"I've never met him. Not once"
"How do you know so much about this?"
"Would you be surprised if I told you that a Strategic Bombing Campaign over German would kill 55,000 aircrew - "
"FIFTY FIVE THOUSAND?" interjected Dowding.
"...and more than half a million German civilians?"
"Such a futile barbarity, I cannot see what it would gain"
"If I were a teacher or an academic with knowledge I have, who would believe me? Or worse still, a coal miner or newspaper seller woke up with the knowledge I have. Without the aircraft and the airfield , I would be sectioned under the Mental Health Act, or whatever."
"How long have you been here, Mr McCarthy?"
"Since when?"
"Since when you arrived from wherever you came. Everything you have has the patina of newness, of lived-in newness. The transcendental presence of the other pervades you. I have seen many curious things Mr McCarthy, I did not expect to have one sat in one's own drawing room."
"You think, you think I'm from another planet? Well, I'm going to have to disappoint you." said Alex.
"You may be able to pull the wool over the eyes of the aircraft industry, the newspapers, the RAF even but not me. I can see further than them. I'm sure you have already claimed the same yourself. You are a traveller. Not just in three dimensions. When did you arrive?"
"May the fourth, 1940"
"From whence did you come?"
"Suffolk, the same place I come from now. I was born in a town that does not exist – yet. A New Town in Essex called Basildon. I was brought up in a very old town, Saffron Walden. I have never left planet Earth, nor arrived from anywhere else."
"Do not try and mislead me, Mr McCarthy." said Dowding
"I have tried to be scrupulously honest with everyone, except the press, who habitually print lies anyway, so why bother to even try to explain? If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed. I have travelled to the USA many times, where I come from it is as easy as getting on a train to Edinburgh, if you have enough money. It is a question of not where but when."
"So when do you come from?"
"Twenty-sixteen. Two thousand and sixteen Anno Domini. A human being from the future. I was born in September 1973, and I am forty-two years old. "
"Really?"
"I was NOT born in 1898. I cannot remember the funeral of the previous King, nor the coronation of the current one. I remember neither the outbreak of that war, nor the armistice. If I am forty-two I should have participated in that conflict. I didn't."
"Maybe you were in a reserved occupation, or a conscientious objector."
"I would remember that, would I not? That does not explain the twenty aircraft I have shot down in last fifteen days."
"Twenty? You should have a DSO. You can prove all these?"
"Every single one."
"Anything capable of producing objects that pass through our atmosphere at 9000 miles per hour can produce a convincing simulacra of a human, I should think." said Dowding
"9000 miles an hour? No human could ever travel that fast. Not in Earth atmosphere, anyway. No man will ever travel beyond 4500 miles an hour. It seems you have UFOs in this world, too.
"You-eff-ohs?"
"Unidentified Flying Objects. They may be cosmic rays, falling space debris, or travellers from another dimension....like me, perhaps. However 640mph is my limit." said McCarthy
"Twenty-sixteen AD, you say. How different the future must be."
"Not that much difference. This is the era of great change. 1940 to 1970. Supersonic aircraft, new medicines, new power sources, exploration of outer space, the first computers, new philosophies, the age of new spiritual beliefs, ones that you appear to share. Peace and prosperity in Europe and the US at least, then Japan and China thereafter, after a series of catastrophic upheavals." said McCarthy.
"Did you travel alone?"
"Yes" lied McCarthy.
"I am not so sure – someone must be helping you!"
"They are not"
"Be that as it may – I have seen photographs of that aircraft you have, the one you claim cost me my job. It had no discernable propeller. What is it power source?"
"It's a gas turbine. A jet"
"Such engines cannot be made small enough to propel an aircraft. A very promising RAF pilot claimed they did, even patented his design."
"Whittle. "
"That's the fellow", confirmed Dowding
Frank Whittle. Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM in my world"
"Alas he is not in our world"
"What?"
"He drowned, test ditching an aircraft. He could not swim"
"Fuck, can anything go right in this universe!"
"I will not have language like that used in my home. "
"I'm sorry"
Dowding changed the subject.
"In this universe Whittle devised the use of gas turbines in aircraft. You, however, have appear to make them work"
"So aeroplanes such as yours are owned by everyman in 2014?"
"Not in the slightest. Each aircraft cost over a million pounds to buy, or restore to airworthiness. The Sea Fury were both designed in 1945, both in Britain. The US and USSR had comparable if not superior aircraft in the same timeframe. I own of them, copied by the Canadian using a powerplant derived from a German jet engine."
"The Germans acquire jet engines too?"
"They developed them before us, had they access to more raw materials they would have had them as combat aircraft long before we did. The aircraft used for mass air travel and air combat in my era, hugely eclipse anything I am allowed to operate. These are historical aircraft preserved for posterity – only here are they the cutting edge of technology. And there is more than even you are probably aware of. Maybe I have been sent to kick-start these advances, wrest them away from the forces of evil, the Nazis, on an Earth where the democracies are even more retarded than my own" said McCarthy
"Perhaps you are even more important than that. Perhaps you are the agent of some great mystical force, outside and beyond our perception" said Dowding.
Dowding was beginning to sound like hundreds of people he met in chill-out rooms, loved-up on ecstasy or sketching out on LSD. He thought he'd left all this mystical hogwash in the past. Or the future.
"On the contrary perhaps you are, Sir Hugh...?"
"My time is past, I have laid the groundwork, the real test will be for my son Derek's generation, 'my Chicks'. Whatever entreaties you may make to me, the Air Ministry, they will not have me back, nor I they – and why should I when they have you?
"But what can I do? They aren't even interested in buying my aeroplane – even the aircraft I have given away I have received precious little thanks for."
"This is likely to be a war of ideologies, of politics and politicians, Mr McCarthy. The politicians give the orders, and expect men like to me carry them out, and young men like my son Derek to fight and die. You know what is coming. I do not. How can expect to change things, influence people, if you are not a politician?
"I LOATHE politicians, almost all of them, the ones from this time are by far the worst - liars, complacent careerists more interested in their own advancement and their "place in history" that the defence of their homeland, or the welfare of their electorate, or even the traditions and history of their own country. THEY ARE VILE HUMAN BEINGS. Only journalists are worse." said McCarthy, without resorting to obscenities.
"If that is your opinion, I fail to see how the change you desire will manifest itself. The only way for the situation you forcefully draw attention to that can rectified is that men of honour, of forthright opinion, of far-seeing vision, around whom the populace can confidently gather."
"That's not me, I'm not a leader, I'm a follower."
"You may deny it, surely you realize it should be you. Britain needs an anti-Hitler, rather than a pale imitation of him, like Leese. "
"Who?" asked McCarthy.
"Arnold Leese, leader of the wretched Imperial Fascist League. He should be interned, as a danger to morale!" said Dowding
"What about Mosley?"
"Oswald Mosley, just another nearly man of British politics. What the nation desires is a man of action of the type Hitler himself admires , but that can out-think and outmanouevre him, and supports a better, more equitable, more spiritual future."
"Well, that MOST DEFINITELY isn't me. You are even more eccentric than your biography says - I didn't think that was possible."
"WHAT biography?" demanded Dowding
"This one." said McCarthy, handing him a book.
Dowding saw his own picture, and the words Victor of the Battle of Britain
"So I save the day in your world. I see. That is not going to happen here, I fear."
"Vegetarianism, fairies, ghosts, aliens, is there anything you don't believe in, Sir Hugh?"
"Is there anything you do believe in, Mr McCarthy, even yourself? Whittle told me a man would come to prove his doubters wrong, and come to Britain's aid in its direst circumstances"
"I thought you said he had died?"
"I am a spiritualist. I have spoken to him since then..."
<silence>
"In my philosophy " the Air Chief Marshal continued to an incredulous McCarthy "there is the theory of the ascended master – a living being – a man, or woman of willpower, discipline, intelligence, a master of technology, transmutation, of clarity of vision, who creates wealth from nothing, who harnesses the one power. The Maitreya. The world teacher. Are you not that man, Mr McCarthy? Look inside yourself, beyond yourself. If you are alone as you claim, are you not that man?" said Dowding, quietly, evenly, only emphasizing the last five words.
"With all due respect, this is bullshit, Sir Hugh, and I'm leaving."
"That is your choice." said Dowding, with no hint of disappointment or anger in his voice. He had said enough.
Saturday, May 25rd 1940.
"In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it." Erwin Rommel.
Hitler's stop order came to abrupt end."In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it." Erwin Rommel.
Charlie took off in the two seat Sea Fury, with Alex following shortly afterwards in the P-51D Mustang
Both aircraft could tear away from any military aircraft they might encounter – but Alex was worried the red paint job on the Sea Fury would attract unwanted attention to Charlie. At least he would be able to find her again relatively easily.
Soon they were on the other side of the Channel, over Dieppe.
Even from their altitude, they could see a Hospital Ship in Dieppe harbour, a Red Cross awning stretched over the quayside.
THE DOVER WAR MEMORIAL PROJECT - World War Two - Notes on the Hospital Carrier Maid of Kent
Below them twelve Ju87 Stukas hoved into view.
They weren't going to, were they?
THEY WERE.
Two of the crank-winged dive bombers peeled off from the formation before Alex and Charlie could get in position.
Charlie went down first, Alex to tell her to keep the Fury throttled back as they were slow aircraft.
"Affirmative"
With the gyro gunsight, all Charlie had to do was keep the Stuka in the reticule. She fired the two 20mm cannon. Flames shot out the engine cowling and the gunner baled out.
Lucky bastard.
"I got one!"
"Don't get cocky, sweetheart. I got it with my cameras, even if you didn't. Can't see any 109s but come back up here and keep an eye out. Over"
"Roger that. Out"
McCarthy pushed the nose of the Mustang down. He followed one of the diving machines. It released its bombs before McCarthy could get in range.
He fired the six point-fifty calibre machine guns as the Stuka pulled out, the one second burst tearing off its starboard wing, and it dived into the harbour. McCarthy climbed back up towards the silver Fury, glinting in the spring sunshine.
"Go get another one, Charlie, Over"
"Roger, Alex, Over"
The bomb load of the second Stuka that Charlie had attacked exploded and she had to pull out smartly to avoid the debris cloud. By now Alex could see the remainder of the formation jettisoning its bombs and fleeing.
Sturzkampfgeschwader 2 had lost three aircraft and three crews in eight minutes.
Alex and Charlie flew on, passing south of Arras. Below they saw two twin-engined aircraft the could not identify. (McCarthy thought they were Henschel Hs 129s. They weren't.) As they dived to investigate they could see the aircraft strafing the vehicles on the roadway, and people scurrying for cover, and the black crosses on the wings.
Charlie fired at the single-seater FW187 at close range, the cannon shells at full muzzle velocity blowing the flimsy aircraft to pieces, Alex fired at the second, the burning aircraft plunging into a field.
They flew long alongside the road. They were civilian vehicles, carts, barrows, prams. Two horses bolted, and a mule lay in a pool of its own blood. McCarthy found the column of tanks the Nazis were trying to clear the road for.
Strafing them was not going to achieve much except exposing them to light Flak.
They headed back to Bentwaters.
In the second sortie of the day, the Sea Fury, and the Sea Grey/Barley Grey Super Tucano took off from Bentwaters, and headed South. Nevertheless, both aircraft were still civil aircraft, with civil registration. The Super Tucano was registered as a McCarthy-Shannon MS-2 Toucan, an aircraft that did not even have a Certificate of Airworthiness, but was doing a convincing impression of flying in UK airspace.
The Sea Fury had one 250lb Snakeye bombs under each wing, and was flown by Charlie. The Super Tucano had an Python-4 on a starboard pylon, and a 500lb LGB on the remaining three position with Tony and a reluctant Alex, who only wanted to test the missile, and see Charlie return safely.
Pulling around, Tony saw countless heat sources, all running into a copse near where the tanks were parked. He fired a five second burst of his two 12.7mm machine guns into the trees. Sixteen men of the 1st Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Division, and SS-Verfügungstruppe were killed.
Tony turned the Super Tucano to port, painted the laser on the largest concentrations Wehrmacht vehicles he could see, and dropped the three 500lb bombs onto them.
Charlie dropped her two Snakeye bombs on the German positions on the eastern bank of the Aa canal, the Sea Fury in a shallow dive.
Both aircraft climbed away.
It was the most accurate bombing raid the men Lancashire Fusiliers and the Royal Norfolk Regiment had seen. Indeed it was only close air support mission by non-Luftwaffe aircraft they had seen.
As they reached altitude, McCarthy saw a Heinkel He111 formation. Tony flew closer to the aircraft to confirm, before Alex used the helmet-mounted sight to arm and launch the Python-4 one of the aircraft.
Alex added it to Tony's total of kills.
It pleased Alex to think a Jewish-designed missile had been used to destroy a Luftwaffe bomber. So much for the übermensch.
We were 18 kilometres south of Rouen when our formation was
attacked. A single Flak explosion destroyed the wing of the
lead aircraft of the Geschwader Kommodore (9K+AA).
Two parachutes were seen before the aircraft crashed,
Oberst Kammhuber and Leutnant Kitzig are believed to
be POW.
No further Flak bursts were seen.
Minutes later a silver Curtiss Hawk 75 [sic] attacked
Oberleutant Schirmer's aircraft [9K+EF] and
destroyed it, and no survivors were seen.
This was our only contact with the enemy
attacked. A single Flak explosion destroyed the wing of the
lead aircraft of the Geschwader Kommodore (9K+AA).
Two parachutes were seen before the aircraft crashed,
Oberst Kammhuber and Leutnant Kitzig are believed to
be POW.
No further Flak bursts were seen.
Minutes later a silver Curtiss Hawk 75 [sic] attacked
Oberleutant Schirmer's aircraft [9K+EF] and
destroyed it, and no survivors were seen.
This was our only contact with the enemy
Extract from combat report Unteroffizier Hugo Bandl, 2 Staffel, Kampfgeschwader 51 'Edelweiss' 25. May 1940.
Total number of air-to-kills by McCarthy: TWENTY-THREE.
Total number of air-to-kills by Shannon: SEVENTEEN.
Total number of air-to-kills by Brandon: THREE
AFVs/MET destroyed by uptimers: 108 German/2 British/1 Dutch.
Last edited:
Weapons of the Future
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
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 D2O 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 D2O 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 D2O 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 D2O 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.
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 D2O 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 D2O 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 D2O 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 D2O 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.
Last edited:
Strategic Bombing
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
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!"
[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.
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
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.
Last edited:
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"What kind of man would think that a public record office in Amsterdam was an important target?" asked the Reichsführer-SS
"One who has foreknowledge of how the war will progress, of what our organisation needs to achieve, how the Reich's advances can be halted" said the Brigadeführer-SS
It would be hard to tell who was the superior and inferior in this conversation. In terms of rank, the Reichsführer-SS was second only to the Fuhrer, with power of life and death over the lesser-ranking man.
The reverse was true.
Himmler was eternally grateful to the other man, both for curing his niggling health problems, and guaranteeing he would outlive Goring, Goebbels and Hitler, ensuring he alone would the Führer's successor and torch-bearer of the National Socialist movement.
What he did not realise that in accepting such treatment, was that the Brigadeführer-SS was the only man on Earth who could kill Himmler at any time, and make it appear that his death was entirely the consequence of natural causes.
"What do we know about these temporal interlopers?" asked Himmler
"There are three of them, and they all appear to be males. They have four aircraft, a gas turbine aircraft, the single-engined turboprop that bombed Amsterdam, a rotary wing aircraft and the tricycle-undercarriage FW200 copy seen in Paris."
"So they have stolen all the Reich's innovations." said Himmler.
"Now you understand the reality of failure to defeat the Soviets, and financial capital. The theft of German technology by our bitterest enemies. Once that is achieved, the occupation of our ancestral lands, the subjugation of the white race and the self-murder of Western civilisation through forced assimilation and miscegenation with Jews, Negros and non-Nordic people become a formality."
"Our cause is shared cause a crusade, and we are a vanguard against race chaos. What can three people do to stop us?" asked Himmler
"It is not the three hapless minions that need concern us, it is their backers!"
"International Jewry? Proxy fighters from North America?" asked Himmler
"It is far, far worse than that. The three that they have sent will be sentimentalists. I have posted snipers around the home of the revolting Frank family of self-publicists, in the hope they might rescue them. So far nothing. The Dunkirk evacuation is the greatest trap of all. It is inspired move by the Fuhrer, allow the British to escape without their weapons, humiliated. It will bring a settlement with the English government much closer. They have already opened communications with the Vatican and Ciano. Halifax will not risk a long, costly war with us, one that destroys the Empire he has devoted his life to, unlike the alcoholic half-breed."
"Your help in that respect has been a massive aid to us. No-one of any influence in the English-speaking world takes the opinions of that crippled aristocrat seriously any more." said Himmler.
"He will want to end the war before his King dies, too. The Three will be drawn to Dunkirk like moths to flame, and we will eradicate them there. Their base is too-well hardened to attack, and is probably protected by synthetic intelligences. The interlopers will not succeed in convincing the British to fight on, dragging the Americans into this war with the Bolsheviks. The tide of history is with us! You have my word." concluded the Brigadeführer-SS
"Heil Hitler"
Alex and Tony smoothly landed the C-4 back at Bentwaters, considering it was tail heavy to the rear, and the nose section contained many, many VIPs.
The Prince of Wales looked out the window, expecting to see a watch office and many hangars, just saw one large one, and ten Nissen huts.
A proper of airstairs was pushed up the foreward pressure door once Alex had extricated himself from the cockpit via the floor hatch. The French/Italian/Russian scientists and their families filed out the aircraft into the coastal drizzle of East Anglia.
Alex was glad to see the Prince, nor his ADC, insisted on leaving first, though his pilot looked throughly disgusted that all these Frenchies were getting off first.
"Well, that was marvellous flight" said the Prince. "Are their plans to put this excellent aircraft into production?"
"Not that I know of, your 'ighness, it's one of a kind."
"Could it be converted into a bomber?"
