Altered States -Volume III. Hinge of Fate

Chapter 16

It was the final hours of the long conference with the British on the Faeroes, and there was a restless energy about the ship. It was a kind of tension, like a bow string held taut, waiting for the moment of release that was sure to come. These hours of quiet had been good for the ship and crew, but Volsky knew they all would have an enormous amount of work ahead of them in the days and weeks ahead, and the sense that they were slowly running out of time seemed to prey upon him. The war was so enormous, so all consuming. How could they make a difference-just one single ship?

Admiral Volsky leaned back, eyeing the empty glass of brandy on the table as he took one final meeting with Tovey, his eye drawn to the candle on the centerpiece, casting its warm glow as it was slowly consumed by the flames. Time, he thought. Yes, time is the fire in which we all burn. Yet how is it I have been spared my inevitable demise in those flames? Or have I? Even though I find myself here before my own time, I don’t think the second hand of my own clock has been wound back. I’m certainly not getting any younger for all this travail. Wiser, perhaps, but I still spend my days like that candle, no matter what table I find myself on, and my glass of brandy empties with every sip I take, just like everyone else here. So how many days are left to me?

He knew that these thoughts were the quiet fears of every man, an inner voice he seldom hears in his youth, but one whose whisper grows ever more insistent as old age creeps up on him.

Admiral Tovey seemed lost in his own thoughts for a moment, and Fedorov was watching him closely. This revelation would take some time in the here and now to be fully believed, but Tovey had seen things here on the ship that were hard evidence he would not easily dismiss.

“Well, Admiral,” Tovey said at last. “One day at a time. Yet it would be a comfort to me to know at least how things might have turned out once. A man needs hope…” He waited, the silence drawn out between them. He had asked, but not pressed on the question, though it burned for an answer within him.

At that moment there came a knock on the door, and Volsky turned, an eyebrow raised as the adjutant came in. “Excuse me, sir,” the man said quietly. “You asked to be informed as to the radio broadcast intercepts.”

“Ah, yes. Put it on, please.” He pointed to the radio set on a bookcase at the far end of the dining hall. “We have been monitoring your radio broadcasts in the event of any formal announcement that might bear upon these discussions,” said Volsky. “I am told your mister Churchill is now speaking before the House of Commons.”

The adjutant walked briskly to the radio and switched it on, and the voice that was immediately recognizable to every man present was speaking, his words so timely in answer to Tovey’s question that it seemed as though he might have been there in that very room, putting forward an opinion that spoke directly to discussion at hand.

“…I do not think it would be wise at this moment, while the battle rages and the war is still perhaps only in its earlier stage, to embark upon elaborate speculations about the future shape which should be given to Europe, or the new securities which must be arranged to spare mankind the miseries of a third World War. The ground is not new, it has been frequently traversed and explored, and many ideas are held about it in common by all good men, and all free men. But before we can undertake the task of rebuilding we have not only to be convinced ourselves, but we have to convince all other countries that the Nazi tyranny is going to be finally broken.

“The right to guide the course of world history is the noblest prize of victory. We are still toiling up the hill; we have not yet reached the crest-line of it; we cannot survey the landscape or even imagine what its condition will be when that longed-for morning comes. The task which lies before us immediately is at once more practical, more simple and more stern. I hope-indeed I pray-that we shall not be found unworthy of our victory if after toil and tribulation it is granted to us. For the rest, we have to gain the victory. That is our task.”

Churchill went on to speak of the United States and the mutual cooperation he could see growing between England and America, and then made mention of the new offer of alliance and friendship with Kirov’s Soviet Russia. Nikolin translated the words as they were spoken in English, and Volsky smiled as Churchill finished his speech.

“For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days.”

The broadcast concluded and Admiral Volsky extended a hand to Tovey, gesturing to the radio set as the adjutant switched it off and quietly withdrew.

“Well there you have it,” he said. “There is the hope a man needs, Admiral Tovey. I know what you want to ask of me, but as your own Prime Minister so eloquently suggests, I do not think it would be wise to speculate on the outcome of this war while the battle still rages. That outcome, that future is out there, as we can certainly attest. And yes, it will come to us as surely as the inexorable flow of that river. I will say only this to you now. The hope you can clearly hear in that man’s voice, the determination with which he sets himself to the task of facing the unfolding hours ahead, will not be wasted, or spent in vain. Is that enough for you?”

Tovey smiled, feeling a sudden lightness of being. “More than enough, Admiral Volsky.”

“Good! Then let us attend to what we can do in the here and now as we toil up this hill. As I have come here with this offer of alliance and friendship, and with certain means at my disposal, what can we do in this dark hour to assist you?”