"No, the wing's too low, sir - bomb bay and undercarriage can't coexist in the same space. "
"Shame really, Your Highness. The cabin you were sat in was pressurized, and we were cruising at 280 knots at 28,000 feet" said Tony, "No enemy fighter could have got near us"
"Good God" said the Prince, "excuse my language"
Lord Suffolk had arranged transport to Boulge Hall, an unoccupied country house near Woodbridge, where the physicists could be temporarily housed, while more permanent arrangements could be made. A Professor Hill from Cambridge had phoned Alex to say he would be help them settle in. Alex had had some requests of his own.
Once inside Prince Charles said "Enough of this 'Sir' and 'Your Highness' nonsense, please call me 'Eddy' and I shall call you 'Alex'"
"Shall we show him the planes?" asked Charlie.
"Don't see why not - he must have signed the Official Secrets Act" said Alex.
"Probably doesn't need to"
He lead the Prince, his ADC Lord Douro, and his pilot into the Hardened Aircraft Shelter. Up close, the Prince saw this building was far more than a Nissen Hut.
With missing a beat, McCarthy said "Well, Eddy, this the Sea Fury"
"Heavens what a beast", said the King, gazing at the open cowlings and the Centaurus inside. "Is it an improved Vickers Venom?"
"A what?" asked Alex.
"Britain's first eight-gun monoplane fighter? Entered service in 1935, replaced the Gauntlet and the Fury. Very manoeuvreable. You must have seen them at Hendon?" said Eddy.
Not the Hendon I know, thought all three of the uptimers.
"We only know of the Hurricane and Spitfire. Sadly, it's a sleeping beast, it's u/s at the moment, it got hit repeatedly by German bullets while attacking a column of German tanks near Arras"
"You've attacked the Germans?"
"I've shot down twenty-six enemy aircraft, Tony's shot down seventeen, and Charlie's only just started, she's shot down three"
It was the Prince's, Lord Douro's and Fielden's turn to be knocked sideways.
"And I've sunk two U-boats, with Tony's help"
"And we can prove EVERY SINGLE ONE" emphasised Tony.
"Why aren't the government, the Air Ministry, the War Office coming to you with great haste? Why aren't you RAF officers?"
"Well, they don't have female fighter pilots for a kickoff, your Highness" said Charlie.
"They have come to us" said Tony, "Mostly to tell us to stop, or threaten us with arrest. We're renegades, beyond their control. The Admiralty have been about the best"
"Can I have a look in the office?"
"Certainly, just step up here on this ladder" said Alex, "have you flown a plane before?"
"Good Lord – fascinating, I got my pilots licence in 1925. Happy times." said the Prince. He looked out along the wing of the Fury "Heavens, are those guns?"
"Yes, two twenty millimetre cannons, two in the other wing too..." McCarthy reached down "this is the cartridge it fires, 1,700 grains at 2,500 feet per second. Put some HE and a delay fuse in it, a few of these will blow any existing bomber out of the sky"
"Why haven't we got hundreds of these?"
"Furies or cannons?"
"Either"
"Ask the Air Ministry, or your ministers – poor dears, the RAF do their best with what they have, but this isn't ground-breaking technology. OK, you can understand them looking into the jet engine and saying, no thank you – but powerful V-12 in-lines and fourteen- and eighteen-cylinder radials? Fuel injection instead of carburettors? Twenty millimetre cannons? Bubble canopies, so you can see whats coming up behind you? Germans have already got them."
"Do you think so? Oh no...! What aircraft is that?"
"That's my improved Spitfire - five bladed prop, engine from the Supermarine S6 racer, bubble canopy, two cannon, two machine gun. And that aeroplane, too"
"I've not seen this before, either! It's huge for a fighter." said the Prince, walking over to the P-51.
"I call it the Mustang."
"A symphony in aluminium!" said HRH
"Two seats"
"Really?"
"I'd have to be your chauffeur" said McCarthy
"Oh, they won't allow it. Call this job a privilege? I don't. How fast?" asked the Prince.
"Faster than a Spitfire..."
"I must depart alas, the government are already hopping mad at me for staying in France so long. My Daimler has arrived from Sandringham. I shall guarantee your efforts do not go unrewarded, none of you!"
Hello, Mr McCarthy this is Professor Thomson, and this is Professor Cockroft, and this is Dr Babha
"George Paget Thomson, of the Thomson committee? John Douglas Cockcroft, of atom splitting fame of the same? Well I'm glad you managed to find the time to let me speak with."
"Really, you are better informed than we first thought. We thought you were just a pilot"
"There's more to me than meets the eye, trust me" said McCarthy
"Well, we could hardly stay away, after you sent us those cryptic notes" said Cockroft
"You don't think I'm a security risk?"
"Things tend not to be security risks until the government realises their value" said Thomson.
"So, they are not taking the Frisch-Peierls Memoranda seriously?"
"You know of that too? A heroic pilot who rescues scientists and academics and seems to have a working knowledge of uranium fission..." said Thomson
"If I didn't understand how important they were - why would I offer to take them?"
"Well, quite" said Cockroft
"They may have made it across the Channel on their own. Just call me a well-informed amateur. Well, I presume you are here concerning the feasiblity or otherwise of the fission bomb" said McCarthy
"That is why we are here." said Thomson
"First things first - this is what your Periodic Table looks like"
"Indeed - this is very up to date, it has Neptunium on it!"
"What is '94 Pu'" asked Cockroft
"Plutonium239, a decay product of Neptunium."
"A theoretical element, that cannot be found in nature"
"Element 94 is another fissile metal, one which holds more promise for the manufacture of such weapons than isotope 235 of uranium. U-238 absorbs slow neutrons and forms a new isotope U-239. The new isotope's nucleus rapidly emits an electron through beta decay producing with a mass of 239 and an atomic number of 93, and is known as Neptunium. This element's nucleus then also emits an electron and becomes a new element of mass 239 but with an atomic number 94 and a much greater half-life, and known as Plutonium."
"I'm sorry if I appeared to underestimate you, Commander McCarthy"
"If you bombard U-238 with deuterons, you will get the fabled elements 93 and 94. It will be discovered by Seaborg, McMillan, Abelson, Kennedy, Wahl, at Berkeley, most probably, if the Germans or Russians. We need to obtain the 185 kilograms of heavy water from von Halban, Kowarski, and Joliot-Curie, at the College de France, and examine their research.
"You are unnaturally well-informed about the research into nuclear fission. The evacuation of the refugee scientist alone must have cost you a fortune!" said Cockroft.
"A small fortune, yes. My money is evaporating at considerable speed. At least all the fuel and food I have is free to me. But one must consider the needs of the country before ones own wealth" <I'll claim it on expenses. Is nuclear weaponry tax deductable?>
"Unlike other fantasists who may have approached you, I can give you something you don't already have, or know about. Element 95 is Americium, which you might find in this ionization chamber from a smoke detector. Element 96 is Curium, which is only formed when uranium and plutonium are bombarded with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. In fact this is the periodic table I'm used to...."
"My God"
"Transuranic elements. Man made"
"This is a diagram of the crudest device we could possibly build, in the short term at least"
"Good God, research has got as far as this, without us knowing?"
"Until I showed you this today, only I have seen this"
"But you must have had help from physicists to arrive at such a device!"
"Yes – this technology is relatively available, it's just the cost of obtain enough of isotope 235 of Uranium. The Germans under von Weizsäcker at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut , Kurchatov at the Soviet Academy of Science could reach the same conclusions. I do not want to live in the country that has the first fission bomb dropped on it, I would much sooner live with guilt of having used it on enemy city."
"How much is the critical mass of the Uranium-235" said Cockroft.
"Of a bare sphere? 52 kilograms. Sphere would be <beat> seventeen centimetres in diameter. It uses the polonium-beryllium modulated neutron initiator invented by Professor Chadwick, as you have no doubt gathered."
"This is considerably more than we had envisaged – such a large amount..." said Thomson.
"It would, self-evidently, be a massive industrial, chemical and engineering undertaking – one the current government would not be willing to finance – unless it was realised that the Germans, the Soviets, the Americans even, were capable also of working towards such a weapon..."
"The Americans are not a martial people, they would not create such a thing..."
"Tell that to the Red Indians, the Cubans, the Filipinos. Tell that to Smedley Butler"
"Could we afford to wait, until a city disappears in a blinding flash of pure energy, to begin work on such a project? If you produced a letter explaining the necessity of research in this area, told them it would equivalent to 15 thousand tons of explosive enclosed in one bomb, and passed it to say, Tizard at the Aeronautical Research Committee or even the War Cabinet itself..."
"We have tried this already..."
"But Halifax is a 'here today, gone tomorrow' politician. If the recommendations came from you, rather than me, they might be seen with less prejudice – I, after all, am just a pilot, with very little to offer, ha ha."
"We think you ought to see this, Secretary of State", said Air Commodore Archie Boyle.
Boyle was not an easy man to turn away. Glenavon looked drained, exhausted.
"What is it? A banknote?"
"A Bank of England banknote - that they have never issued, containing a picture of Charles Darwin on one side and a picture of a non-existent monarch on the other"
"And what relevance does this bogus item have to me?"
"It was obtained from a gentleman at a airfield on the Suffolk coast." said Boyle
"It's an ornate but worthless piece of paper - what is that shiny thing?"
"We don't know. If you hold it at a certain angle its says the figure 10, another angle it appears to be a bird"
"I still don't see..." said Glenavon
Winterbotham interjected.
"It was obtained from a man called Alex - on the airfield from which this aircraft was seen to take off."
He showed him a picture of the two cockpit Sea Fury, retracting its undercarriage, and then a picture with a swept wing aircraft in the top left hand corner.
"So fast it was almost impossible to get a clear picture" said Boyle.
"And this, the four-engined airliner seen in Paris."
"It took of from Suffolk?" asked Glenavon
"We need to examine these aircraft very closely indeed. And interview the men behind them."
Sir Joseph Ball and His Grace spoke with the Italian ambassador to the Court of St James, Giuseppe Bastianini.
"If His Majesties Government saw their way to make an approach to the Italian Government with a view to exploring a friendly settlement, there need be no fear of meeting a rebuff" said the Duke.
"But your man Halifax is sending more troops to France, more aeroplanes." said Signor Bastianini
"Our man, Halifax's man Butler is the key position at the Foreign Office, he would be amenable to a solution to the conflict". Ball hesitated to call it a war.
"Halifax would withdraw our troops supporting the Norwegians, as a gesture of peace, and goodwill", said the Duke of Hampshire. "And it is our strongly held wish, shared with the Prime Minister – that Italy should take its rightful place at the ensuing peace conference, alongside the belligerent power"
"That is most gratifying. Il Duce wishes this would be the case. The settlement of problems between Italy and any other country should be part of any general settlement in Europe"
The Sabre detached from the inflight refuelling drogue, and left the tanker aircraft to hunt new targets.
The aircraft the pilot sought had been loitering over Dunkirk for 58 minutes now. If it was a Spitfire, Hurricane or Messerschmitt, it would have run out of fuel and be making for its home airfield.
It wasn't.
The aircraft had shot down a Me110 of ZG76, and flown over the beaches, to reassure the men below, supposedly. Its pilot was now closing in on another
The untutored eye would mistake it for a Me109, but the Sabre pilot recognised it for what it was , with it's olive drab camouflage and garish paint scheme.
It took moments to get into a firing position.
Twenty-millimetre cannon shells smashed into, the engine, the cockpit, the wing root.
The starboard wing was torn off by the ensuing explosion and the burning wreckage plunged into the sea.
One anachronistic North American Aviation-designed aircraft had destroyed another, entirely different, North American Aviation designed anachronism.
The charred corpse of former Squadron Leader Antony Ratcliffe Shannon, MBE, was washed up on a beach near Folkestone, eighteen days later. It was impossible for the authorities to identify him.
One down, three to go.
"One who has foreknowledge of how the war will progress, of what our organisation needs to achieve, how the Reich's advances can be halted" said the Brigadeführer-SS
It would be hard to tell who was the superior and inferior in this conversation. In terms of rank, the Reichsführer-SS was second only to the Fuhrer, with power of life and death over the lesser-ranking man.
The reverse was true.
Himmler was eternally grateful to the other man, both for curing his niggling health problems, and guaranteeing he would outlive Goring, Goebbels and Hitler, ensuring he alone would the Führer's successor and torch-bearer of the National Socialist movement.
What he did not realise that in accepting such treatment, was that the Brigadeführer-SS was the only man on Earth who could kill Himmler at any time, and make it appear that his death was entirely the consequence of natural causes.
"What do we know about these temporal interlopers?" asked Himmler
"There are three of them, and they all appear to be males. They have four aircraft, a gas turbine aircraft, the single-engined turboprop that bombed Amsterdam, a rotary wing aircraft and the tricycle-undercarriage FW200 copy seen in Paris."
"So they have stolen all the Reich's innovations." said Himmler.
"Now you understand the reality of failure to defeat the Soviets, and financial capital. The theft of German technology by our bitterest enemies. Once that is achieved, the occupation of our ancestral lands, the subjugation of the white race and the self-murder of Western civilisation through forced assimilation and miscegenation with Jews, Negros and non-Nordic people become a formality."
"Our cause is shared cause a crusade, and we are a vanguard against race chaos. What can three people do to stop us?" asked Himmler
"It is not the three hapless minions that need concern us, it is their backers!"
"International Jewry? Proxy fighters from North America?" asked Himmler
"It is far, far worse than that. The three that they have sent will be sentimentalists. I have posted snipers around the home of the revolting Frank family of self-publicists, in the hope they might rescue them. So far nothing. The Dunkirk evacuation is the greatest trap of all. It is inspired move by the Fuhrer, allow the British to escape without their weapons, humiliated. It will bring a settlement with the English government much closer. They have already opened communications with the Vatican and Ciano. Halifax will not risk a long, costly war with us, one that destroys the Empire he has devoted his life to, unlike the alcoholic half-breed."
"Your help in that respect has been a massive aid to us. No-one of any influence in the English-speaking world takes the opinions of that crippled aristocrat seriously any more." said Himmler.
"He will want to end the war before his King dies, too. The Three will be drawn to Dunkirk like moths to flame, and we will eradicate them there. Their base is too-well hardened to attack, and is probably protected by synthetic intelligences. The interlopers will not succeed in convincing the British to fight on, dragging the Americans into this war with the Bolsheviks. The tide of history is with us! You have my word." concluded the Brigadeführer-SS
"Heil Hitler"
Wednesday 29th May 1940.
Alex and Tony smoothly landed the C-4 back at Bentwaters, considering it was tail heavy to the rear, and the nose section contained many, many VIPs.
The Prince of Wales looked out the window, expecting to see a watch office and many hangars, just saw one large one, and ten Nissen huts.
A proper of airstairs was pushed up the foreward pressure door once Alex had extricated himself from the cockpit via the floor hatch. The French/Italian/Russian scientists and their families filed out the aircraft into the coastal drizzle of East Anglia.
Alex was glad to see the Prince, nor his ADC, insisted on leaving first, though his pilot looked throughly disgusted that all these Frenchies were getting off first.
"Well, that was marvellous flight" said the Prince. "Are their plans to put this excellent aircraft into production?"
"Not that I know of, your 'ighness, it's one of a kind."
"Could it be converted into a bomber?"
"No, the wing's too low, sir - bomb bay and undercarriage can't coexist in the same space. "
"Shame really, Your Highness. The cabin you were sat in was pressurized, and we were cruising at 280 knots at 28,000 feet" said Tony, "No enemy fighter could have got near us"
"Good God" said the Prince, "excuse my language"
Lord Suffolk had arranged transport to Boulge Hall, an unoccupied country house near Woodbridge, where the physicists could be temporarily housed, while more permanent arrangements could be made. A Professor Hill from Cambridge had phoned Alex to say he would be help them settle in. Alex had had some requests of his own.
Once inside Prince Charles said "Enough of this 'Sir' and 'Your Highness' nonsense, please call me 'Eddy' and I shall call you 'Alex'"
"Shall we show him the planes?" asked Charlie.
"Don't see why not - he must have signed the Official Secrets Act" said Alex.
"Probably doesn't need to"
He lead the Prince, his ADC Lord Douro, and his pilot into the Hardened Aircraft Shelter. Up close, the Prince saw this building was far more than a Nissen Hut.
With missing a beat, McCarthy said "Well, Eddy, this the Sea Fury"
"Heavens what a beast", said the King, gazing at the open cowlings and the Centaurus inside. "Is it an improved Vickers Venom?"
"A what?" asked Alex.
"Britain's first eight-gun monoplane fighter? Entered service in 1935, replaced the Gauntlet and the Fury. Very manoeuvreable. You must have seen them at Hendon?" said Eddy.
Not the Hendon I know, thought all three of the uptimers.
"We only know of the Hurricane and Spitfire. Sadly, it's a sleeping beast, it's u/s at the moment, it got hit repeatedly by German bullets while attacking a column of German tanks near Arras"
"You've attacked the Germans?"
"I've shot down twenty-six enemy aircraft, Tony's shot down seventeen, and Charlie's only just started, she's shot down three"
It was the Prince's, Lord Douro's and Fielden's turn to be knocked sideways.
"And I've sunk two U-boats, with Tony's help"
"And we can prove EVERY SINGLE ONE" emphasised Tony.
"Why aren't the government, the Air Ministry, the War Office coming to you with great haste? Why aren't you RAF officers?"
"Well, they don't have female fighter pilots for a kickoff, your Highness" said Charlie.
"They have come to us" said Tony, "Mostly to tell us to stop, or threaten us with arrest. We're renegades, beyond their control. The Admiralty have been about the best"
"Can I have a look in the office?"
"Certainly, just step up here on this ladder" said Alex, "have you flown a plane before?"
"Good Lord – fascinating, I got my pilots licence in 1925. Happy times." said the Prince. He looked out along the wing of the Fury "Heavens, are those guns?"
"Yes, two twenty millimetre cannons, two in the other wing too..." McCarthy reached down "this is the cartridge it fires, 1,700 grains at 2,500 feet per second. Put some HE and a delay fuse in it, a few of these will blow any existing bomber out of the sky"
"Why haven't we got hundreds of these?"
"Furies or cannons?"
"Either"
"Ask the Air Ministry, or your ministers – poor dears, the RAF do their best with what they have, but this isn't ground-breaking technology. OK, you can understand them looking into the jet engine and saying, no thank you – but powerful V-12 in-lines and fourteen- and eighteen-cylinder radials? Fuel injection instead of carburettors? Twenty millimetre cannons? Bubble canopies, so you can see whats coming up behind you? Germans have already got them."
"Do you think so? Oh no...! What aircraft is that?"
"That's my improved Spitfire - five bladed prop, engine from the Supermarine S6 racer, bubble canopy, two cannon, two machine gun. And that aeroplane, too"
"I've not seen this before, either! It's huge for a fighter." said the Prince, walking over to the P-51.
"I call it the Mustang."
"A symphony in aluminium!" said HRH
"Two seats"
"Really?"
"I'd have to be your chauffeur" said McCarthy
"Oh, they won't allow it. Call this job a privilege? I don't. How fast?" asked the Prince.
"Faster than a Spitfire..."
"I must depart alas, the government are already hopping mad at me for staying in France so long. My Daimler has arrived from Sandringham. I shall guarantee your efforts do not go unrewarded, none of you!"
St John's College, Cambridge, 29th May 1940.
Hello, Mr McCarthy this is Professor Thomson, and this is Professor Cockroft, and this is Dr Babha
"George Paget Thomson, of the Thomson committee? John Douglas Cockcroft, of atom splitting fame of the same? Well I'm glad you managed to find the time to let me speak with."
"Really, you are better informed than we first thought. We thought you were just a pilot"
"There's more to me than meets the eye, trust me" said McCarthy
"Well, we could hardly stay away, after you sent us those cryptic notes" said Cockroft
"You don't think I'm a security risk?"
"Things tend not to be security risks until the government realises their value" said Thomson.
"So, they are not taking the Frisch-Peierls Memoranda seriously?"
"You know of that too? A heroic pilot who rescues scientists and academics and seems to have a working knowledge of uranium fission..." said Thomson
"If I didn't understand how important they were - why would I offer to take them?"
"Well, quite" said Cockroft
"They may have made it across the Channel on their own. Just call me a well-informed amateur. Well, I presume you are here concerning the feasiblity or otherwise of the fission bomb" said McCarthy
"That is why we are here." said Thomson
"First things first - this is what your Periodic Table looks like"
![](https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8262/29052189782_7600769dfa_b.jpg")
"Indeed - this is very up to date, it has Neptunium on it!"
"What is '94 Pu'" asked Cockroft
"Plutonium239, a decay product of Neptunium."
"A theoretical element, that cannot be found in nature"
"Element 94 is another fissile metal, one which holds more promise for the manufacture of such weapons than isotope 235 of uranium. U-238 absorbs slow neutrons and forms a new isotope U-239. The new isotope's nucleus rapidly emits an electron through beta decay producing with a mass of 239 and an atomic number of 93, and is known as Neptunium. This element's nucleus then also emits an electron and becomes a new element of mass 239 but with an atomic number 94 and a much greater half-life, and known as Plutonium."
"I'm sorry if I appeared to underestimate you, Commander McCarthy"
"If you bombard U-238 with deuterons, you will get the fabled elements 93 and 94. It will be discovered by Seaborg, McMillan, Abelson, Kennedy, Wahl, at Berkeley, most probably, if the Germans or Russians. We need to obtain the 185 kilograms of heavy water from von Halban, Kowarski, and Joliot-Curie, at the College de France, and examine their research.
"You are unnaturally well-informed about the research into nuclear fission. The evacuation of the refugee scientist alone must have cost you a fortune!" said Cockroft.
"A small fortune, yes. My money is evaporating at considerable speed. At least all the fuel and food I have is free to me. But one must consider the needs of the country before ones own wealth" <I'll claim it on expenses. Is nuclear weaponry tax deductable?>
"Unlike other fantasists who may have approached you, I can give you something you don't already have, or know about. Element 95 is Americium, which you might find in this ionization chamber from a smoke detector. Element 96 is Curium, which is only formed when uranium and plutonium are bombarded with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. In fact this is the periodic table I'm used to...."
![](https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8486/28870681320_00016f64ec_z.jpg")
"My God"
"Transuranic elements. Man made"
"This is a diagram of the crudest device we could possibly build, in the short term at least"
"Good God, research has got as far as this, without us knowing?"
"Until I showed you this today, only I have seen this"
"But you must have had help from physicists to arrive at such a device!"
"Yes – this technology is relatively available, it's just the cost of obtain enough of isotope 235 of Uranium. The Germans under von Weizsäcker at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut , Kurchatov at the Soviet Academy of Science could reach the same conclusions. I do not want to live in the country that has the first fission bomb dropped on it, I would much sooner live with guilt of having used it on enemy city."
"How much is the critical mass of the Uranium-235" said Cockroft.
"Of a bare sphere? 52 kilograms. Sphere would be <beat> seventeen centimetres in diameter. It uses the polonium-beryllium modulated neutron initiator invented by Professor Chadwick, as you have no doubt gathered."
"This is considerably more than we had envisaged – such a large amount..." said Thomson.
"It would, self-evidently, be a massive industrial, chemical and engineering undertaking – one the current government would not be willing to finance – unless it was realised that the Germans, the Soviets, the Americans even, were capable also of working towards such a weapon..."
"The Americans are not a martial people, they would not create such a thing..."
"Tell that to the Red Indians, the Cubans, the Filipinos. Tell that to Smedley Butler"
"Could we afford to wait, until a city disappears in a blinding flash of pure energy, to begin work on such a project? If you produced a letter explaining the necessity of research in this area, told them it would equivalent to 15 thousand tons of explosive enclosed in one bomb, and passed it to say, Tizard at the Aeronautical Research Committee or even the War Cabinet itself..."
"We have tried this already..."
"But Halifax is a 'here today, gone tomorrow' politician. If the recommendations came from you, rather than me, they might be seen with less prejudice – I, after all, am just a pilot, with very little to offer, ha ha."
~~~
"We think you ought to see this, Secretary of State", said Air Commodore Archie Boyle.
Boyle was not an easy man to turn away. Glenavon looked drained, exhausted.
"What is it? A banknote?"
"A Bank of England banknote - that they have never issued, containing a picture of Charles Darwin on one side and a picture of a non-existent monarch on the other"
"And what relevance does this bogus item have to me?"
"It was obtained from a gentleman at a airfield on the Suffolk coast." said Boyle
"It's an ornate but worthless piece of paper - what is that shiny thing?"
"We don't know. If you hold it at a certain angle its says the figure 10, another angle it appears to be a bird"
"I still don't see..." said Glenavon
Winterbotham interjected.
"It was obtained from a man called Alex - on the airfield from which this aircraft was seen to take off."
He showed him a picture of the two cockpit Sea Fury, retracting its undercarriage, and then a picture with a swept wing aircraft in the top left hand corner.
"So fast it was almost impossible to get a clear picture" said Boyle.
"And this, the four-engined airliner seen in Paris."
"It took of from Suffolk?" asked Glenavon
"We need to examine these aircraft very closely indeed. And interview the men behind them."
~~~
Sir Joseph Ball and His Grace spoke with the Italian ambassador to the Court of St James, Giuseppe Bastianini.
"If His Majesties Government saw their way to make an approach to the Italian Government with a view to exploring a friendly settlement, there need be no fear of meeting a rebuff" said the Duke.
"But your man Halifax is sending more troops to France, more aeroplanes." said Signor Bastianini
"Our man, Halifax's man Butler is the key position at the Foreign Office, he would be amenable to a solution to the conflict". Ball hesitated to call it a war.
"Halifax would withdraw our troops supporting the Norwegians, as a gesture of peace, and goodwill", said the Duke of Hampshire. "And it is our strongly held wish, shared with the Prime Minister – that Italy should take its rightful place at the ensuing peace conference, alongside the belligerent power"
"That is most gratifying. Il Duce wishes this would be the case. The settlement of problems between Italy and any other country should be part of any general settlement in Europe"
Et il est un jour arrivé | And the day has arrived
Marteler le ciel | To thresh the sky
Et marteler la mer | And to thresh the sea
Et la mer avait embrassé moi | And the sea has embraced me
Et la délivré moi de ma caille | And it has dispensed me from my cell
À rien ne peut m'arrêter maintenant | Nothing can stop me now
Marteler le ciel | To thresh the sky
Et marteler la mer | And to thresh the sea
Et la mer avait embrassé moi | And the sea has embraced me
Et la délivré moi de ma caille | And it has dispensed me from my cell
À rien ne peut m'arrêter maintenant | Nothing can stop me now
The Sabre detached from the inflight refuelling drogue, and left the tanker aircraft to hunt new targets.
The aircraft the pilot sought had been loitering over Dunkirk for 58 minutes now. If it was a Spitfire, Hurricane or Messerschmitt, it would have run out of fuel and be making for its home airfield.
It wasn't.
The aircraft had shot down a Me110 of ZG76, and flown over the beaches, to reassure the men below, supposedly. Its pilot was now closing in on another
The untutored eye would mistake it for a Me109, but the Sabre pilot recognised it for what it was , with it's olive drab camouflage and garish paint scheme.
It took moments to get into a firing position.
Twenty-millimetre cannon shells smashed into, the engine, the cockpit, the wing root.
The starboard wing was torn off by the ensuing explosion and the burning wreckage plunged into the sea.
One anachronistic North American Aviation-designed aircraft had destroyed another, entirely different, North American Aviation designed anachronism.
The charred corpse of former Squadron Leader Antony Ratcliffe Shannon, MBE, was washed up on a beach near Folkestone, eighteen days later. It was impossible for the authorities to identify him.
One down, three to go.
Breathe, echoing the sound
Time starts slowing down
Sink until I drown
(Please) I don't ever want to make it stop
Time starts slowing down
Sink until I drown
(Please) I don't ever want to make it stop
Last edited:
Live Bait
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
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, 1931The 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."
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
Total number of air-to-kills by Brandon: FIVE
Last edited:
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
There is no plan. And won't be many more overflights of enemy territory.
McCarthy's private war will last no longer than a month, and it only started on May 10 1940.
Fell On Black Days.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
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.
"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, 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.
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.
"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, 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.
Last edited:
Killing The Goose
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"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 byShannon: EIGHTEEN.
Total number of air-to-kills by Brandon: FIVE
"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
Total number of air-to-kills by Brandon: FIVE
Last edited:
NuclearBird
More issues than Reader's Digest
- Location
- Here and There
Shame to see those sexy airplanes go...
Humanoid
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
There was still no sign of Tony.
Alex drove Polina into Woodbridge to post the two items to
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?
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'.
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
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'.
Last edited:
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
They'll be back!
Can Money Buy Happiness?
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
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.
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
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]
Last edited:
Runway to Nowhere
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last edited:
Going out of my head.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"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.
Last edited:
Look for America.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"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"
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.
"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
"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.
Last edited:
The Immortals.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
"You sank a German battleship. You vindicated Mitchell! Shame he never lived to see it!"said Rickenbacker
"Which one? You mean the Scharnhorst?"
"Leahy, Snyder and and Vinson, the Navy Secretary are livid. You have sent shockwaves through the complacent Navies of the world. The Germans have moved all their capital ships to the Baltic!" said Rickenbacker
"Yeah, but the sad thing is, I didn't sink it"
"You didn't?" said Rickenbacker, aghast.
"It was still afloat when I left it - I only bombed the conning tower." said Alex.
"That's what Goebbels has been saying! You're not telling me it's true?"
"Even a stopped clock, tells the right time twice a day. Once the ship has been repaired , it will be good to go – if the Nazis are prepared to do it, that is"
"Did you dive bomb it?" asked Rickenbacker.
"Nope, straight and level, all the way, the bombs dived, I didn't. I did sink two U-boats, though. Maybe its that that you mean?" replied Alex.
"The anti-aircraft fire must have been intense, according to the reports"
"There wasn't much, and most of what there was, missed by miles. It was early evening, and they couldn't see me – the radar locked on to me, but by that time I was too far away."
"What is radar?" asked Rickenbacker.
"Radiolocation of big metal ships and aeroplanes by radio waves. One of the biggest open secrets of modern warfare"
"And you have this 'radar'? "
"But I could see them, and their ship on the screen in my cockpit. I can see in the dark. Perfectly."
"What? A televista screen in your aircraft? You're mad, you must be!" said Rickenbacker
"Insane enough to win the UK's highest award for bravery, despite not putting myself at any extraordinary risk. Britain must be in dire need of heroes, and dead ones are the best. Almost dead ones. Anyway, crazy or not, I own an aeroplane you clearly want to buy for Eastern Airlines. Am I right?"
"Am I that transparent?" said Rickenbacker
"Man, it's the first thing you asked me. Here it is."
"Jeez, Louise"
"Four 1,750 horsepower Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. Cruising speed 325 mph, max speed, 353 mph – apparently, I haven't flown it that fast. No need. Pressurised cabin for 52 First class passengers or 62 coach"
"My god" said Rickenbacker, dollar signs in his eyes.
"Maximum range – McCarthy did a mock fanfare – 3,900 miles. You could inaugurate a non-stop service from New York to Los Angeles with this, and do it in seven eight hours – or you could fly transatlantic flights direct to Britain, though that might be bit more dangerous."
"How much do you want for it?" asked Rickenbacker.
"Before any price is agreed, there are certain provisos."
"Go on" said a nervous Rickenbacker.
"The licence for the aircraft will have to be sold to a manufacturer – Douglas, perhaps – who will make it for you, and a fee for every one sold comes to me. The Merlin engines will have to manufactured in the US, too. I won't permit any alternate powerplant being fitted – and 80% of that production will be diverted to warplane manufacture either here in the USA or in Canada. Of course, if these contractual obligations are too stringent, I will go to Juan Trippe at Pan American or Howard Hughes at TWA, or – "
"Howard Hughes is dead. He no longer owns TWA" injected Rickenbacker.
"What, pretend dead, like me, or proper dead?" replied McCarthy.
Apart from the semi-permanent favelas of unemployed on Central Park, the panhandlers on Times Squares (who, after dark, were herded into Paddy-wagons by the NYPD, or beaten up by trainee wiseguys), you could be lead to believe New York represented a peaceful haven from for McCarthy and his friends.
If you ignored the anti-war protesters outside the consulates of the Greater German Reich, and that of the United Kingdom.
If you avoided reading below the fold of the New York Times, and not read about the lynching of Luther Marshall, in Yazoo County, Mississippi. Senator Robert F Wagner of New York campaigned about lynch law, and fought on behalf of the unemployed. Black Lives Matter even less here than in the 21st century.
But you can check your white privilege into the St Regis Hotel, on 5th Avenue & 55th, and insulate yourself from harsh reality. McCarthy made his way to Sullivan & Cromwell, the New York law firm representing the estate of the deceased industrialist, movie mogul and aviator Howard Hughes. Some $7 million of stock in Transcontinental and Western Airlines, and $500,000 in Eastern Airlines stock had been left in trust when the Hughes H-2 prototype broke up in mid-air, with the millionaire at the controls.
McCarthy entered the vast office of the senior partner, Mr Cabot.
"Mr Hughes thought very highly of you, as a friend and a colleague…"
"He did? <Cough> Yes he did."
<I've never met the man, unsurprisingly, but dead men tell no tales> thought McCarthy.
"You may not be aware that left some of his estate to you, in a codicil to his will. It's provisions are quite peculiar. The $7 million in stock he left you will be transferred into your name. But the codicil states that a further $5 million will be paid to you if you break the Transcontinental Air Speed Record once held by Mr Hughes by the end of this year, that is December 31st 1940."
<Job's a gud'un> thought McCarthy.
"Also, the great benefactor Edward S Harkness, who had huge admiration for what Great Britain had done in the 1914-18 war, named you specifically in a codicil to his will after his untimely death in January, and left you one of his lesser properties. An apartment overlooking Central Park, at 55 Central Park West. Number 19 I understand. I need to see your passport, to confirm who you say you are."
"Passports. I have two. British and US"
"I understood that would be the case" said Cabot.
The apartment was palatial, and from the terrace on a clear day, you could see the class struggle.
To Alex, the building looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite bring his mind to where he had seen it before.
If there's something strange in you neighborhood
Who you gonna call? (time travelers)
If there's something weird
And it don't look good
Who you gonna call? (time travelers!)
The grey-painted, but otherwise unmarked, two seater Me262B-1a lowered its undercarriage and landed at Bentwaters.
The pilot shut off the General Electric CJ610 engines, and the pilot and his passenger nervously climbed down from the cockpit.
The tall blonde man said, "They are here. The sensors tell me. I can feel it." in a language they both understood.
His colleague, a shorter man with black hair and Caucausian features, replied -
"It is the background radiation from the decay of element-137. Nothing more. Besides the natives there are no signs of life. If they were here, we would be dead by now. The man is dead"
"I do not share your confidence." said the blonde man. He could not get used to his supposedly Oriental subordinate's new Nordic appearance.
If anything, Yamashiro Kawaguchi and Jörn-Elling Schüssler had had it much harder than McCarthy. The Hirohito and Hitler regimes were divided, their leaders certain of their own genius. All the aircraft and military vehicle designs had bewitched the German manufacturers, Ernst Heinkel had attached the two Heinkel HeS 011 to the twin-engine Heinkel He 180 airframe, but it was yet to fly. And Kawaguchi had been shot down in the only other jet fighter they had, the Italian-manufactured F-86K.
Junkers Motorenwerke had been ecstatic to receive productionalised examples of the 2,500hp Junkers Jumo 222, with an enhanced two-stage two-speed supercharger but could they even put it into mass production?
None of the designs would be ready within eighteen months, by which time the campaign against the Soviet Union would be concluded.
According to the Führer, at least.
The Germans were convinced of a short war
Kawaguchi had faced even more opposition – the idea that only way to avoid defeat was to avoid attacking the US Fleet directly, and only occupying the Phillipines and parts of the Dutch and British empires, had not been well received.
At all.
The very idea that if the Third Reich took on the USSR AND the USA, it would be defeated, and the Dai Nippon Teikoku would be humiliated if it attacked the USA, had been in defiance of all prevailing dogma.