Yes, now to that which lies before us in the here and now, thought Tovey, and to leave off the impossible speculation over the twisting of the past and future into a shape we might wish. That can only be done here, now, and it will be done by men and steel, with the vision and will of a man like Churchill behind both. Now to the practical survey of the landscape we can see, the moment at hand.

“Well Admiral, we have two great concerns at this moment. One is the imminent invasion of our islands. Even now we fall under the hammer of the Luftwaffe, and our Royal Air Force is hard pressed. If they fail, and the Germans gain air superiority over our shores, then we face a very grave moment when the war may come quickly to these islands and we will finally feel the enemy’s hand at our throats.”

Volsky looked at Fedorov, remembering what he had told Sergei Kirov in a similar dinner meeting they had shared together. Then he had assured Kirov that Germany could not successfully invade Great Britain. Why not at least do the same here?

“I do not wish to say anything that might slacken your guard, Admiral Tovey. But my Mister Fedorov here is somewhat of a student of military history, and he does not believe the Germans can successfully invade. Fedorov?”

“Correct, sir. Not while the Royal Navy stands resolute.”

“Yet if the R.A.F. should fail us, my ships will soon be seen to be quite vulnerable. We have already faced the hard fact that the German Kriegsmarine now has seaborne air power that poses a grave threat.”

“Yet you saw that I have the means to redress that if my ship is anywhere near the action,” Volsky reassured him.

“Yes, those marvelous aerial rockets you possess. Might they be put to the defense of our homeland as well?”

“If I may, sir,” said Fedorov. “This is about the time the Germans began to intensify their air campaign against England with Adler Tag, the Eagle Day.”

“Yes,” said Tovey. “We have some very capable men at a place we call Hut 6, and they intercepted and decoded the German directive concerning this attack.”

“Then you may also know the approximate strength of the Luftwaffe will be well over 2500 planes in these actions. I’m afraid we haven’t quite that many missiles at our disposal. While potent, our resources are limited, and therefore are best applied to decisive engagements where we can aim them right at the hinge of fate, as your Mister Churchill might put things.”

“I see,” said Tovey, realizing that everything had limits, and even the power of this amazing ship he was visiting was not boundless.

Fedorov could see he was discouraged and offered another thought. “I might say that your Royal Air Force may prove more resilient and capable than you might imagine at this moment. If need be, and the battle becomes desperate, perhaps the Admiral might consider a technology transfer. The radar sets we have discussed, for example. They can dramatically increase your awareness of the battle space over England. Such a radar set at Margate, Hastings or Eastbourne on your Channel Coast could see the German fighters the instant they take off from their airfields as far inland as Lille and Amiens.”

“Our Air Chief Marshal Dowding would certainly welcome that. He places great faith in our radar sets. Would you consider such a transfer?”

“It would require our own service personnel to operate the equipment,” said Volsky, “but yes, it might be arranged if the situation becomes desperate. Beyond that, however, we are a power at sea, as you have seen. Is there anything we might do for you in that regard?”

“Our intelligence indicates you have already done a great deal, Admiral. We owe much to you for your timely intervention during that recent engagement in the Denmark Strait. The Kriegsmarine is much more of a threat than I believe Whitehall anticipated. They might have pushed right out into the Atlantic, and in my mind they will certainly try again. We have not yet seen the full weight and power of what they are now capable of, and this business with the French fleet remains a grave and unsettled matter.”

“Oh?” Volsky looked at Fedorov. “I thought the British had already resolved that.”

“Not quite, Admiral,” said Fedorov. “It seems that a good part of the French fleet escaped to Toulon,”

“That is so,” said Tovey. “We had hoped to bottle them up at Mers-el-Kebir and settle the matter there, but they seem to have had advance warning. Admiral Gensoul took his ships to sea, against orders, we have since learned, but very wisely. Now that Vichy France is openly courting alliance with Germany the French fleet at Toulon is a real threat. Beyond that, there are three ships in particular that trouble my sleep these days, and they are all located in French African ports on the Atlantic.”

“Perhaps we can assist you there?” Volsky suggested.

“My watch remains with Home Fleet, for the moment, but we are picking up some rather disturbing intelligence concerning operations in the Mediterranean Theater. The Royal Navy is strong, Admiral Volsky, but we also have our limits. The Vichy French have powerful ships at their disposal now, and we will have to face them, the sooner the better, for as long as they hold that sword at our backs I can never stand an easy watch here against anything the Kriegsmarine might do again.”

“Well, Admiral, I do not think my ship will be needed in our own home waters any time soon. We taught the Germans a little lesson recently that they will not be eager to repeat. There are many things I could do for you. One might be to stand a watch with you here. I could single handedly close the Denmark Strait to access by German surface raiders. This might relieve you of that burden, and allow you to use your ships elsewhere without concern for that channel.”