Schüssler's use of the term 'neo-Nazi' had also offended the National Socialists.
Die Unsterblichen {1} had achieved very little.
So they had come to the base of the Hyperians mortal stooge, McCarthy, to scavenge what weapons and equipment they could find. The Hierocracy had to move equipment and personnel through the physical universe, the energy costs of time travel being so enormous.
The Hyperian ultraterrestials could manipulate matter and spacetime so subtly, only civilisations almost as advanced them could detect it. The Chrononaut Hierocracy was a splinter group of the Hyperians, and was one such advanced civilisations.
The Hyperians were godlike, pan-dimension transapient posthumans, with no ideology, nor any great desire to manipulate spacetime. The Hierocracy continued to use techniques that the mainstream Hyperians had long since renounced, like wormhole technologies, metempsychosis, corporeal immortality, implantation of nano- and picotech devices and most of all transformational manipulation of timestreams.
The Hyperians had deactivated most of the advanced technology they had let the Hierocracy leave with, when they attempted to use it to destroy their parent civilization. As a consequence they had sought refuge in dimensions where their civilization was statistically like to occur first.
They had attempted to create a transnational coalition of revanchist Germany, the Japanese, French and British Empire to surround and crush the revoltingly backward, collectivist, Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The only beneficiaries had been the German Hitlerite National Socialists. Attempts to bring even the British Empire, and the Greater German Reich together had failed.
The Hierocrats had found that destroying the Soviet Union in 1917-1920 retarded the development of spaceflight and computer technology. It was necessary for Nazism to rise to make both posthuman civilizations possible.
The agents of the Hierocracy, Schüssler and Kawaguchi, had succeeded in sidelining the warmonger Halifax, merely by inserting a nanodevice into the uterus of Consuelo Spencer-Churchill, preventing the conception of male offspring, and heir to the Dukedom, that Winston S Churchill would inherit on the death of his nephew.
There was still the remote possiblity he might yet assume power, so it had been necessary to injure him in an aeroplane accident at Croydon, in 1918. Recovery from those injuries prevented him from standing in the 1922 General Election.
The deaths of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Lloyd Hopkins had been hastened by similar devices, rendering the USA (or the Jew-SA, as Schüssler tiresomely referred to it) noticeably weaker and more isolationist than in other universes.
Kawaguchi would have done the same to Hitler, too, had Schüssler not been an ardent admirer of the man. Kawaguchi was the junior partner in this operation.
Schüssler wired the door the to the device in his hands.
"According the sensors, there is a 21st century turboprop combat aircraft, a turboprop airliner, and a turboshaft powered helicopter, and single-engined trainer inside these concrete hangars. We shall be inside in minutes." he said.
There was a high-pitched whine, followed by the sounds of heavy bolts activating, and a red NO ENTRY sign lit up.
"Scheiße !"
The small screen of the tiny device glued to the flashed pink
"What is it?"
"Blackberry. No, Raspberry. Tatchisukurīn. Touch screen" said Kawaguchi.
"What does it say?"
"It wants to know the name of a tank. Six tanks – first one three characters." said Kawaguchi
"T34" said Schüssler
Kawaguchi typed it in.
White san-serif text flashed on the screen –FAIL!
"T72" said Schüssler.
White san-serif text flashed on the screen, again – FAIL!
"Lee is the name of an American tank" said Kawaguchi
"Try it" said Schüssler
Kawaguchi typed it in.
Red san-serif text flashed on the screen – EPIC FAIL!
The electricity supply to the entire complex shut off. Except to the underground bunker. And the 'Dalek'. Hydraulic motors opened the doors and pushed it above ground.
"It's a Hafasi Mono-Node. Autonomous Defence. Run!"
Fifty-calibre machine gun bullets crashed into concrete. Bullets thudded into the wall of the number two HAS.
Then stopped.
"Is it sentient?" Asked Schüssler of Kawaguchi in a language no 20th century human would understand, or even hear. "You have more experience of these things than do"
"Of course it's sentient – it's thinking how to kill us!" replied Kawaguchi.
"It's fixed in place. It knows this is a blind spot. It has no coherent radiation emission weapons…"
"That we know of." replied Kawaguchi.
The only reason it hadn't shredded both of them already was because it could not obtain a clear shot at the one it wanted to kill. The Hierocracy's liking for metempsychosis meant a HE round would be required. The two Hierocracy men heard the servos of the Hafasi device whine.
The multi-barrel gun fired again, rounds tearing through duralumin and perspex.
"Der Sturmvogel!"
The twin jet burst into flames.
"We're fucked! We can't leave! I cannot pass for English the way you can"
"I have not been here since 1920." said Schüssler. "Those files will have been overwritten by now. I would need uniforms, papers. You can just hand yourself in to the Japanese consulate. Japan is not at war with Britain, and hopefully never will be."
There was pop, like a balloon bursting. An object landed near the two men. It sprayed out spheres of material that vapourised in the air.
"Lachrymator Gas!"
Kawaguchi's implants sprayed neutralising vapour into his throat and tear ducts. Schüssler's did not. Kawaguchi's brain had already computed the arc of fire for the Nafasi Mono-Node's 12.7mm multibarrel machine gun. They ran towards number 92, and thence to Staverton Park, and the B1084.
They disabled a vehicle, and its driver, who was later found wandering through Butley, unable to account for the previous two hours. They drove the van down the B1084, and down the B1438 to Martlesham, and waited until dark.
The security at RAF Martlesham was much poorer than it was at Bentwaters. Schüssler and Kawaguchi disabled the ground crew of a fuelled and armed 25 Squadron Blenheim 1F. They both cycled through the of aircraft they had been taught to fly, and Kawaguchi found the Blenheim in the data in his cranial implants. He found it, and went into a kind of automatic trance as he taxyed it from dispersal onto the grass runway and took off.
The RAF ground crew could not account for the events of the previous hour, and were arrested. At the ensuing courts martial, they were sentenced ten years imprisonment, and were lucky to not get life imprisonment for assisting the enemy, seeing as they had allowed a Blenheim L1418 ZK-F and its AI Mk.III, to fall into enemy hands. The commander of 25 Squadron S/L Hallings-Pott, was moved to a less important role, for this huge security breach.
Schüssler and Kawaguchi landed the Blenheim at Bonn airfield, and then returned to their airfield at Bad Zwischenan, whereupon they got into their Junkers EF140/Ju 287 replica, and flew it to Rechlin in Eastern Germany.
There was important work to do consolidate their position in the Reich
{1} 'The Immortals'
"Which one? You mean the Scharnhorst?"
"Leahy, Snyder and and Vinson, the Navy Secretary are livid. You have sent shockwaves through the complacent Navies of the world. The Germans have moved all their capital ships to the Baltic!" said Rickenbacker
"Yeah, but the sad thing is, I didn't sink it"
"You didn't?" said Rickenbacker, aghast.
"It was still afloat when I left it - I only bombed the conning tower." said Alex.
"That's what Goebbels has been saying! You're not telling me it's true?"
"Even a stopped clock, tells the right time twice a day. Once the ship has been repaired , it will be good to go – if the Nazis are prepared to do it, that is"
"Did you dive bomb it?" asked Rickenbacker.
"Nope, straight and level, all the way, the bombs dived, I didn't. I did sink two U-boats, though. Maybe its that that you mean?" replied Alex.
"The anti-aircraft fire must have been intense, according to the reports"
"There wasn't much, and most of what there was, missed by miles. It was early evening, and they couldn't see me – the radar locked on to me, but by that time I was too far away."
"What is radar?" asked Rickenbacker.
"Radiolocation of big metal ships and aeroplanes by radio waves. One of the biggest open secrets of modern warfare"
"And you have this 'radar'? "
"But I could see them, and their ship on the screen in my cockpit. I can see in the dark. Perfectly."
"What? A televista screen in your aircraft? You're mad, you must be!" said Rickenbacker
"Insane enough to win the UK's highest award for bravery, despite not putting myself at any extraordinary risk. Britain must be in dire need of heroes, and dead ones are the best. Almost dead ones. Anyway, crazy or not, I own an aeroplane you clearly want to buy for Eastern Airlines. Am I right?"
"Am I that transparent?" said Rickenbacker
"Man, it's the first thing you asked me. Here it is."
"Jeez, Louise"
"Four 1,750 horsepower Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. Cruising speed 325 mph, max speed, 353 mph – apparently, I haven't flown it that fast. No need. Pressurised cabin for 52 First class passengers or 62 coach"
"My god" said Rickenbacker, dollar signs in his eyes.
"Maximum range – McCarthy did a mock fanfare – 3,900 miles. You could inaugurate a non-stop service from New York to Los Angeles with this, and do it in seven eight hours – or you could fly transatlantic flights direct to Britain, though that might be bit more dangerous."
"How much do you want for it?" asked Rickenbacker.
"Before any price is agreed, there are certain provisos."
"Go on" said a nervous Rickenbacker.
"The licence for the aircraft will have to be sold to a manufacturer – Douglas, perhaps – who will make it for you, and a fee for every one sold comes to me. The Merlin engines will have to manufactured in the US, too. I won't permit any alternate powerplant being fitted – and 80% of that production will be diverted to warplane manufacture either here in the USA or in Canada. Of course, if these contractual obligations are too stringent, I will go to Juan Trippe at Pan American or Howard Hughes at TWA, or – "
"Howard Hughes is dead. He no longer owns TWA" injected Rickenbacker.
"What, pretend dead, like me, or proper dead?" replied McCarthy.
Apart from the semi-permanent favelas of unemployed on Central Park, the panhandlers on Times Squares (who, after dark, were herded into Paddy-wagons by the NYPD, or beaten up by trainee wiseguys), you could be lead to believe New York represented a peaceful haven from for McCarthy and his friends.
If you ignored the anti-war protesters outside the consulates of the Greater German Reich, and that of the United Kingdom.
If you avoided reading below the fold of the New York Times, and not read about the lynching of Luther Marshall, in Yazoo County, Mississippi. Senator Robert F Wagner of New York campaigned about lynch law, and fought on behalf of the unemployed. Black Lives Matter even less here than in the 21st century.
But you can check your white privilege into the St Regis Hotel, on 5th Avenue & 55th, and insulate yourself from harsh reality. McCarthy made his way to Sullivan & Cromwell, the New York law firm representing the estate of the deceased industrialist, movie mogul and aviator Howard Hughes. Some $7 million of stock in Transcontinental and Western Airlines, and $500,000 in Eastern Airlines stock had been left in trust when the Hughes H-2 prototype broke up in mid-air, with the millionaire at the controls.
McCarthy entered the vast office of the senior partner, Mr Cabot.
"Mr Hughes thought very highly of you, as a friend and a colleague…"
"He did? <Cough> Yes he did."
<I've never met the man, unsurprisingly, but dead men tell no tales> thought McCarthy.
"You may not be aware that left some of his estate to you, in a codicil to his will. It's provisions are quite peculiar. The $7 million in stock he left you will be transferred into your name. But the codicil states that a further $5 million will be paid to you if you break the Transcontinental Air Speed Record once held by Mr Hughes by the end of this year, that is December 31st 1940."
<Job's a gud'un> thought McCarthy.
"Also, the great benefactor Edward S Harkness, who had huge admiration for what Great Britain had done in the 1914-18 war, named you specifically in a codicil to his will after his untimely death in January, and left you one of his lesser properties. An apartment overlooking Central Park, at 55 Central Park West. Number 19 I understand. I need to see your passport, to confirm who you say you are."
"Passports. I have two. British and US"
"I understood that would be the case" said Cabot.
The apartment was palatial, and from the terrace on a clear day, you could see the class struggle.
To Alex, the building looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite bring his mind to where he had seen it before.
If there's something strange in you neighborhood
Who you gonna call? (time travelers)
If there's something weird
And it don't look good
Who you gonna call? (time travelers!)
The grey-painted, but otherwise unmarked, two seater Me262B-1a lowered its undercarriage and landed at Bentwaters.
The pilot shut off the General Electric CJ610 engines, and the pilot and his passenger nervously climbed down from the cockpit.
The tall blonde man said, "They are here. The sensors tell me. I can feel it." in a language they both understood.
His colleague, a shorter man with black hair and Caucausian features, replied -
"It is the background radiation from the decay of element-137. Nothing more. Besides the natives there are no signs of life. If they were here, we would be dead by now. The man is dead"
"I do not share your confidence." said the blonde man. He could not get used to his supposedly Oriental subordinate's new Nordic appearance.
If anything, Yamashiro Kawaguchi and Jörn-Elling Schüssler had had it much harder than McCarthy. The Hirohito and Hitler regimes were divided, their leaders certain of their own genius. All the aircraft and military vehicle designs had bewitched the German manufacturers, Ernst Heinkel had attached the two Heinkel HeS 011 to the twin-engine Heinkel He 180 airframe, but it was yet to fly. And Kawaguchi had been shot down in the only other jet fighter they had, the Italian-manufactured F-86K.
Junkers Motorenwerke had been ecstatic to receive productionalised examples of the 2,500hp Junkers Jumo 222, with an enhanced two-stage two-speed supercharger but could they even put it into mass production?
None of the designs would be ready within eighteen months, by which time the campaign against the Soviet Union would be concluded.
According to the Führer, at least.
The Germans were convinced of a short war
Kawaguchi had faced even more opposition – the idea that only way to avoid defeat was to avoid attacking the US Fleet directly, and only occupying the Phillipines and parts of the Dutch and British empires, had not been well received.
At all.
The very idea that if the Third Reich took on the USSR AND the USA, it would be defeated, and the Dai Nippon Teikoku would be humiliated if it attacked the USA, had been in defiance of all prevailing dogma.
Schüssler's use of the term 'neo-Nazi' had also offended the National Socialists.
Die Unsterblichen {1} had achieved very little.
So they had come to the base of the Hyperians mortal stooge, McCarthy, to scavenge what weapons and equipment they could find. The Hierocracy had to move equipment and personnel through the physical universe, the energy costs of time travel being so enormous.
The Hyperian ultraterrestials could manipulate matter and spacetime so subtly, only civilisations almost as advanced them could detect it. The Chrononaut Hierocracy was a splinter group of the Hyperians, and was one such advanced civilisations.
The Hyperians were godlike, pan-dimension transapient posthumans, with no ideology, nor any great desire to manipulate spacetime. The Hierocracy continued to use techniques that the mainstream Hyperians had long since renounced, like wormhole technologies, metempsychosis, corporeal immortality, implantation of nano- and picotech devices and most of all transformational manipulation of timestreams.
The Hyperians had deactivated most of the advanced technology they had let the Hierocracy leave with, when they attempted to use it to destroy their parent civilization. As a consequence they had sought refuge in dimensions where their civilization was statistically like to occur first.
They had attempted to create a transnational coalition of revanchist Germany, the Japanese, French and British Empire to surround and crush the revoltingly backward, collectivist, Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The only beneficiaries had been the German Hitlerite National Socialists. Attempts to bring even the British Empire, and the Greater German Reich together had failed.
The Hierocrats had found that destroying the Soviet Union in 1917-1920 retarded the development of spaceflight and computer technology. It was necessary for Nazism to rise to make both posthuman civilizations possible.
The agents of the Hierocracy, Schüssler and Kawaguchi, had succeeded in sidelining the warmonger Halifax, merely by inserting a nanodevice into the uterus of Consuelo Spencer-Churchill, preventing the conception of male offspring, and heir to the Dukedom, that Winston S Churchill would inherit on the death of his nephew.
There was still the remote possiblity he might yet assume power, so it had been necessary to injure him in an aeroplane accident at Croydon, in 1918. Recovery from those injuries prevented him from standing in the 1922 General Election.
The deaths of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Lloyd Hopkins had been hastened by similar devices, rendering the USA (or the Jew-SA, as Schüssler tiresomely referred to it) noticeably weaker and more isolationist than in other universes.
Kawaguchi would have done the same to Hitler, too, had Schüssler not been an ardent admirer of the man. Kawaguchi was the junior partner in this operation.
Schüssler wired the door the to the device in his hands.
"According the sensors, there is a 21st century turboprop combat aircraft, a turboprop airliner, and a turboshaft powered helicopter, and single-engined trainer inside these concrete hangars. We shall be inside in minutes." he said.
There was a high-pitched whine, followed by the sounds of heavy bolts activating, and a red NO ENTRY sign lit up.
"Scheiße !"
The small screen of the tiny device glued to the flashed pink
"What is it?"
"Blackberry. No, Raspberry. Tatchisukurīn. Touch screen" said Kawaguchi.
"What does it say?"
"It wants to know the name of a tank. Six tanks – first one three characters." said Kawaguchi
"T34" said Schüssler
Kawaguchi typed it in.
White san-serif text flashed on the screen –FAIL!
"T72" said Schüssler.
White san-serif text flashed on the screen, again – FAIL!
"Lee is the name of an American tank" said Kawaguchi
"Try it" said Schüssler
Kawaguchi typed it in.
Red san-serif text flashed on the screen – EPIC FAIL!
The electricity supply to the entire complex shut off. Except to the underground bunker. And the 'Dalek'. Hydraulic motors opened the doors and pushed it above ground.
"It's a Hafasi Mono-Node. Autonomous Defence. Run!"
Fifty-calibre machine gun bullets crashed into concrete. Bullets thudded into the wall of the number two HAS.
Then stopped.
"Is it sentient?" Asked Schüssler of Kawaguchi in a language no 20th century human would understand, or even hear. "You have more experience of these things than do"
"Of course it's sentient – it's thinking how to kill us!" replied Kawaguchi.
"It's fixed in place. It knows this is a blind spot. It has no coherent radiation emission weapons…"
"That we know of." replied Kawaguchi.
The only reason it hadn't shredded both of them already was because it could not obtain a clear shot at the one it wanted to kill. The Hierocracy's liking for metempsychosis meant a HE round would be required. The two Hierocracy men heard the servos of the Hafasi device whine.
The multi-barrel gun fired again, rounds tearing through duralumin and perspex.
"Der Sturmvogel!"
The twin jet burst into flames.
"We're fucked! We can't leave! I cannot pass for English the way you can"
"I have not been here since 1920." said Schüssler. "Those files will have been overwritten by now. I would need uniforms, papers. You can just hand yourself in to the Japanese consulate. Japan is not at war with Britain, and hopefully never will be."
There was pop, like a balloon bursting. An object landed near the two men. It sprayed out spheres of material that vapourised in the air.
"Lachrymator Gas!"
Kawaguchi's implants sprayed neutralising vapour into his throat and tear ducts. Schüssler's did not. Kawaguchi's brain had already computed the arc of fire for the Nafasi Mono-Node's 12.7mm multibarrel machine gun. They ran towards number 92, and thence to Staverton Park, and the B1084.
They disabled a vehicle, and its driver, who was later found wandering through Butley, unable to account for the previous two hours. They drove the van down the B1084, and down the B1438 to Martlesham, and waited until dark.
The security at RAF Martlesham was much poorer than it was at Bentwaters. Schüssler and Kawaguchi disabled the ground crew of a fuelled and armed 25 Squadron Blenheim 1F. They both cycled through the of aircraft they had been taught to fly, and Kawaguchi found the Blenheim in the data in his cranial implants. He found it, and went into a kind of automatic trance as he taxyed it from dispersal onto the grass runway and took off.
The RAF ground crew could not account for the events of the previous hour, and were arrested. At the ensuing courts martial, they were sentenced ten years imprisonment, and were lucky to not get life imprisonment for assisting the enemy, seeing as they had allowed a Blenheim L1418 ZK-F and its AI Mk.III, to fall into enemy hands. The commander of 25 Squadron S/L Hallings-Pott, was moved to a less important role, for this huge security breach.
Schüssler and Kawaguchi landed the Blenheim at Bonn airfield, and then returned to their airfield at Bad Zwischenan, whereupon they got into their Junkers EF140/Ju 287 replica, and flew it to Rechlin in Eastern Germany.
There was important work to do consolidate their position in the Reich
Focke-Wulf merged, under government pressure, with Albatros-Flugzeugwerke of Berlin in 1933. Albatros-Flugzeugwerke engineer and test pilot Kurt Tank became head of the technical department and started work on the Fw 44 Stieglitz (Goldfinch).
Dr Jörn-Elling Schüssler became Chairman in 1935. In 1936 Focke was ousted from the Focke-Wulf company by shareholder pressure. In 1938 Schüssler increased his personal shareholding to 46% and AEG secured 28%. The company was reconstituted as Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH and no longer had to publish its accounts. A substantial capital injection occurred at this time, with U.S. multinational ITT Corporation owning 29% of Focke-Wulf by 1941.
Dr Schüssler always remained the driving force of Focke-Wulf. He often met with technical director Professor Kurt Tank. A great admirer of Adolf Hitler, he appealed directly to him to ensure the Fw187 won a production contract, despite opposition to the aircraft from Goring and Milch. He ensured Hitler was present when the Jumo 222-powered Fw188 took the world air speed record from rival Ernst Heinkel's He112R in April 1939
Schüssler was also a director of AEG, Telefunken, and Temmler Werke GmbH
Dr Jörn-Elling Schüssler became Chairman in 1935. In 1936 Focke was ousted from the Focke-Wulf company by shareholder pressure. In 1938 Schüssler increased his personal shareholding to 46% and AEG secured 28%. The company was reconstituted as Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH and no longer had to publish its accounts. A substantial capital injection occurred at this time, with U.S. multinational ITT Corporation owning 29% of Focke-Wulf by 1941.
Dr Schüssler always remained the driving force of Focke-Wulf. He often met with technical director Professor Kurt Tank. A great admirer of Adolf Hitler, he appealed directly to him to ensure the Fw187 won a production contract, despite opposition to the aircraft from Goring and Milch. He ensured Hitler was present when the Jumo 222-powered Fw188 took the world air speed record from rival Ernst Heinkel's He112R in April 1939
Schüssler was also a director of AEG, Telefunken, and Temmler Werke GmbH
{1} 'The Immortals'
Last edited:
McCarthyium
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
MOST SECRET. UK EYES ONLY.
Wing Commander Winterbotham arrived on the scene at Bentwaters. It took ten hours to collect all the wreckage of the aircraft on the runway, most of it shattered beyond use. A Griffon and Merlin engine, both badly damaged, would be removed for examination later at the Royal Aeronautical Establishment, Farnborough.
Attempts to explore the above-ground concrete bunkers came to nothing.
On the 11th June 1940, France, under Marechal Pétain, declared Paris an open city, and that the French government would seek a cessation of hostilities and an armistice with the regime of the Greater German Reich. Despite this, Wehrmacht operations continued in France.
German troops entered Paris on the 15th June 1940, marching triumphantly down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
Despite the fact a cease-fire had not yet come into effect had been called, many French Army surrendered unilaterally to German forces, even firing on their own countrymen who refused to comply. At Vierzon east of Tours and south of Paris, a Colonel was shot by his own men, when he sought to rally his troops to defend a bridge.
Military leaders, like General Giraud, had already fled to Britain. Minister of the Interior Georges Mandel had fled with him. Pierre Laval, former Prime Minister, boarded a ship bound for Baltimore at Bordeaux. Recently resigned Prime Minister Paul Reynaud with same degree of moral strength and courage that he had shown in political life fled to Switzerland with undue haste, and his mistress. In Geneva they married, and hoped to evade charges of incompetence and cowardice from his defeated countrymen.
Not one public figure stood in resistance to Pétain's call to surrender. Not one.
Those adamantly opposed to an armistice in private, were ejected from office.
The Rev Dr Leo Albury M.Sc, Ph.D was ushered down the steps leading from the entrance on Jesus Lane, Cambridge, that could only be opened from the inside. The subterranean premises of the Order of St Albertus Magnus, a secretive suborder of the Dominicans, had survived the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, The Dissolution of the Monasteries, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution and had continued to operate in Protestant England well before the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829.
"So, Dr Albury, what have you to show us" said Friar of the Sciences, Fr Rowland Chittenden, O.P.
"A research student of mine obtained the second draft of this report from the Cavendish Laboratory. I understand it has been passed to the government and graded Top Secret".
"So this document confirms that an element higher than Ausonium, or rather Neptunium, was given to Professors Cockcroft and Thomson. We have heard many unsubstantiated rumours about this. You can reassure me it is not a forgery?"
"You have my word, as the Lord is my witness" said Albury
"And they have no idea how it came to manifest itself, as it does not occur in the Earth's crust"
"That is correct"
"Who brought it to them?" asked Chittenden.
"I alas cannot confirm this, but the rumour is was from the personal effects of the late Royal Navy bomber pilot, Alec McCarthy VC"
"Really?"
"There is also a rumour that this McCarthy showed Cockcroft and Thomson a periodic table that bore little resemblance to the one we currently have, which may have reached up to element 116, which McCarthy called 'Livermorium'. Quite what the derivation of this name might be, I haven't the foggiest idea. Obviously these must be highly energetic, highly radioactive elements that are synthetically produced, and must present a danger to mankind." {1} said Albury.
"We would conduct experiments ourselves to discover the real properties of Ausonium, Hesperium and this element 96, but alas the Pontificia Academia Scientiarum will not purchase a cyclotron for our use." Chittenden paused to smirk, then he continued. "The Order, and therefore the Church, has been aware of the likelihood of elements higher than Actinium, long before they, what we know must call Thorium, Protoactinium and Uranium, dreadful pagan names, were officially discovered. A missionary of our order, discovered evidence of nuclear fission in nature, at a location known only to us, in French Equatorial Africa, in the 1860s."
"Really? It occurs naturally?"
"Many millions of years in the past" said Chittenden
"Nuclear fission, were a mechanism found to make it work, could liberate enormous amounts of energy, several orders of magnitudes greater than any conventional explosives." replied Albury "Terajoules of energy. It would quickly be weaponized" said Albury.
"It would a mortal sin to put that amount of destructive power in the hands of man. Imagine Stalin, or Hitler – or even His Majesties government, for that matter, wielding those kinds of weapons. It is not hyperbole to suggest that these weapons may well yet threaten the existence of mankind. Especially, if they are developed, may the Lord forgive us, at the rate that aeroplanes have been used as weapons of war."
Schüssler and Kawaguchi could not restrain their despondency. If the Hyperians were behind McCarthy to the extent that they had left an AI there with him, which had no doubt issued him with instructions constantly, their enterprise here was doomed, whether he was alive or not.
Schüssler's increasingly pessimistic outlook, at the high water mark of the Third Reich's success, had lead him to be cast out of the inner circle of industrialists that supported the Führer.
After all he done for him.
His urgings that the Führer should turn his attention to the Soviet Union had struck a false note during the Sieg im Western.
He pressed down the accelerator pedal of the ex-Bundeswehr Mercedes Gelandewagen. The bull bars of the four-wheel drive G-wagon smashed into the unobtrusive Hanomag Rekord heading in the other direction. The driver of the Rekord, Generaloberst Ludwig Beck was killed instantly, but Schüssler pushed the car off the road down the embankment, just to make sure.
"So who wants to go back to the Arctic Circle?"
"Bawring!" said Polina. "I haven't finished exploring New York!"
"You only want to stay here because they keep serving you drinks and not asking you for ID" said her father
"It's not my fault I look older than my age." said Polina.
"What ever you do, make sure you stick with Charlie after dark. And make sure you have your pepper spray with you"
"Teacher's pet!" said Polina.
"Shut up you two" said Charlie.
"Right, well, we go back to La Guardia airport tomorrow morning…"
"We cannot fight on, Prime Minister, not without breaking ourselves in the process. We cannot, even Sir Samuel cannot stave off the threat from the Italians. They will side with with Hitler, not us…' said the Duke.
"They have seen what has happened to the German Navy. I am optimistic that Hoare will keep the Italians out of the conflict? The national mood is one of steadfast resistance. The public already blame me, Chamberlain for appeasement, for getting us into that war. Have you seen that samizdat book, 'Guilty Men'?"
"Comintern agit-prop, of the most virulent kind. No-one will sell it, even WH Smiths won't stock it" said the Duke.
"The Comintern want us bloodthirsty colonialist and running dogs of capitalism to surrender, too" said the PM.
"The Reds want to march into Germany, once we have exhausted them. Though I doubt that will ever happen. The Hun is too strong for us. Our Army, our Navy our Air Force has let us down" said the Duke "it won't surprise me if they fail miserably again, this time in the defence of Britain itself"
"And I was part of the Baldwin and Chamberlain government that equipped and financed them. You might temper your criticisms with a bit more backbone. Such defeatism might be interpreted as treason, by some."
"Oh! And are you one of those people?" said the Duke.
"Don't be ridiculous, Your Grace. Of course not."
"You have no need to mollify the sensitivities of Attlee and Greenwood. Nor the press. They will welcome an armistice as much as anyone."
"But neither of us have to stand for election afterwards, my party can dispose of me as quickly as they did with Neville. It is they, after all, who will have to persuade the electorate to support any armistice that is negotiated at the forthcoming election. We promised them 'peace in our time', then declared war on a man we can no longer trust within a year. All the Opposition will have to do is point at the ruins of the Commons, and say 'this is where appeasement has brought us!' " said Halifax, solemnly. "My occupation of the First Lordship of the Treasury will only last as long as the crisis that provoked it."
RAF Butley, or Bentwaters airfield as it was known to McCarthy, had been requisitioned as a emergency landing field for Bomber Command aircraft. Its long, wide concrete runway and its extensive lighting system had huge advantages for such a field.
RAF intelligence officers took the wreckage of the aircraft away on a Queen Mary transporter, including one complete, undamaged axial-flow jet engine, gifted to them by Schüssler and Kawaguchi, and took it to RAE Farnborough.
The concrete structures and dispersals to the south-east of the airfield remained untouched.
Everyone who walked among them, no matter how senior or how daring, felt like they were being watched.
At night, lights would come on automatically, as though it was haunted by McCarthy's ghost. An infrasound hum at seventeen cycles per second was emitted through concealed subwoofers.
Makeshift barbed wire fences were quickly erected around them, to keep the curious out, while McAlpines built traditional RAF airfield buildings on the north-side of the field.
Rickenbacker, as promised, had refuelled the North Star, out his own pocket. It had not been cheap. McCarthy only pressurized the cockpit, and let him sit up front.
Alex, Tony, and Eddie took off from La Guardia, flew towards Scranton, PA, then Syracuse, NY then flew over Niagara Falls. It felt like a privilege to be in the presence of a real-life fighter ace, but then Alex realised he had shot down three or four more aircraft than Rickenbacker had. Alex still felt like a fraud.
Summer visitors to the Falls grabbed their children pointed at the four-engined plane and said "Look darling, a Flying Fortress!" or words to that effect.
McCarthy and Jones flew over the Great Lakes, to Detroit, MI and Windsor, Ontario – places in the US McCarthy had DJ'd, and then turned towards Lake Huron and Ottawa.
McCarthy did a low pass over Ottawa airfield, but it was far too primitive to land on. Alex wasn't going to risk tearing off the undercarriage of a saleable item.
"Screw this – " said Alex to Tony, let's go back to Cthulhu Base and get the Mustang and the Conquest ..."
In the US capital, the British Ambassador to the United States, Brownlow Charles Bertie-Colyear KCMG, KCVO, Marquis of Portmore, Earl of Aveland, Earl of Portmore, Viscount Milsington, Baron Willoughby de Eresby, Lord Portmore and Lord Colyear began negotiations with Greater German Reich Chargé d'Affaires, Hans Thomsen, regarding the terms Britain might expect were it likely to enter Armistice talks with the Hitler regime.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Polina left the cinema on Times Square. They had watch two 'color' films at the cost of eight dollars.
They felt ripped off, and sought solace in alcohol.
On the way to a bar that served them reliably, Charlie and Polina heard muffled yelping from an alleyway.
Three men were beating a panhandler, who was lying on the ground.
Charlie crept up behind one of the men urging on his fellow man.
"Hey Guido!" she said, before pushing her fingers of her left hand into his eyes, and her balled fist into his genitals. He fell to the floor, howling and gasping.
The guy doing the kicking turned to meet the assailant of his friend, and reached inside a jacket pocket, only to be knocked to the ground by a woman.
Those evening in that Krav Maga gym in Sheffield, certainly paid off.
The third man ran off.
Polina produced a small bottle
The man with the knife said "Watcha gonna do, bitch, spray me with your perf – ARRGGHH! ARRGGHH! ARRGGHH!"
The 3% CRC oleoresin capsicum solution hit him in his injured eyes.
Polina pepper-sprayed the other hoodlum as he struggled to his feet, and helped up the panhandler. They cleaned up his wounds, and bought him his first full meal in three days. He had been unemployed since 1937, and begging since 1938. He had a wife and young daughter once. He was twenty-seven. He looked much older.
"What's your name" asked Charlie.
"Elmer", said the panhandler, between mouthfuls.
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from here. But nobody gives a shit about that. I'm sorry, ladies. I should watch my mouth. That's some strange accent you got there, madam"
"Oh, swear as much as you like. I'm from Sheffield. The North" said Charlie
"Of England" added Polina.
"Not Sheffield, Massachusetts then"
"I'm from London. Like my Dad. My name's Polina"
"You speak like I'd expect an English lady to speak" said Elmer.
"But I don't….!?" exclaimed Charlie.
"I'm sorry, England is one of the countries I haven't been to" said Elmer.
"So where have you been?" asked Polina.
"Mexico, China, Japan, Manchuria. I was a journalist, once" said Elmer.
"Where the fuck is Manchuria?" asked Polina.
"Northern China – occupied by the Japanese during the Japanese-Soviet War" said Elmer
"When was that?"
"For all I know it is still going on. Any way…"
"So what do you do with your days?" asked Polly
"I sit in a library and read. Keep my brain and body warm. And I wrote, until some drunken asshole threw my journal into the East River. When they shut in the evening I beg for money, or a roof over my head. I'm dependent on the kindness of strangers. Sheesh, at least if I was in Sing-Sing, I'd get three square meals a day. I can't thank you enough for your generosity. And putting your own life at risk to rescue."
"I'd hope anyone else would do the same" said Charlie.
"Believe me, they wouldn't"
"If you are a journalist, with all that reporting experience, why don't you go to a newspaper with all your stories, and get paid for them. "Down and Out in Tokyo and New York", and all that" said Charlie.
"For chrissakes, Nobody knows I'm a goddamn journalist, here – the paper I useta work for, published nearly all my work, don't even exist here."
"It doesn't" said Polly, correcting him, and wishing she hadn't.
"I don't expect you to believe me! Nobody else does!" said Elmer
"Okay, Elmer, keep calm," said Polina, putting her hand on his arm.
"I lost my job, my darling wife, my baby girl, my everything – those bastards left me here with nothing! Even my money was worthless!"
Elmer cried.
{1} Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life.
...0.79 Microcuries of the hitherto unknown metallic substance, hereinafter referred to as 'Element 95' was recovered from a device claimed to be an ionization chamber smoke detector by the source. The element is a silvery metal with 95 protons in the nucleus of its atom, and as such is completely new element. It has an atomic weight of 241 mol Element 95 has undergone hydrocarbon combustion, forming Element 95 Dioxide
It is a powerful source of ionizing radiation, in the form of alpha-particles. Its decay products are neptunium (a separate isotope to that discovered in the USA, with an atomic weight of 237 mol) and thallium, of which trace elements have been detected.
We cannot say for certain if this element occurs in nature. It certainly does not occur in the Earth's crust. It therefore must have been manufactured, by neutron bombardment.
We are at a loss to explain how element 95 came to be present, may have been manufactured, or how it came to be in the possession of our source….
It is a powerful source of ionizing radiation, in the form of alpha-particles. Its decay products are neptunium (a separate isotope to that discovered in the USA, with an atomic weight of 237 mol) and thallium, of which trace elements have been detected.
We cannot say for certain if this element occurs in nature. It certainly does not occur in the Earth's crust. It therefore must have been manufactured, by neutron bombardment.
We are at a loss to explain how element 95 came to be present, may have been manufactured, or how it came to be in the possession of our source….