“That would be much appreciated, but sir, what if you were to find yourself opposed by a force the size we lately encountered? It is true that our combined efforts were able to deter the Germans in the last go round, but what if you were caught out there alone?”

“If it came to it, the result would be the same. I will tell you now, and this is no mere boast, that you have not yet seen the full measure of what this ship is capable of. I could stop anything the Germans send at me. Rest assured.”

Tovey smiled. “Well then, the Denmark Strait is yours, Admiral. The plan to establish your Ice Watch is also a splendid idea, and I thank you. I can also arrange facilities at our establishment at Iceland should your men need shore leave, and of course I would make it my intention to stand out cruiser patrols to assist your operations, and even place them under your command if it would facilitate that watch. You cannot sail on indefinitely. Might I arrange for fuel transfers to that port so that you may replenish?”

“That will not be necessary,” Volsky said with a smile. “In fact, we can sail on indefinitely. We do not use diesel fuel oil on this ship. Our propulsion system can operate without any necessity for re-provisioning.”

This was yet another surprise to Tovey, as he could not conceive of the possibility. “You require no fuel at all?”

“We certainly need regular maintenance, as any ship must. As for fuel, we carry all that we will ever need with us at this very moment.”

“Quite extraordinary. We must discuss this further some time.”

“There are other things we might assist you with that will not require missiles,” said Volsky. “Our Mister Fedorov is also very adept at signals decryption, are you not Fedorov?”

“That I am, sir, in my way.”

“You see,” said Volsky, “information is as much a weapon in this war as anything else. The questions you will want to ask us about how this war turns out attest to that fact. Yes? Well I must tell you that these events may at times ring true to what we knew in our own time, yet at others they are dramatically different, and things happen that are completely unknown to us. That battle we found ourselves in, for example, was one that will not be found in any history book I have ever read. It is something we wrote together as we stood our respective watches and fought side by side. This will be the case again. There will be things that may occur here, and we will have no foreknowledge of them. That said, we have a man here with a keen ear and the ability to decipher codes.”

“Indeed?” Tovey now looked at Fedorov with a new eye. “We have such a man as well,” he said. “In fact, I have only lately come from a meeting with him, and it was he who uncovered the photographs and other material I shared with you here. Perhaps your Mister Fedorov might wish to meet with our people, and with our own Mister Turing at Bletchley Park. We’ve been working the German Enigma code, and any help you might offer would be greatly appreciated.”

Fedorov passed a moment of apprehension, realizing that he had no innate ability to decipher codes of any kind. If anyone did on the ship, it would be Nikolin, but the applications he had on his pad devices already stored the life’s work of the very man Tovey had just mentioned, Alan Turing. Fedorov knew that he, like the moon, shined by the light borrowed from that great mind.

The thought of actually meeting Turing was as compelling to him as this meeting here with Admiral Tovey, but he wondered in those brief seconds, if he might upset some delicate balance again. Turing’s work on the Enigma code was not yet finished. Yet my application stores all the conclusions he will come to on his own. Could I reveal them? Would that affect his work? What might happen if he never comes to those conclusions on his own and relies on my computer data, my Enigma tool? Would that mean that tool could never exist or function as it does now? He realized that he was skirting the dangerous edge of paradox here, and felt a moment of cautious alarm.

“Perhaps some caution would be advised here, Admiral,” he said to Volsky, holding a hand up to stay Nikolin’s translation of that.

Volsky was quick enough to see that Fedorov had some issue with this, so he deftly skirted the matter and moved on. It was eventually decided that Fedorov might meet with Turing in the near future, though that was deliberately left indefinite. As for the radar it was decided that they would first monitor events and only intervene with the technology if it appeared England was losing it air battle with the Germans.

The radar would be just a nudge that would assure the delicate balance Air Chief Marshal Dowding was maintaining in his deadly duel with the Luftwaffe, and enough to ensure that the Battle of Britain would again be won by England. The real work would be done by the brave and dogged pilots of the R.A. F., but the Oko panel could be there to let them do their job in the most efficient way possible.

As for the ship itself, Kirov would stand a watch on the Denmark Strait, a place that had long been the favored channel chosen by German surface raiders reaching for the Atlantic convoys. Volsky could, indeed, make good his boast if he wished. While the ship’s missile inventory was limited, he nonetheless had enough power in hand to stop any ship or ships that would attempt to try his patience. But even as he warned Admiral Tovey, things would happen in this war that no man could truly foresee or fully anticipate.

And they did.