Wing Commander Winterbotham arrived on the scene at Bentwaters. It took ten hours to collect all the wreckage of the aircraft on the runway, most of it shattered beyond use. A Griffon and Merlin engine, both badly damaged, would be removed for examination later at the Royal Aeronautical Establishment, Farnborough.
Attempts to explore the above-ground concrete bunkers came to nothing.
On the 11th June 1940, France, under Marechal Pétain, declared Paris an open city, and that the French government would seek a cessation of hostilities and an armistice with the regime of the Greater German Reich. Despite this, Wehrmacht operations continued in France.
German troops entered Paris on the 15th June 1940, marching triumphantly down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
Despite the fact a cease-fire had not yet come into effect had been called, many French Army surrendered unilaterally to German forces, even firing on their own countrymen who refused to comply. At Vierzon east of Tours and south of Paris, a Colonel was shot by his own men, when he sought to rally his troops to defend a bridge.
Military leaders, like General Giraud, had already fled to Britain. Minister of the Interior Georges Mandel had fled with him. Pierre Laval, former Prime Minister, boarded a ship bound for Baltimore at Bordeaux. Recently resigned Prime Minister Paul Reynaud with same degree of moral strength and courage that he had shown in political life fled to Switzerland with undue haste, and his mistress. In Geneva they married, and hoped to evade charges of incompetence and cowardice from his defeated countrymen.
Not one public figure stood in resistance to Pétain's call to surrender. Not one.
Those adamantly opposed to an armistice in private, were ejected from office.
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest
Behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows
Upon the human heart
But God didn't build himself that throne
God doesn't live in Israel or Rome
God doesn't belong to the Yankee dollar
God doesn't plant the bombs for Hesbollah
God doesn't even go to church!
And God won't send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it's sown
Behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows
Upon the human heart
But God didn't build himself that throne
God doesn't live in Israel or Rome
God doesn't belong to the Yankee dollar
God doesn't plant the bombs for Hesbollah
God doesn't even go to church!
And God won't send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it's sown
The Rev Dr Leo Albury M.Sc, Ph.D was ushered down the steps leading from the entrance on Jesus Lane, Cambridge, that could only be opened from the inside. The subterranean premises of the Order of St Albertus Magnus, a secretive suborder of the Dominicans, had survived the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, The Dissolution of the Monasteries, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution and had continued to operate in Protestant England well before the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829.
"So, Dr Albury, what have you to show us" said Friar of the Sciences, Fr Rowland Chittenden, O.P.
"A research student of mine obtained the second draft of this report from the Cavendish Laboratory. I understand it has been passed to the government and graded Top Secret".
"So this document confirms that an element higher than Ausonium, or rather Neptunium, was given to Professors Cockcroft and Thomson. We have heard many unsubstantiated rumours about this. You can reassure me it is not a forgery?"
"You have my word, as the Lord is my witness" said Albury
"And they have no idea how it came to manifest itself, as it does not occur in the Earth's crust"
"That is correct"
"Who brought it to them?" asked Chittenden.
"I alas cannot confirm this, but the rumour is was from the personal effects of the late Royal Navy bomber pilot, Alec McCarthy VC"
"Really?"
"There is also a rumour that this McCarthy showed Cockcroft and Thomson a periodic table that bore little resemblance to the one we currently have, which may have reached up to element 116, which McCarthy called 'Livermorium'. Quite what the derivation of this name might be, I haven't the foggiest idea. Obviously these must be highly energetic, highly radioactive elements that are synthetically produced, and must present a danger to mankind." {1} said Albury.
"We would conduct experiments ourselves to discover the real properties of Ausonium, Hesperium and this element 96, but alas the Pontificia Academia Scientiarum will not purchase a cyclotron for our use." Chittenden paused to smirk, then he continued. "The Order, and therefore the Church, has been aware of the likelihood of elements higher than Actinium, long before they, what we know must call Thorium, Protoactinium and Uranium, dreadful pagan names, were officially discovered. A missionary of our order, discovered evidence of nuclear fission in nature, at a location known only to us, in French Equatorial Africa, in the 1860s."
"Really? It occurs naturally?"
"Many millions of years in the past" said Chittenden
"Nuclear fission, were a mechanism found to make it work, could liberate enormous amounts of energy, several orders of magnitudes greater than any conventional explosives." replied Albury "Terajoules of energy. It would quickly be weaponized" said Albury.
"It would a mortal sin to put that amount of destructive power in the hands of man. Imagine Stalin, or Hitler – or even His Majesties government, for that matter, wielding those kinds of weapons. It is not hyperbole to suggest that these weapons may well yet threaten the existence of mankind. Especially, if they are developed, may the Lord forgive us, at the rate that aeroplanes have been used as weapons of war."
~~~
Schüssler and Kawaguchi could not restrain their despondency. If the Hyperians were behind McCarthy to the extent that they had left an AI there with him, which had no doubt issued him with instructions constantly, their enterprise here was doomed, whether he was alive or not.
Schüssler's increasingly pessimistic outlook, at the high water mark of the Third Reich's success, had lead him to be cast out of the inner circle of industrialists that supported the Führer.
After all he done for him.
His urgings that the Führer should turn his attention to the Soviet Union had struck a false note during the Sieg im Western.
He pressed down the accelerator pedal of the ex-Bundeswehr Mercedes Gelandewagen. The bull bars of the four-wheel drive G-wagon smashed into the unobtrusive Hanomag Rekord heading in the other direction. The driver of the Rekord, Generaloberst Ludwig Beck was killed instantly, but Schüssler pushed the car off the road down the embankment, just to make sure.
~~~
"So who wants to go back to the Arctic Circle?"
"Bawring!" said Polina. "I haven't finished exploring New York!"
"You only want to stay here because they keep serving you drinks and not asking you for ID" said her father
"It's not my fault I look older than my age." said Polina.
"What ever you do, make sure you stick with Charlie after dark. And make sure you have your pepper spray with you"
"Teacher's pet!" said Polina.
"Shut up you two" said Charlie.
"Right, well, we go back to La Guardia airport tomorrow morning…"
~~~
"We cannot fight on, Prime Minister, not without breaking ourselves in the process. We cannot, even Sir Samuel cannot stave off the threat from the Italians. They will side with with Hitler, not us…' said the Duke.
"They have seen what has happened to the German Navy. I am optimistic that Hoare will keep the Italians out of the conflict? The national mood is one of steadfast resistance. The public already blame me, Chamberlain for appeasement, for getting us into that war. Have you seen that samizdat book, 'Guilty Men'?"
"Comintern agit-prop, of the most virulent kind. No-one will sell it, even WH Smiths won't stock it" said the Duke.
"The Comintern want us bloodthirsty colonialist and running dogs of capitalism to surrender, too" said the PM.
"The Reds want to march into Germany, once we have exhausted them. Though I doubt that will ever happen. The Hun is too strong for us. Our Army, our Navy our Air Force has let us down" said the Duke "it won't surprise me if they fail miserably again, this time in the defence of Britain itself"
"And I was part of the Baldwin and Chamberlain government that equipped and financed them. You might temper your criticisms with a bit more backbone. Such defeatism might be interpreted as treason, by some."
"Oh! And are you one of those people?" said the Duke.
"Don't be ridiculous, Your Grace. Of course not."
"You have no need to mollify the sensitivities of Attlee and Greenwood. Nor the press. They will welcome an armistice as much as anyone."
"But neither of us have to stand for election afterwards, my party can dispose of me as quickly as they did with Neville. It is they, after all, who will have to persuade the electorate to support any armistice that is negotiated at the forthcoming election. We promised them 'peace in our time', then declared war on a man we can no longer trust within a year. All the Opposition will have to do is point at the ruins of the Commons, and say 'this is where appeasement has brought us!' " said Halifax, solemnly. "My occupation of the First Lordship of the Treasury will only last as long as the crisis that provoked it."
~~~
RAF Butley, or Bentwaters airfield as it was known to McCarthy, had been requisitioned as a emergency landing field for Bomber Command aircraft. Its long, wide concrete runway and its extensive lighting system had huge advantages for such a field.
RAF intelligence officers took the wreckage of the aircraft away on a Queen Mary transporter, including one complete, undamaged axial-flow jet engine, gifted to them by Schüssler and Kawaguchi, and took it to RAE Farnborough.
The concrete structures and dispersals to the south-east of the airfield remained untouched.
Everyone who walked among them, no matter how senior or how daring, felt like they were being watched.
At night, lights would come on automatically, as though it was haunted by McCarthy's ghost. An infrasound hum at seventeen cycles per second was emitted through concealed subwoofers.
Makeshift barbed wire fences were quickly erected around them, to keep the curious out, while McAlpines built traditional RAF airfield buildings on the north-side of the field.
Rickenbacker, as promised, had refuelled the North Star, out his own pocket. It had not been cheap. McCarthy only pressurized the cockpit, and let him sit up front.
Alex, Tony, and Eddie took off from La Guardia, flew towards Scranton, PA, then Syracuse, NY then flew over Niagara Falls. It felt like a privilege to be in the presence of a real-life fighter ace, but then Alex realised he had shot down three or four more aircraft than Rickenbacker had. Alex still felt like a fraud.
Summer visitors to the Falls grabbed their children pointed at the four-engined plane and said "Look darling, a Flying Fortress!" or words to that effect.
McCarthy and Jones flew over the Great Lakes, to Detroit, MI and Windsor, Ontario – places in the US McCarthy had DJ'd, and then turned towards Lake Huron and Ottawa.
McCarthy did a low pass over Ottawa airfield, but it was far too primitive to land on. Alex wasn't going to risk tearing off the undercarriage of a saleable item.
"Screw this – " said Alex to Tony, let's go back to Cthulhu Base and get the Mustang and the Conquest ..."
In the US capital, the British Ambassador to the United States, Brownlow Charles Bertie-Colyear KCMG, KCVO, Marquis of Portmore, Earl of Aveland, Earl of Portmore, Viscount Milsington, Baron Willoughby de Eresby, Lord Portmore and Lord Colyear began negotiations with Greater German Reich Chargé d'Affaires, Hans Thomsen, regarding the terms Britain might expect were it likely to enter Armistice talks with the Hitler regime.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Polina left the cinema on Times Square. They had watch two 'color' films at the cost of eight dollars.
They felt ripped off, and sought solace in alcohol.
On the way to a bar that served them reliably, Charlie and Polina heard muffled yelping from an alleyway.
Three men were beating a panhandler, who was lying on the ground.
Charlie crept up behind one of the men urging on his fellow man.
"Hey Guido!" she said, before pushing her fingers of her left hand into his eyes, and her balled fist into his genitals. He fell to the floor, howling and gasping.
The guy doing the kicking turned to meet the assailant of his friend, and reached inside a jacket pocket, only to be knocked to the ground by a woman.
Those evening in that Krav Maga gym in Sheffield, certainly paid off.
The third man ran off.
Polina produced a small bottle
The man with the knife said "Watcha gonna do, bitch, spray me with your perf – ARRGGHH! ARRGGHH! ARRGGHH!"
The 3% CRC oleoresin capsicum solution hit him in his injured eyes.
Polina pepper-sprayed the other hoodlum as he struggled to his feet, and helped up the panhandler. They cleaned up his wounds, and bought him his first full meal in three days. He had been unemployed since 1937, and begging since 1938. He had a wife and young daughter once. He was twenty-seven. He looked much older.
"What's your name" asked Charlie.
"Elmer", said the panhandler, between mouthfuls.
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from here. But nobody gives a shit about that. I'm sorry, ladies. I should watch my mouth. That's some strange accent you got there, madam"
"Oh, swear as much as you like. I'm from Sheffield. The North" said Charlie
"Of England" added Polina.
"Not Sheffield, Massachusetts then"
"I'm from London. Like my Dad. My name's Polina"
"You speak like I'd expect an English lady to speak" said Elmer.
"But I don't….!?" exclaimed Charlie.
"I'm sorry, England is one of the countries I haven't been to" said Elmer.
"So where have you been?" asked Polina.
"Mexico, China, Japan, Manchuria. I was a journalist, once" said Elmer.
"Where the fuck is Manchuria?" asked Polina.
"Northern China – occupied by the Japanese during the Japanese-Soviet War" said Elmer
"When was that?"
"For all I know it is still going on. Any way…"
"So what do you do with your days?" asked Polly
"I sit in a library and read. Keep my brain and body warm. And I wrote, until some drunken asshole threw my journal into the East River. When they shut in the evening I beg for money, or a roof over my head. I'm dependent on the kindness of strangers. Sheesh, at least if I was in Sing-Sing, I'd get three square meals a day. I can't thank you enough for your generosity. And putting your own life at risk to rescue."
"I'd hope anyone else would do the same" said Charlie.
"Believe me, they wouldn't"
"If you are a journalist, with all that reporting experience, why don't you go to a newspaper with all your stories, and get paid for them. "Down and Out in Tokyo and New York", and all that" said Charlie.
"For chrissakes, Nobody knows I'm a goddamn journalist, here – the paper I useta work for, published nearly all my work, don't even exist here."
"It doesn't" said Polly, correcting him, and wishing she hadn't.
"I don't expect you to believe me! Nobody else does!" said Elmer
"Okay, Elmer, keep calm," said Polina, putting her hand on his arm.
"I lost my job, my darling wife, my baby girl, my everything – those bastards left me here with nothing! Even my money was worthless!"
Elmer cried.
The avenues and alleyways
Where the soul of a man is easy to buy
Everybody's wheelin'
Everybody's dealin'
All the low are living high
Every city's got 'em
Can we ever stop em
Some of us
Have gotta try.
Where the soul of a man is easy to buy
Everybody's wheelin'
Everybody's dealin'
All the low are living high
Every city's got 'em
Can we ever stop em
Some of us
Have gotta try.
{1} Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life.
Last edited:
World walker
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
They took Elmer back to 55 Central Park West . They could not leave him in the dirty, bloodstained clothes that he was wearing. And Elmer Floyd Holtzmann, formerly foreign correspondent at the New York Globe, as they now knew him, needed further investigation.
Charlie wished McCarthy wasn't tooling around at Cthulhu Base (why would you give a mystery airport a codename as difficult to spell as its actual one).
"This is your place?!" he said, looking at the duplex apartment.
"It is, until someone tells us it isn't"
The lawyer telling McCarthy that five million bucks of Hughes' money hung on the breaking of the speed record had put dollar signs in his eyes.
The concierge of 55 Central Park West tried to stop Elmer coming in. They gave him a twenty to look the other way, and hustled Elmer into the lift elevator before the clerk could call the night manager.
Charlie bundled up the dirty clothes into a black plastic bag and put them down the laundry chute. Polina washed his 'lucky' fedora in the sink. The water turned brown. Just how lucky WAS this guy? She thought.
He ran himself a bath, and washed three weeks of accumulated dirt off himself, so much so he had to run another bath to make sure he was clean.
Who were these angelic young women? Where did the money for this apartment come from? Were they holy rollers? Lovers?
Or agents of James Smith – or his shadowy equivalent in this world?
Elmer was so desperate he didn't care. It was a relief to be not hungry, not tired, no cold nor too hot, and not dirty. The worst thing was not the violence, but the hopelessness. The loneliness, the being deliberately ignored.
The humiliation.
They dressed him in some fragrant smelling clothes they assured him were pajamas.
"So you said back at the diner, that you were left without your wife and baby and even your money was worthless?" asked Charlie
"Look I'm really grateful for all your help, but I don't…."
"Did you wake up in a world that didn't recognise you, and you didn't recognise yourself?"
"Aw, Jeez"
"It happened to us. Both of us." said Polina "And the man who brought us to New York. My father."
"How? Why? You mean…?"
"We know what it is to lose parents, friends, but not children thankfully, to wake up in world filled of people you hoped were long dead, and knowing your own ancestors may not ever been born" said Charlie
"We have had the shittiest year imaginable. And it is still only June. 2016 could not possibly be worse. And we know how unbearable awful the immediate future is going to be, which makes it irredeemably worse" said Polina
"You are from the future? Twenty-sixteen?"
"We were driving down a road on a Thursday in May 2016." said Polina "And ended up on a golf course on a Saturday in 1940"
"Where did you go when you….travelled?"
"Exactly where we were. The road we travelling on ceased to exist."
"London? Sheffield?"
"Near Cambridge, in the East of England, where the university is"
"So you claim travelled in time but not in space"
"Yes." said Polina
"No" said Charlie
"Which?"
"Both. Just further in back in time than in space"
"My God"
"You don't believe us? What's your story?" said Charlie.
"I'm probably the only person on the face of this Earth who believes you. I went to sleep in Nanking, and awoke in New York. In 1937. Just not my 1937. Tell people that and they'll put you in an asylum – I'm only on the streets because Payne-Whitney couldn't afford to treat me! You got any proof? Cos I never had."
"Uh huh. This is a 10 dollar bill from now." said Polina.
"This is one from when we come from. 2015"
He examined the greenback closely, and held it up to the light.
"Geez, I'd say it was a forgery, but how did you make it? I though you guys were British. Why would you have a US ten buck note?"
"My employer was, and is a millionaire. And he was my boyfriend, once, too. We traveled frequently to the US."
"Well, that explains how you afford this apartment here" said Elmer.
"Is it wrong of me to say I prefer 2016 Sheffield to 1940s New York?" said Charlie.
"We all want to go home", said Elmer. "Why do they call you Charlie?"
"My names Charlotte, but I never liked it. All my friends call me Charlie. I have nothing left in Britain. No family, no friends, apart from Polly here, and Alex and Tony. Especially with Nazis sat on the front doorstep, stinking out the neighbourhood"
"I would only go back to Britain if my dad did" said Polina.
"Why did you flee England, I mean Britain?"
"Alex had the bizarre idea that the British Government was about to make peace with the Germans"
"And he thinks that's a bad thing?"
Charlie scoffed and was momentarily lost for words.
"Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. Hitler knows he must break us in those islands, or lose the war"
"Even after they bombed the Houses of Parliament?"
"They did WHAT?"
"The Germans. They dropped a bomb on your Houses of Commons. They deny everything, of course."
"Shame. I would have written a letter to their Ambassador, commending them on their accuracy of their bombing. Did anyone get killed? Any MPs?
"I can't remember. It was someone else's paper, and they used it as a bedsheet . You think the English can hold out on their own?"
"I'm English, so, yes, of course I do. We're a stubborn lot, and Alex has done his best to ruin the Germany Navy. We are in a far better position than now, than we were in our 1940"
"Your 1940? I thought you were from 2016?"
"Our historical 1940. We had a leader called Winston Churchill in 1940, right up until the end of the war, who kept us fighting the Germans, Italians and Japanese right till the end" said Charlie.
"England fought all three of them?"
"Along with the USA, and Canada, and Australians, and the New Zealanders, South Africans, and the Russians"
"So the Soviets did not make an alliance with the Third Reich in your history?"
"Yeah, they did, I think. Polina?"
"Yeah, they did" she replied.
"So the Communists attacked Germany?"
"No, the other way round – nearly got as far as Moscow, the Nazis, if I remember rightly. Alex is the expert on all this. They massacred six million Jews, and fuck knows how many others, in the process…"
"THAT IS UNBELIEVABLE!"
"It is"
"What would Hitler gain from such carnage?"
"Nothing, except an illusory victory over powerless enemies. Alex maintains they lost the war because they murdered all the people who could have worked in their factories. I've seen then massacring civilian refugees with my own eyes"
"Where?"
"On the roads of France, as I flew over them"
"You flew over France, during the invasion?"
"I shot down five Luftwaffe aircraft"
Holtzmann was dumbfounded.
"Five down and glory! That makes you an ace!"
"My Dad claims he's shot down thirty German planes. He made us watch the film." said Polina, wearily.
This McCarthy guy must be a real showboating asshole, thought Elmer.
Schüssler walked into the Reich Chancellery, through the No 6, VoßStraße entrance and turned right. The guards of the double doors saluted the SS-Brigadeführer, as he would expect
"Heil Hitler!"
He passed through the doors into the Marble Chamber, and walked towards the ante-chamber before the Führer's spectacular office.
"Welcome back, Brigadeführer Schüssler" said Johanna Wolf, his secretary.
"How is the Führer?"
"The damage to his hearing has soured his pleasure in victory. He is confused over what to do next. But please do not tell him I said this"
"Was it a gun that damaged his hearing?"
"I only know that it happened at the Felsnennest"
The Great Man himself appeared.
"Heil Hitler!" said Schüssler.
"Wölfin, why did you not tell me Brigadeführer Schüssler was here. Please Jor-El. Come into my office."
"Mein Führer"
They walked together towards Hitler's huge desk.
"Congratulations, Mein Führer, on your momentous victory in the West"
"It was just as you predicted. I should have listened to you sooner – your FW 187s performed magnificently. The only disaster was the loss of Manstein. It was sad to hear of Generaloberst Beck. Strange that Beck should die so soon after his protégé ."
"No one should be in charge of the Wehrmacht besides you, Mein Führer!"
"Please sit on my left so I can hear you better"
"That is precisely why I am here, Mein Führer. I can mend your perforated eardrum."
"How? I will not be encumbered with a machine." said the Führer.
"Mein Führer. If I inject you with the serum I have in this valise, it will repair any damaged tissue in your body"
"I will not submit to any medical treatment with consulting Dr Morrell first. You have no medical experience."
Neither does he, thought Schüssler.
"Mein Führer! I implore you! Morrell is a fat buffoon, a charlatan. I could not bear it if you did not live to see the German people's inevitable victory over the Bolsheviks, the Finance Capitalists. This serum will ensure I do not outlive you."
"Is it safe?" asked the Führer.
"Yes, it is safe."
Der Führer was not convinced. The injector device rather resembled a weapon of assassination rather than medical equipment.
"The Reichsführer-SS may put his trust in your blood magic, but I do not. Do not press me on this Jor-El, as we should always leave as friends", said the Führer.
"What of the future, the offensive on Britain?"
"The depredations of the Royal Navy have rendered us incapable of making a second amphibious assault so soon after the Weser operation. The British surely know this, hence the refusal of Mr Halifax to even contemplate peace, despite the injuries we have inflicted on their Army and Air Force in Flanders and France. But we must find a way halt the war with the British. Generalfeldmarschall Göring claims a sustained attack on the British from the air will lead them to surrender, but whether you believe that or not, we have few options before us" said the Führer.
"We cannot spare any aircraft for this assault, it will be too costly in men and machines, and put our planned operations in the east in jeopardy." said Schüssler "We must redirect men currently serving in the Wehrmacht back to the factories, so we can build up our strength in weaponry and munitions" said Schüssler.
"Funk, Hierl and Todt say exactly the same as you, Brigadeführer. The needs of the volk cannot be underestimated, however. I cannot deny my people, who have done so much for me, the standard of living all civilized countries demand. You know I must err on the side of caution. Russia is the ultimate prize and the greatest threat to the survival of the movement, we cannot fight a war of attrition with the British without Russian wheat, Russian oil. We are surrounded by enemies. Yet we cannot be seen to give into the whims of the British, now they have been bewitched by Jewish finance. Do you believe Lord Halifax is more vulnerable to his people than the 'Herzog von Marlburg' would have been?"
Almost certainly. We must get the Englanders to disengage from the conflict as soon as possible. If this makes necessary brutal acts, then so be it" said Schüssler "The British have virtually limitless resources to call upon"
"Yes, their empire, and the Americans"
<No. I DONT mean the Americans> thought Schüssler.
"We must take on the heavy mantle of builders of Empire from the tired British, Jor-El"
Charlie wished McCarthy wasn't tooling around at Cthulhu Base (why would you give a mystery airport a codename as difficult to spell as its actual one).
"This is your place?!" he said, looking at the duplex apartment.
"It is, until someone tells us it isn't"
The lawyer telling McCarthy that five million bucks of Hughes' money hung on the breaking of the speed record had put dollar signs in his eyes.
The concierge of 55 Central Park West tried to stop Elmer coming in. They gave him a twenty to look the other way, and hustled Elmer into the lift elevator before the clerk could call the night manager.
Charlie bundled up the dirty clothes into a black plastic bag and put them down the laundry chute. Polina washed his 'lucky' fedora in the sink. The water turned brown. Just how lucky WAS this guy? She thought.
He ran himself a bath, and washed three weeks of accumulated dirt off himself, so much so he had to run another bath to make sure he was clean.
Who were these angelic young women? Where did the money for this apartment come from? Were they holy rollers? Lovers?
Or agents of James Smith – or his shadowy equivalent in this world?
Elmer was so desperate he didn't care. It was a relief to be not hungry, not tired, no cold nor too hot, and not dirty. The worst thing was not the violence, but the hopelessness. The loneliness, the being deliberately ignored.
The humiliation.
They dressed him in some fragrant smelling clothes they assured him were pajamas.
"So you said back at the diner, that you were left without your wife and baby and even your money was worthless?" asked Charlie
"Look I'm really grateful for all your help, but I don't…."
"Did you wake up in a world that didn't recognise you, and you didn't recognise yourself?"
"Aw, Jeez"
"It happened to us. Both of us." said Polina "And the man who brought us to New York. My father."
"How? Why? You mean…?"
"We know what it is to lose parents, friends, but not children thankfully, to wake up in world filled of people you hoped were long dead, and knowing your own ancestors may not ever been born" said Charlie
"We have had the shittiest year imaginable. And it is still only June. 2016 could not possibly be worse. And we know how unbearable awful the immediate future is going to be, which makes it irredeemably worse" said Polina
"You are from the future? Twenty-sixteen?"
"We were driving down a road on a Thursday in May 2016." said Polina "And ended up on a golf course on a Saturday in 1940"
"Where did you go when you….travelled?"
"Exactly where we were. The road we travelling on ceased to exist."
"London? Sheffield?"
"Near Cambridge, in the East of England, where the university is"
"So you claim travelled in time but not in space"
"Yes." said Polina
"No" said Charlie
"Which?"
"Both. Just further in back in time than in space"
"My God"
"You don't believe us? What's your story?" said Charlie.
"I'm probably the only person on the face of this Earth who believes you. I went to sleep in Nanking, and awoke in New York. In 1937. Just not my 1937. Tell people that and they'll put you in an asylum – I'm only on the streets because Payne-Whitney couldn't afford to treat me! You got any proof? Cos I never had."
"Uh huh. This is a 10 dollar bill from now." said Polina.
"This is one from when we come from. 2015"
He examined the greenback closely, and held it up to the light.
"Geez, I'd say it was a forgery, but how did you make it? I though you guys were British. Why would you have a US ten buck note?"
"My employer was, and is a millionaire. And he was my boyfriend, once, too. We traveled frequently to the US."
"Well, that explains how you afford this apartment here" said Elmer.
"Is it wrong of me to say I prefer 2016 Sheffield to 1940s New York?" said Charlie.
"We all want to go home", said Elmer. "Why do they call you Charlie?"
"My names Charlotte, but I never liked it. All my friends call me Charlie. I have nothing left in Britain. No family, no friends, apart from Polly here, and Alex and Tony. Especially with Nazis sat on the front doorstep, stinking out the neighbourhood"
"I would only go back to Britain if my dad did" said Polina.
"Why did you flee England, I mean Britain?"
"Alex had the bizarre idea that the British Government was about to make peace with the Germans"
"And he thinks that's a bad thing?"
Charlie scoffed and was momentarily lost for words.
"Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. Hitler knows he must break us in those islands, or lose the war"
"Even after they bombed the Houses of Parliament?"
"They did WHAT?"
"The Germans. They dropped a bomb on your Houses of Commons. They deny everything, of course."
"Shame. I would have written a letter to their Ambassador, commending them on their accuracy of their bombing. Did anyone get killed? Any MPs?
"I can't remember. It was someone else's paper, and they used it as a bedsheet . You think the English can hold out on their own?"
"I'm English, so, yes, of course I do. We're a stubborn lot, and Alex has done his best to ruin the Germany Navy. We are in a far better position than now, than we were in our 1940"
"Your 1940? I thought you were from 2016?"
"Our historical 1940. We had a leader called Winston Churchill in 1940, right up until the end of the war, who kept us fighting the Germans, Italians and Japanese right till the end" said Charlie.
"England fought all three of them?"
"Along with the USA, and Canada, and Australians, and the New Zealanders, South Africans, and the Russians"
"So the Soviets did not make an alliance with the Third Reich in your history?"
"Yeah, they did, I think. Polina?"
"Yeah, they did" she replied.
"So the Communists attacked Germany?"
"No, the other way round – nearly got as far as Moscow, the Nazis, if I remember rightly. Alex is the expert on all this. They massacred six million Jews, and fuck knows how many others, in the process…"
"THAT IS UNBELIEVABLE!"
"It is"
"What would Hitler gain from such carnage?"
"Nothing, except an illusory victory over powerless enemies. Alex maintains they lost the war because they murdered all the people who could have worked in their factories. I've seen then massacring civilian refugees with my own eyes"
"Where?"
"On the roads of France, as I flew over them"
"You flew over France, during the invasion?"
"I shot down five Luftwaffe aircraft"
Holtzmann was dumbfounded.
"Five down and glory! That makes you an ace!"
"My Dad claims he's shot down thirty German planes. He made us watch the film." said Polina, wearily.
This McCarthy guy must be a real showboating asshole, thought Elmer.
~~~
Schüssler walked into the Reich Chancellery, through the No 6, VoßStraße entrance and turned right. The guards of the double doors saluted the SS-Brigadeführer, as he would expect
"Heil Hitler!"
He passed through the doors into the Marble Chamber, and walked towards the ante-chamber before the Führer's spectacular office.
"Welcome back, Brigadeführer Schüssler" said Johanna Wolf, his secretary.
"How is the Führer?"
"The damage to his hearing has soured his pleasure in victory. He is confused over what to do next. But please do not tell him I said this"
"Was it a gun that damaged his hearing?"
"I only know that it happened at the Felsnennest"
The Great Man himself appeared.
"Heil Hitler!" said Schüssler.
"Wölfin, why did you not tell me Brigadeführer Schüssler was here. Please Jor-El. Come into my office."
"Mein Führer"
They walked together towards Hitler's huge desk.
"Congratulations, Mein Führer, on your momentous victory in the West"
"It was just as you predicted. I should have listened to you sooner – your FW 187s performed magnificently. The only disaster was the loss of Manstein. It was sad to hear of Generaloberst Beck. Strange that Beck should die so soon after his protégé ."
"No one should be in charge of the Wehrmacht besides you, Mein Führer!"
"Please sit on my left so I can hear you better"
"That is precisely why I am here, Mein Führer. I can mend your perforated eardrum."
"How? I will not be encumbered with a machine." said the Führer.
"Mein Führer. If I inject you with the serum I have in this valise, it will repair any damaged tissue in your body"
"I will not submit to any medical treatment with consulting Dr Morrell first. You have no medical experience."
Neither does he, thought Schüssler.
"Mein Führer! I implore you! Morrell is a fat buffoon, a charlatan. I could not bear it if you did not live to see the German people's inevitable victory over the Bolsheviks, the Finance Capitalists. This serum will ensure I do not outlive you."
"Is it safe?" asked the Führer.
"Yes, it is safe."
Der Führer was not convinced. The injector device rather resembled a weapon of assassination rather than medical equipment.
"The Reichsführer-SS may put his trust in your blood magic, but I do not. Do not press me on this Jor-El, as we should always leave as friends", said the Führer.
"What of the future, the offensive on Britain?"
"The depredations of the Royal Navy have rendered us incapable of making a second amphibious assault so soon after the Weser operation. The British surely know this, hence the refusal of Mr Halifax to even contemplate peace, despite the injuries we have inflicted on their Army and Air Force in Flanders and France. But we must find a way halt the war with the British. Generalfeldmarschall Göring claims a sustained attack on the British from the air will lead them to surrender, but whether you believe that or not, we have few options before us" said the Führer.
"We cannot spare any aircraft for this assault, it will be too costly in men and machines, and put our planned operations in the east in jeopardy." said Schüssler "We must redirect men currently serving in the Wehrmacht back to the factories, so we can build up our strength in weaponry and munitions" said Schüssler.
"Funk, Hierl and Todt say exactly the same as you, Brigadeführer. The needs of the volk cannot be underestimated, however. I cannot deny my people, who have done so much for me, the standard of living all civilized countries demand. You know I must err on the side of caution. Russia is the ultimate prize and the greatest threat to the survival of the movement, we cannot fight a war of attrition with the British without Russian wheat, Russian oil. We are surrounded by enemies. Yet we cannot be seen to give into the whims of the British, now they have been bewitched by Jewish finance. Do you believe Lord Halifax is more vulnerable to his people than the 'Herzog von Marlburg' would have been?"
Almost certainly. We must get the Englanders to disengage from the conflict as soon as possible. If this makes necessary brutal acts, then so be it" said Schüssler "The British have virtually limitless resources to call upon"
"Yes, their empire, and the Americans"
<No. I DONT mean the Americans> thought Schüssler.
"We must take on the heavy mantle of builders of Empire from the tired British, Jor-El"
Last edited:
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
The next update was written by Mike Garrity, aka swordman, and edited by me.
Crime Time Crossover
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Interlude
Date: June 15th, 1940
Location: Universe designated NTL-00018
Time: 9:00 PM
As Charlotte Brandon, Polina McCarthy and Elmer Holtzman returned to their hotel suite after a night on the town, they are surprised to encounter the fragrant aroma of fine tobacco smoke wafting from their room. Upon opening the door, they are greeted by a low rumbling voice which says
"Good evening. My name is James Smith and I wish to talk to you."
The voice belongs to a well-dressed gentleman of immense physical stature who seems far too large for the chair he is sitting in. This individual is wearing an impeccably-tailored midnight-blue pinstripe suit, with a French-grey sharkskin vest, brown fedora and black wingtip shoes polished to such a degree that it is possible to see one's reflection in them. The two ladies don't recognize the man, but Elmer does
He splutters with incandescent anger as he says "SMITH! You've got some nerve showing your face after what you did to me!!"
Mr. Smith raises his hand to calm him down and says "Mr. Holtzman, do please sit down; your anger is understandable, if a bit misplaced. Consider if you will, that what happened was nothing more than an object lesson in the un-wisdom of sticking your nose into my business. If I really wanted to harm you, I merely wouldn't have dropped you into the past; I'd do something creatively permanent like strapping you to the Trinity Device thirty seconds before it goes off, or having you exercise your journalistic talents by sending you off to report from Ground Zero of the Chicxulub Impact; five minutes before it happens."
Elmer sits back heavily in his chair; Charlotte speaks up and says "Introductions are in order, don't you think?"
"But of course; I beg your pardon for being so remiss. You and your companions already know my name. However, who I am and where (or, more properly, when) I came from are stories which would be long in the telling. Suffice it to say that I mean no one here any harm. As to how I got here, Mr. Holtzman has, in all likelihood, told you that I have the ability to travel in time."
"You have got to be kidding me; I thought we were the only ones…"
"Indeed. I also know that Mr. McCarthy's 'services' are being employed by an outside agency called the Hyperians. Currently, they are in a temporal cold war with a splinter group of theirs called the Hierocracy. This bunch has operatives of their own; a couple of assclowns called Yamashiro Kawaguchi and Jörn-Elling Schüssler. As he is tasked with assisting the British against the Nazis, those two are helping the Nazis against the British. They have been for decades."
A look of near-incredulity crosses Polina's face as she says "Just how do you know all of this?"
"Ms. McCarthy, part of the temporal technology at my command is something I call the Temporal Early Warning System; or, TEWS for short. I set this system up to give me advance warning if anyone else other than I was using time travel. You see, I have enemies in my home timeline who would go to great lengths to destroy me if they knew where and when I was. TEWS detected minute fluctuations in the spacetime continuum which indicated someone unknown to me was using temporal technology. I resolved to investigate the situation, so I dispatched one of my time-probe UAVs to monitor it and report back to me; I judged the intelligence so gathered to be important enough to require my presence, and so I am here."
"Curiosity can't be the only reason why you are here."
"Of course not. In my travels, I have encountered timelines where the Nazis or the Soviets (or some other bunch that I have no use for) are using time travel technology. In such cases, I put what I call a 'Temporal Interdict' into operation. Once in place, a TI means nothing and no one can travel into or out of a particular timeline unless I specifically enable them to do so. In extreme cases, a TI is made permanent; in this situation, not even I can go into a timeline where a permanent TI is in effect. You should know that once I became aware of this timeline, I briefly considered putting a permanent TI into effect; then, after further study, I concluded that you and your companions are more than capable of counteracting what Kawaguchi and Schüssler are up to."
McCarthy opines "That's all well and good, Mr. Smith. You have still other reasons for your presence here, do you not?"
"I certainly do, madam. Recently, the other side has made some rather troubling moves; therefore, I decided to intervene and balance the scales."
A look of deep concern crosses Polina's face as she replies "What do you mean, Mr Smith?"
"I mean that Jörn-Elling Schüssler has offered Hitler a serum that, once administered, will completely cure any and all of his physical and mental conditions (as well as providing some other benefits). You will please recall that, from your original history, one of the contributing factors to the Allied victory in the European Theater of Operations was Hitler's erratic mental behavior. A competent Adolf Hitler is something that doesn't bear considering, so I will do something similar for your side."
Mr. Smith takes a small box or out a coat pocket and hands it over. McCarthy opens it and sees that there are twelve glass vials contained therein. Each vial contains a clear blue liquid; she takes out one of the vials, holds it up to get a better look then says
"What is this?"
"I call this liquid the 'blue juice'. Basically, it is a fluid suspension of cell-sized nanomachines which are designed to treat any and all diseases & mental conditions that an individual might be suffering from. Additionally, it bestows permanent immunity to any sort of toxic agent or re-infection by any kind of virus or bacteria (no matter how virulent). For example, if someone has kidney disease, cirrhosis if the liver, syphilis, traumatic brain injury or some form of mental illness, a single dose of the Blue Juice will not only alleviate the symptoms of such, it will completely cure the underlying disease of condition. This case hold twelve vials of the Blue Juice; one for you and each of your three companions, plus eight additional doses to be given to whomever you see fit. Be advised, however, that duplicating this material won't be possible for another 150 years or so. Therefore, make those extra doses count."
Polina McCarthy accepts the box and locks it in the desk; just as she does, Mr. Smith reaches inside his coat and removes a strange firearm from a shoulder holster under his right arm. He expertly locks & clears the weapon, then hands it over to Bell for examination. Charlotte accepts it with a look of professional interest and asks
"What kind of gun is this, Mr. Smith? It's about the same weight as an MP7….
"This is a standard military sidearm in the time that I come from, Ms. Bell. It is a 9-mm machine pistol that fires caseless ammunition. Instead of using a primer to fire each cartridge, the propellant charges are ignited by a charge of electricity provided by a high-capacity rechargeable power cell built into the magazine. This method of ignition provides a smoother, softer launch to the projectile (less recoil means more accuracy) while making the projectile far more powerful than its size would indicate. Though the bore of this weapon is just nine millimeters, its projectiles have the same kinetic energy as a .44-Magnum revolver cartridge. Aside from the weapon, spare magazines and 500 rounds of the ammunition, I will give you a file containing complete technical specifications and blueprints for the weapon, the ammunition and how to make them. I don't need to remind you that this gun and the technology it represents is two or three generations of anything that currently exists."
Charlotte examines the gun with new found appreciation; she hefts it and finds that its balance is as fine as any she has ever felt. It is as if the gun is a natural extension of her own arm. As Bell returns the weapon, Mr. Smith says "Mr. McCarthy's future efforts in this timeline are going to need some serious economic support. Accordingly, I will give you a file which you will convey to him; this file lists complete details of any and all undiscovered mineral deposits in the British Empire and Dominions; this includes their exact geographical locations, as well as tonnages and grades of ore in situ. In surveying this new timeline, I see that Howard Hughes left Alex a very substantial amount of stock in Transcontinental & Western Airlines after his demise in that air crash back in June, 1939. I also know that Hughes' will specifies a further bequest of an additional $5,000,000 in stock if McCarthy breaks his aerial speed record before December 31st of this year. Therefore, it shouldn't been too much of a problem to slice off a million dollars or so and use it to make some strategic investments. Additionally, I am pleased to know that Hughes is dead in this timeline, just as he is in mine."
"What do you mean, Hughes is dead in your timeline?", asked Charlie.
"Precisely that, Ms. Bell; although he didn't die in an aircraft accident. You see, I had him assassinated for two reasons. The first of these was that Hughes is, or rather was, a raving egomaniac and a complete boil on the ass of humanity. The head of my oilfield operations is a gentleman by the name of Paul Lucky, and it so happened that Mr. Lucky personally knew and worked with Hughes in that part of the state. Lucky and all of the men he had working for him absolute HATED Hughes because his management style consisted of yelling at people and belittling them until things got done his way. The second reason for offing Hughes was that his company had a certain extremely valuable asset called the 'two-cone' roller bit. After he shuffled off his mortal coil, rang down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, I made arrangements to purchase Hughes Tool & Die; as they say, the rest was history."
"I see, Just how did you make Hughes 'go away'?"
"It was simplicity itself. Two of my staff infiltrated the airfield where Hughes had one of his experimental aircraft stored in preparation for a flight. One of my agents sabotaged the plane's engine in such a way that Hughes couldn't detect it, then the other agent worked on Hughes' parachute so that it would fail at the worst possible moment. The very next day, Hughes took the plane up for the first in a series of test flight. When the engine quit and couldn't be re-started, he bailed out. Just imagine the surprise when Hughes couldn't pull the ripcord; I'd be willing to bet that the last thing that went through his mind when he hit the deck at 125 mph was his ass."
Mr. Smith's matter-of-fact statement is followed by a low, malignant chuckle (sounding for all the world like boulders grinding together off in the distance.
McCarthy, Bell and Holtzman are shocked and more than a little alarmed at Mr. Smith's knowledge (plus the cavalier way in which he described the manner of Hughes' passing; they also raise their eyebrows in surprise as they comprehend just what Smith's other information means for the future. Mr. Smith now says "I have an additional piece of information that will come as quite a surprise to you, Ms. McCarthy."
"What is it?" said Polina
"Are you aware that, among the items Mr. McCarthy's benefactors provided in the most recent 'supply drop', there are two operational nuclear weapons?"
"WHAT? Are you serious?? Alex will go bonkers when he hears this…" said Charlie
"I am quite serious. The specific weapons are a WE177A of 10 kilotons, and a WE177C of 190 kilotons. The aircraft capable of dropping them will delivered in due course. I believe the pilot friend of Mr McCarthy that the Hyperians have cloned is in charge of selecting them!
Smith's information comes as a complete shock to Charlotte and Polina, so they plan to tell Alex when he comes back so that he can visit his base and see the truth with his own eyes.
Before Mr. Smith exits the scene (stage right), he chooses to lighten the mood by saying
"It is time for me to leave. Once I return to my own base of operations, I will see to it that you receive suitable tokens of my esteem. The first of these is a case of 'Gran Corona'-size cigars made for me from tobacco that I seized from the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet before it sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys. The second is ten pounds of tea from that little party in Boston Harbor (circa 1775) and the third is a case of Madeira wine, bottled from the contents of casks I got from the 1733 Plate Fleet."
Mr. Smith activates his time device and, as the temporal displacement effect starts forming, his voice shifts from a deep bass to a smooth baritone. As he starts to fade from before their very eyes, he begins to sing and the last words McCarthy and the others hear before Smith disappears are these:
Out of the mists of History, he'll come again
Sailing on ships across the sea to a wounded nation
Signs of a savior, like fire on the water
It's what we prayed for, one of our own…
Date: June 15th, 1940
Location: Universe designated NTL-00018
Time: 9:00 PM
As Charlotte Brandon, Polina McCarthy and Elmer Holtzman returned to their hotel suite after a night on the town, they are surprised to encounter the fragrant aroma of fine tobacco smoke wafting from their room. Upon opening the door, they are greeted by a low rumbling voice which says
"Good evening. My name is James Smith and I wish to talk to you."
The voice belongs to a well-dressed gentleman of immense physical stature who seems far too large for the chair he is sitting in. This individual is wearing an impeccably-tailored midnight-blue pinstripe suit, with a French-grey sharkskin vest, brown fedora and black wingtip shoes polished to such a degree that it is possible to see one's reflection in them. The two ladies don't recognize the man, but Elmer does
He splutters with incandescent anger as he says "SMITH! You've got some nerve showing your face after what you did to me!!"
Mr. Smith raises his hand to calm him down and says "Mr. Holtzman, do please sit down; your anger is understandable, if a bit misplaced. Consider if you will, that what happened was nothing more than an object lesson in the un-wisdom of sticking your nose into my business. If I really wanted to harm you, I merely wouldn't have dropped you into the past; I'd do something creatively permanent like strapping you to the Trinity Device thirty seconds before it goes off, or having you exercise your journalistic talents by sending you off to report from Ground Zero of the Chicxulub Impact; five minutes before it happens."
Elmer sits back heavily in his chair; Charlotte speaks up and says "Introductions are in order, don't you think?"
"But of course; I beg your pardon for being so remiss. You and your companions already know my name. However, who I am and where (or, more properly, when) I came from are stories which would be long in the telling. Suffice it to say that I mean no one here any harm. As to how I got here, Mr. Holtzman has, in all likelihood, told you that I have the ability to travel in time."
"You have got to be kidding me; I thought we were the only ones…"
"Indeed. I also know that Mr. McCarthy's 'services' are being employed by an outside agency called the Hyperians. Currently, they are in a temporal cold war with a splinter group of theirs called the Hierocracy. This bunch has operatives of their own; a couple of assclowns called Yamashiro Kawaguchi and Jörn-Elling Schüssler. As he is tasked with assisting the British against the Nazis, those two are helping the Nazis against the British. They have been for decades."
A look of near-incredulity crosses Polina's face as she says "Just how do you know all of this?"
"Ms. McCarthy, part of the temporal technology at my command is something I call the Temporal Early Warning System; or, TEWS for short. I set this system up to give me advance warning if anyone else other than I was using time travel. You see, I have enemies in my home timeline who would go to great lengths to destroy me if they knew where and when I was. TEWS detected minute fluctuations in the spacetime continuum which indicated someone unknown to me was using temporal technology. I resolved to investigate the situation, so I dispatched one of my time-probe UAVs to monitor it and report back to me; I judged the intelligence so gathered to be important enough to require my presence, and so I am here."
"Curiosity can't be the only reason why you are here."
"Of course not. In my travels, I have encountered timelines where the Nazis or the Soviets (or some other bunch that I have no use for) are using time travel technology. In such cases, I put what I call a 'Temporal Interdict' into operation. Once in place, a TI means nothing and no one can travel into or out of a particular timeline unless I specifically enable them to do so. In extreme cases, a TI is made permanent; in this situation, not even I can go into a timeline where a permanent TI is in effect. You should know that once I became aware of this timeline, I briefly considered putting a permanent TI into effect; then, after further study, I concluded that you and your companions are more than capable of counteracting what Kawaguchi and Schüssler are up to."
McCarthy opines "That's all well and good, Mr. Smith. You have still other reasons for your presence here, do you not?"
"I certainly do, madam. Recently, the other side has made some rather troubling moves; therefore, I decided to intervene and balance the scales."
A look of deep concern crosses Polina's face as she replies "What do you mean, Mr Smith?"
"I mean that Jörn-Elling Schüssler has offered Hitler a serum that, once administered, will completely cure any and all of his physical and mental conditions (as well as providing some other benefits). You will please recall that, from your original history, one of the contributing factors to the Allied victory in the European Theater of Operations was Hitler's erratic mental behavior. A competent Adolf Hitler is something that doesn't bear considering, so I will do something similar for your side."
Mr. Smith takes a small box or out a coat pocket and hands it over. McCarthy opens it and sees that there are twelve glass vials contained therein. Each vial contains a clear blue liquid; she takes out one of the vials, holds it up to get a better look then says
"What is this?"
"I call this liquid the 'blue juice'. Basically, it is a fluid suspension of cell-sized nanomachines which are designed to treat any and all diseases & mental conditions that an individual might be suffering from. Additionally, it bestows permanent immunity to any sort of toxic agent or re-infection by any kind of virus or bacteria (no matter how virulent). For example, if someone has kidney disease, cirrhosis if the liver, syphilis, traumatic brain injury or some form of mental illness, a single dose of the Blue Juice will not only alleviate the symptoms of such, it will completely cure the underlying disease of condition. This case hold twelve vials of the Blue Juice; one for you and each of your three companions, plus eight additional doses to be given to whomever you see fit. Be advised, however, that duplicating this material won't be possible for another 150 years or so. Therefore, make those extra doses count."
Polina McCarthy accepts the box and locks it in the desk; just as she does, Mr. Smith reaches inside his coat and removes a strange firearm from a shoulder holster under his right arm. He expertly locks & clears the weapon, then hands it over to Bell for examination. Charlotte accepts it with a look of professional interest and asks
"What kind of gun is this, Mr. Smith? It's about the same weight as an MP7….
"This is a standard military sidearm in the time that I come from, Ms. Bell. It is a 9-mm machine pistol that fires caseless ammunition. Instead of using a primer to fire each cartridge, the propellant charges are ignited by a charge of electricity provided by a high-capacity rechargeable power cell built into the magazine. This method of ignition provides a smoother, softer launch to the projectile (less recoil means more accuracy) while making the projectile far more powerful than its size would indicate. Though the bore of this weapon is just nine millimeters, its projectiles have the same kinetic energy as a .44-Magnum revolver cartridge. Aside from the weapon, spare magazines and 500 rounds of the ammunition, I will give you a file containing complete technical specifications and blueprints for the weapon, the ammunition and how to make them. I don't need to remind you that this gun and the technology it represents is two or three generations of anything that currently exists."
Charlotte examines the gun with new found appreciation; she hefts it and finds that its balance is as fine as any she has ever felt. It is as if the gun is a natural extension of her own arm. As Bell returns the weapon, Mr. Smith says "Mr. McCarthy's future efforts in this timeline are going to need some serious economic support. Accordingly, I will give you a file which you will convey to him; this file lists complete details of any and all undiscovered mineral deposits in the British Empire and Dominions; this includes their exact geographical locations, as well as tonnages and grades of ore in situ. In surveying this new timeline, I see that Howard Hughes left Alex a very substantial amount of stock in Transcontinental & Western Airlines after his demise in that air crash back in June, 1939. I also know that Hughes' will specifies a further bequest of an additional $5,000,000 in stock if McCarthy breaks his aerial speed record before December 31st of this year. Therefore, it shouldn't been too much of a problem to slice off a million dollars or so and use it to make some strategic investments. Additionally, I am pleased to know that Hughes is dead in this timeline, just as he is in mine."
"What do you mean, Hughes is dead in your timeline?", asked Charlie.
"Precisely that, Ms. Bell; although he didn't die in an aircraft accident. You see, I had him assassinated for two reasons. The first of these was that Hughes is, or rather was, a raving egomaniac and a complete boil on the ass of humanity. The head of my oilfield operations is a gentleman by the name of Paul Lucky, and it so happened that Mr. Lucky personally knew and worked with Hughes in that part of the state. Lucky and all of the men he had working for him absolute HATED Hughes because his management style consisted of yelling at people and belittling them until things got done his way. The second reason for offing Hughes was that his company had a certain extremely valuable asset called the 'two-cone' roller bit. After he shuffled off his mortal coil, rang down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, I made arrangements to purchase Hughes Tool & Die; as they say, the rest was history."
"I see, Just how did you make Hughes 'go away'?"
"It was simplicity itself. Two of my staff infiltrated the airfield where Hughes had one of his experimental aircraft stored in preparation for a flight. One of my agents sabotaged the plane's engine in such a way that Hughes couldn't detect it, then the other agent worked on Hughes' parachute so that it would fail at the worst possible moment. The very next day, Hughes took the plane up for the first in a series of test flight. When the engine quit and couldn't be re-started, he bailed out. Just imagine the surprise when Hughes couldn't pull the ripcord; I'd be willing to bet that the last thing that went through his mind when he hit the deck at 125 mph was his ass."
Mr. Smith's matter-of-fact statement is followed by a low, malignant chuckle (sounding for all the world like boulders grinding together off in the distance.
McCarthy, Bell and Holtzman are shocked and more than a little alarmed at Mr. Smith's knowledge (plus the cavalier way in which he described the manner of Hughes' passing; they also raise their eyebrows in surprise as they comprehend just what Smith's other information means for the future. Mr. Smith now says "I have an additional piece of information that will come as quite a surprise to you, Ms. McCarthy."
"What is it?" said Polina
"Are you aware that, among the items Mr. McCarthy's benefactors provided in the most recent 'supply drop', there are two operational nuclear weapons?"
"WHAT? Are you serious?? Alex will go bonkers when he hears this…" said Charlie
"I am quite serious. The specific weapons are a WE177A of 10 kilotons, and a WE177C of 190 kilotons. The aircraft capable of dropping them will delivered in due course. I believe the pilot friend of Mr McCarthy that the Hyperians have cloned is in charge of selecting them!
Smith's information comes as a complete shock to Charlotte and Polina, so they plan to tell Alex when he comes back so that he can visit his base and see the truth with his own eyes.
Before Mr. Smith exits the scene (stage right), he chooses to lighten the mood by saying
"It is time for me to leave. Once I return to my own base of operations, I will see to it that you receive suitable tokens of my esteem. The first of these is a case of 'Gran Corona'-size cigars made for me from tobacco that I seized from the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet before it sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys. The second is ten pounds of tea from that little party in Boston Harbor (circa 1775) and the third is a case of Madeira wine, bottled from the contents of casks I got from the 1733 Plate Fleet."
Mr. Smith activates his time device and, as the temporal displacement effect starts forming, his voice shifts from a deep bass to a smooth baritone. As he starts to fade from before their very eyes, he begins to sing and the last words McCarthy and the others hear before Smith disappears are these:
Out of the mists of History, he'll come again
Sailing on ships across the sea to a wounded nation
Signs of a savior, like fire on the water
It's what we prayed for, one of our own…
Last edited: