Thor's Anvil

Chapter 16

Rommel had a taste for the clean salt spray of the sea. Turn now, he thought. You haven’t the fuel to push on east, nor do you really want to go there. Yes, you told von Thoma that you had to demonstrate that option, but it cannot be done. Now is the time, and this is the place. Turn now.

He had executed a masterful plan, luring O’Connor out of the bottleneck at El Agheila, then making a rapid turning movement towards the 2nd British forward depot at Nofilia. That was the place he really needed, for it had the fuel that would allow him to keep up the fight. Unfortunately, the British got there first, and now he knew his game was over. They would never let him take that fuel without destroying it. So it was now or never. He had to beat the British here, or with draw.

Seeing the trap he was in, O’Connor had nonetheless stopped his 50th Northumbrian Division at Wadi Hamar, knowing the Italians could not move them. Then his line bent parallel to the coast with the 4th Indian, the Free French Brigade and finally his 7th Armored, which barred the way to the vital depot. On its left, the powerful 23rd Armored Brigade was massing like a clenched mailed fist, and then the one division he had withdrawn east, his 51st Highlanders, spread out in a long defensive front, guarding the flank of Nofilia and blocking the route to the coast.

Yet by this time, Rommel had all three of his panzer divisions massed south of Nofilia, and a decision to make. His Sonderverband 288 had spent a harrowing night further east on the extreme flank scouting the way in the event Rommel decided to persist with his envelopment. Several wadis cut their way to the coast near As Sidr where a road ran south into the desert. Wadi Rigel was the southernmost tributary, which then flowed into the dry sandy bed of Wadi Matratin near the coast. That road ran parallel to the wadis, and just a few kilometers to the west.

Perfect, thought László Almásy as he reached Hill 240, right astride the road. If Rommel turns here, that wadi will screen his flank. He can push right up this road to the coast and bag the whole 8th Army. But then what will he do with it? He would have one ornery cat in the bag, and I don’t think the Afrika Korps has the strength to destroy it, or the supplies to lay siege to it. As always, Rommel was counting on pilfering the enemy depots out here, and now he’s bunched up near Nofilia. The British won’t let that go easily.

He turned and found a motorcycle runner, ordering him back to report his findings to Rommel. “Tell him the way around this flank remains open, and there’s a good road running to the coast.” The man saluted, off in a cloud of dust to try and find the elusive Rommel. It was then that things began to get difficult. Almásy had turned to head for the best armored car he had with him that night, a nice long barreled 234, and had he been just a little quicker, he would have been killed. The vehicle suddenly exploded with a thunderous roar, the turret blown completely off. It was knocked on its side, every man within immolated, and what was left of it began to burn with hot, searing fire.

Almásy had been blown off his feet, his left arm nicked by shrapnel, though he was otherwise of sound body. Yet the suddenness of the attack stunned he and his men. “Leutnant!” He shouted. “Where did that come from? Can you see anything?”

“Nothing sir, the ground below is completely dark. There’s no sign of enemy movement at all. It must have been artillery.”

One hell of a lucky hit if that were the case, thought Almásy. He doubted that, for he could see no reason why artillery should find them where they were… Unless the British had taken the inland track f to Ar Rijel. He knew they had posted a reserve division at Mersa Brega. Perhaps it was heading this way, and this was one of those damnable little Kampfgruppes the British would sometimes build, out in front.

He was both right and wrong in his assessment. Almásy could read a map, like any good scout, and he had correctly fingered Ar Rijel in his mind as the only likely spot a battery of artillery might be set up. Yet how would the British have spotted him in the dark? The LRDG must be out here, he reasoned, and with each passing moment, he was getting closer to the truth.

Popski, Reeves, and a company of SAS commandos were out on that flank. They had fallen back to the wadis, their mission being to screen that area, and warn O’Connor of any significant enemy movement there. Popski radioed Reeves, telling him to keep an eye on Hill 210. “It’s right on the road,” he said. “If we get visitors, they’ll likely crown it soon.” And that was exactly what Almásy had done.

Reeves saw the heat signatures on infrared, his small company then in a perfect place for a nice ambush, about 2500 meters east of the hilltop. He got on the radio to Sergeant Williams, who was riding in one of his two remaining Challengers.

“Willy, see that vehicle up on top of the hill.”

“Nice and clear,” said Williams.

“Good. Put the Charm on it.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Reeves was referring to the Charm 3 round fired by those heavy British tanks. It was the L27 APFSDS variant, which stood for Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot. As Almásy had seen, it had a rather devastating punch, blowing clean through the target, exploding every ready round in the armored car’s turret as it did so.

Reeves smiled when he saw that fire burning on the hill, just a little payback for the loss of his number three Challenger. It still pained him that he had to put the tank down with demolition charges, and all because of a bloody landmine that had blown off the track and badly damaged a wheel. It was something the Brigade had ample resources to correct, and that tank would have been operation again in a few hours, but the Brigade was gone, and he still had no idea why.

That night he played a game of ghostly death against the German scouting patrols. He would fire, then move, and the ranges he could kill at were so far that the enemy could never really see them, let alone answer their fire. The Germans lost three of the Sturmgeschutz that had been assigned to Sonderverband 288, and they never saw what hit them.

With dawn still a few hours off, Almásy decided he had taken enough. He lost those three Sturms, two armored cars, and a supply truck. Whatever was out there, and he had an inkling as to what it was, he wanted no part of it. He gave the order for his team to withdraw back up the track towards Rommel’s presumed position, but would soon find that the British had cut him off.

As for Reeves, he soon got a message direct from O’Connor, and it was somewhat puzzling. He was ordered to withdraw immediately towards Mersa Brega, and to take any and every vehicle under his command, leaving nothing behind. Those he had lost were badly burned, and though the Challenger was sound in its main body, its innards had been wrecked by those charges.

“Withdraw to Mersa Brega immediately and await further orders,” he said to Sergeant Williams. “Maybe O’Connor is getting the jitters and thinking to pull out.”

“He wants his 300 Spartans back at Thermopylae,” said Williams, and it was a very apt metaphor. In fact, it was the news that had shaken both Wavell and O’Connor that was behind that order, and it had come from even higher up, from Churchill himself. Those few remaining tanks, and the brave men in them, all as yet unborn, were now deemed to be more precious to Great Britain than the Crown Jewels. The order came down that Reeves was to proceed immediately to Agedabia, where he would be met by a special British receiving force bearing additional fuel. He was to replenish, and then proceed across the wide desert base of Cyrenaica, to a point southeast of Tobruk near the railhead.

“Looks like we’re being called back to Brigade,” said Reeves, not knowing that the Brigade no longer existed, at least not here. As they withdrew there came the welcome sight of a British armored cars, then a column of lorried infantry. It was actually the 1st South African Division, arriving at last from Mersa Brega. There had always been a standing order to keep his Challengers out of sight as much as possible, so Reeves found a glen for them, and sent the two tanks there. He briefed the brigade commander, directed him to Popski up ahead, and then waited a few hours while the column passed. Then he was on his way again, down the long desert track leading east.

Damn if I wasn’t looking forward to kicking Rommel’s ass into Tunisia,” he said to his gunner, Corporal Holmes, now provisionally promoted to Gunnery Sergeant Holmes by Reeves himself. “Gunny, you did well on that big 90 yesterday.”

“Sixteen kills, sir.”

“And once we get back with the rest of Brigadier Kinlan’s boys, you’ll likely log a good deal more. But why the bloody hell don’t they come this way? It’s a 350 mile ride from here to Tobruk.”

“Still can’t raise anyone in Brigade,” said Holmes.

“Oh well,” said Reeves. “Orders are orders. Off we go then, and at least it will be an air conditioned ride. I’ll have plenty of time to figure what I’ll have to say to Kinlan about losing number three. He may not be too happy about the fact that I made off with that Challenger platoon in the first place.”

“What’s done is done, Lieutenant,” said Holmes. “But I’m of the same mind as you on this. Radio silence under these circumstances is bad enough, and I can’t see why Brigade is hanging back like this. We would have blasted Rommel to hell back there.”

“Now it’s back to Tobruk,” said Reeves with a shrug.

In fact, his journey was going to take him quite a bit farther than that. For far to the west, harbored in the Azores and safely away from curious eyes, the modern day replenishment fleet the British had come to call “the Funnies” also received some cryptic orders. They were to proceed around the Cape to Alexandria at once. Sixteen hours out to sea, their escort arrived, a pair of British cruisers, a pack of destroyers and one ship they at least felt familiar with, its lines unmistakable in spite of the extensive refit. It was the Argos Fire.

The mission of this little group was to get to Alexandria, and load Reeves and all his equipment on those fast Roll On / Roll off ships. The vehicles were to be distributed to as many ships as possible, and the two Challengers were to be assigned to separate vessels. The Convoy Master shook his head, not understanding the orders at first, for they had no word about anything that had happened. Churchill was taking no chances that he might lose that remaining equipment to an enemy U-Boat attack, which was one more reason the Argos Fire was sent along. That ship was the best escort ship in the Royal Navy now with her Sampson Radar sets, excellent sonar, and an air defense that was all but impervious.

It would be a very long journey, but they were all going home to the old corporate port where Elena Fairchild had once set up its company operations, at Port Erin on the Isle of Man, where the Triskelion symbol of three legs ruled the land, along with the old saying that “no matter where you throw me, I stand.” Soon there would be more going on there than the men smoking kippers. It was a nice little isolated place, with a small island off the southern tip known as the “Calf of Man,” largely uninhabited, except for a few lighthouses and the sea birds. It would soon have some very strange visitors.

Rommel had decided. He received Almásy’s message, thinking about it for some time. His problem now was fuel, and the place Almásy was describing to him was another 30 kilometers east. He could take his tigers east if he wished, but as he did so, he would leave that 30 kilometer flank open to his north. If O’Connor called his bluff and stood his present ground, all he had to do was drive south from his defensive positions at Nofilia, and then it would be Rommel cut off, low on fuel, and with a 30 kilometer withdrawal just to get back to the fight, the fuel in his tanks that much lower.

No, he thought. They are here, the fight is right in front of me, so I turn now, this very minute. “Bayerlein! Get the word out to all panzer commanders. We turn north here!”

The Panzers turned, and there was a mighty collision with the 51st Highland Division in the center. Had it been alone, those three panzer Divisions would have punched right through to the coast. But on its right was the whole of the 23rd Armored Brigade, and on its left was the 2nd Armored Brigade and all the 1st Armored Division troops. Behind it, at Nofilia itself, O’Connor’s 7th Armored Brigade stood on defense with its infantry elements, but many of the tank battalions were still in reserve.

Most of the 15th Panzer was caught up in a battle with Briggs and his 1st Division. When 7th Panzer threatened to punch a hole to their right, the timely arrival of the 7th Motor Brigade was able to plug the gap and hold the line, the British infantry stoically defending the ground. O’Connor sent up everything he had, even the Army AA battalions, with their 40mm Bofors on portee trucks. They leveled those guns and chewed up the desert against any advance by the Panzergrenadiers. In places, the line of the Highland Division buckled, particularly when the heavy German tanks of the 501st Schwerepanzer Battalion came in, Hitler’s special gift to Rommel.

An hour into the battle Rommel had pushed the British back several kilometers, but many of his tank companies had been forced to halt, virtually out of ammunition. He sent those that had replenished forward to continue pressing the attack, but the British Army was like an onion at this point, with layer after layer of troops in the rear echelons. There were lines of AT guns, AA Guns, then the Royal Engineers. After that came the armored cars of the 7th Armored Division, held in reserve behind Nofilia. Behind them were the 6th Raja Rifles and 8th Gurkha battalions, both 8th Army reserve troops that had been among the first to arrive here. The Panzers kept coming, but there always seemed to be another layer to the defense yet unfought.

The charge of the 501st heavy battalion was like the Old Guard being sent in at Waterloo. Then the word came that Rommel had feared, and he knew his time here had run out. Almásy was on the radio, still dueling with British armored cars on the flank, and now reporting that the 1st South African Infantry Division was arriving like the Prussians on the right flank.

At that moment, Rommel was still 15 kilometers from the coast road, his tank companies depleted, fuel becoming an issue, and with an unbroken enemy still fighting doggedly in front of him. It wasn’t Kinlan and his unstoppable heavy tanks that would put an end to his attack that day, it was simple common sense, something that he had embraced after his many defeats. The old Rommel might have persisted, and to no real successful end there. The new Rommel knew that it was time to be gone.

We’ve hurt them, he thought. I stopped their advance, pushed them back, and showed them I can still box their ears if I decide to. Now, however, we need to get west. With a twinge of reluctance, he gave the order for all units to break off the attack and withdraw towards the depot stores at Al Hunjah. The artillery was to lay down a covering barrage, and then pack up and head west immediately.

As the Germans disengaged, fighting small firefights to do so, O’Connor was trying to ascertain what was happening. There was a lot of confusion on the battlefield, which stretched some ten kilometers wide at the point of the main attack. Smoke from guns and burning vehicles mixed with the dust kicked up by all the maneuvering to throw a complete pall over the landscape, and beneath it, Rommel was moving from one unit to the next in a fast Kubelwagon, pointing out the direction he wanted his columns to go.

The disengagement was slow, but the British had been beaten up enough that they held back, thinking to take the time to reorganize their own lines and bring up water and fresh ammo from the depot at Nofilia. That had been the footrace Rommel lost when he first came this way, and the dance that men like Popski, Reeves, and those SAS Commandos played on that flank was instrumental in allowing O’Connor to get to his supply point before the Germans. Added to that, O’Connor’s own understanding of what Rommel was doing enabled him to know exactly where he was going to need to make his stand. He had wisely stopped to stand his ground and fight, and while chastened and bruised, he had the final satisfaction of knowing that Rommel could not move him further.

“If he had pushed through to the coast,” he would later explain to Wavell, “then I would have dug in and dared him to do anything more about it. We had enough at Nofilia to last three more days, and I would have thrown everything I had at him to break out if necessary. He may think he’s beaten me. Well, he certainly stopped me, at least for a time, but here I stand, and there he goes. That’s all that matters.”

Chapter 17

Hundreds of miles to the west, another restless General was chafing at the bit, George Patton. He had set out to flank the German defense of Algiers, but the Germans brought up their 10th Panzer Division, counterattacked, and stopped him at M’Sila. They had even taken the place, which angered him to no end. He knew that if he had his whole corps up and ready, he could push them out, which is why he went looking for Terry Allen of the 1st Division, the last to arrive on the scene.

With the Big Red 1 finally up, Patton ordered an immediate counterattack to retake M’Sila, and by the 11th of October, he had a battalion of the16th Infantry Regiment supported by tanks and more infantry from the 1st Armored in that town. As he surveyed the scene, he could clearly see that the Germans were trying to disengage.

“That’s the spirit!” he said to General Allen, knowing when to praise as well as when to hound an officer on the field. “That’s my fighter. I told you we could kick their behinds out of M’Sila. Those two Kraut tank battalions just high-tailed it east on the road to Barika. They’ve got a railhead there, and I want it.”

At that moment, a barrage of artillery fire came in on the American positions again, sending many men to ground, but Patton and Allen stood firm, leaning over a map spread out on the warm hood of a jeep.

“That’s just covering fire for their retreat,” said Patton, exonerated and pleased with what his troops had accomplished. “So we want Barika, and I want 9th Infantry to keep pushing on that ridge overlooking the valley to the north. That’s good ground up there. See how it frowns on this rail line from Ben Mansour? That’s the main line east. This other one here up through Bougie will dead end at Fort Melila northwest of Constantine. So I want the 9th to cut that line off. Then I’ll send both armored divisions right through this open country east to Barika. I’ll want your boys right along with them.”

“That’s a good distance east,” said Allen. “Do we have the fuel?”

“No but I’ll find it. Then, once we get Barika, I’ll establish our forward depot there, and we’ll push northwest to Batna.”

“Looks like some pretty rough country.”

“Damn right it is,” said Patton. “It’s these goddamn mountains. Well, they didn’t stop the Romans. Old Constantine the Great was one tough hombre. They named that city after him, and from Batna, we can push right up the rail line and take the place. Then the Limeys can push on up the coast to Bone, and I’ll turn east again for Tebessa. That’s right on the Tunisian border, a perfect place to set up shop for the next phase of the campaign. Hell, from there its only 150 miles or so to the coast. We can blow right through Tunisia and cut the Germans in two. That will cut off Rommel’s retreat before he gets a mind to come this way.”

“Rommel? You itching to tangle with him, General?”

“Why not? He’s been stuck at Mersa Brega for a good long while, or so Ike tells me. Now they say he’s gone and given the British another bloody nose east of Sirte. Looks like we’ll have to step up and finish the job. Our new Allies can’t seem to get things done.”

That was vintage Patton. In one brief session with a map on the hood of that jeep, he had already planned his entire march to victory through Algeria to the Tunisian border, and from there across Tunisia to Sfax. He would soon learn that it was easier to make his plans that it would be to carry them out. The German Army was by no means beaten here yet. Von Arnim was fully capable of holding any ground he chose, but he had a problem too—Adolf Hitler.

“So what do we do?” said the General. Von Arnim was now nominal commander of the 5th Panzer Army, charged with the defense of all Algeria against a combined British American force that was strengthening day by day. Kesselring was now the overall theater commander, with Rommel his sturdy knight in the east, fresh off his victory against the 8th Army.

“That is the question of the hour,” said Kesselring. “I certainly know what we should do, but given this stand fast order from Hitler, the situation gets a little more complicated. Look how our line is stretched out all along the Tellien Atlas Mountains. It runs from Blida, just south of Algiers, and all the way east to M’Sila.”

“The British have taken Blida,” said von Arnim.

“Yes, and the Americans have just taken M’Sila. Now… We’ve got one good rail line that connects all the way through to Constantine, and the Americans are very close to it here, near Mansourah. That’s where I’ve posted KG Barenthin on this ridge to stop them, but Fisher in 10th Panzer Division says they brought us yet another infantry division, and a good one this time. He doesn’t think we should continue to hold as we are, and I fully agree. I’ve ordered him to break off his attack at M’Sila, but to keep that rail line well covered.”

“If you want to get east, now is the time we should do it,” said von Arnim. “Wait any longer and they will find a way to cut that rail line. “Look… We ought to set everything up this way. Anchor the defense on the coast at Les Falais, just east of Bougie. Run the line through Setif, and then tie it off at Batna. There’s no easy way around that southern flank if we hold there. The ground is terrible.”

“Yes, I see this quiet clearly, but we still have the question of Hitler’s order to hold Algiers.”

“Well look what Rommel did! He just flew to OKW himself and got everything he wanted. Why don’t you go there and spell this out, just like Rommel. I’m sure you could easily get the support of Keitel and Jodl; Halder as well.”

“I could have them all in my back pocket, but that may not move Hitler one inch. He isn’t happy with what’s been going on in Russia. Winter is coming, and you know what happened last year. He wants that city on the Volga and the Russians are holding on to it like a dog with a bone.”

“So now he wants us to do the same here, at Algiers? The British already have troops in the city. 327th has only been fighting a delaying action there. General Kesselring, this American General, Patton, he’s a real firebrand. He can surely read a map just as we can, and mark my words, he’ll push hard to cut that rail line soon, if he isn’t already.”

Kesselring nodded heavily, pursing his lips with frustration. “I have already had to send half of the Herman Goring Division to support Fisher. Soon I’ll have to send the other half, and then there will be no mechanized force to backstop the defense at Algiers.”

“We should just abandon the place,” said von Arnim. “We should move east now while we can, orders or no orders. We could simply say that we were forced to do so, that the British just keep moving more and more troops over from their forces in Spain. I’ve already positioned the rolling stock.”

“General Montgomery is reportedly moving his headquarters forward to Algiers,” said Kesselring. “You want him to say he beat you?”

“I could care less. What I want is to get to ground I can easily defend. The defense near Algiers is already badly outflanked. We’re holding because the troops on that line are good enough to do so, and the American infantry is still green.”

“Yes,” said Kesselring. “Continue with your arrangements to move east, but keep a lid on it. As for Algiers, keep the 327th fighting there as along as possible. The minute the Allies put out that they’ve got the entire city, Hitler will explode again. At the moment, he is fixated on the East Front. We may just be able to pull off a redeployment without him noticing it too much.”

“I’m already pulling some of the air mobile troops off the line and sending them by rail to Bougie,” said von Arnim. “Kubler’s mountain troops will be next. If we do this right, then we can pull it off without much change in the daily front report to OKW. By just looking at the map, it will seem that the lines of battle remain the same, that we are holding, but the bulk of our best troops will get east, one way or another. But when the balloon finally pops?” Von Arnim gave Kesselring a wary look.

“Then we shall see. It may be that one or both of us loses our jobs here, but we will have at least handed our successors a position they can have every expectation of holding, and an army to do that. Don’t worry, General. My head is bigger than yours. I’ll be the first to go on the chopping block.”

The lines of battle did seem to hold their places on the map for the next several days, but all the while the trains were marshaling at receiving points, and the Germans were conducting one of those masterful strategic withdrawals Kesselring would become famous for. He was an expert in defensive maneuvers, and could read the ground better than any other General when it came to picking out a good place to hold, and knowing when he had to move.

The toughest thing he had to do was make it seem that Algiers was being held to the last. The 327th Infantry Division had only been at about 60% strength there, and now it was down to about six battalions. He told them to be stubborn, and it was house to house as the dogged 43rd Wessex bore the brunt of the attack, pushing into the outskirts of the city on the 13th of October. By that time, all of 22nd Luftland Division, and Kubler’s mountain troops had deftly made their way to the trains and started the journey east.

The American 3rd Division was slow to advance and take over the ground the enemy once held, all difficult high mountain country in the Tellien Atlas. By the time they did get up there, moving cautiously up the road to Ain Bessem, the Germans were long gone. In another day or two all the ground between Algiers and Bougie would be successfully evacuated, and those troops were already being posted to new positions south of Les Falaise.

Patton had clucked when a company from 13th Recon, CCB, 1st Armored, had probed out as far east to reach Barika. That report was just hours old when a battalion of the 104th Panzergrenadiers supported by tanks and KG Luder showed up to summarily evict the Americans. They had been told to screen the roads from that town to the northeast, where Kubler’s mountain troops were arriving at Batna. They would be the ideal force to hold in the hilly ground in that sector.

The German withdrawal would largely be complete by the 14th of October. The price was the 327th Division near Algiers. No more than two battalions and a company of engineers would ever get east, along with the division artillery, headquarters and some flak guns. The last four battalions would still fight for Algiers, delaying Monty’s entry there as long as possible.

Bougie itself was also abandoned, though not before the port and airfields had been subjected to demolition. The new defensive front would be anchored on the coast just east of Bougie by the 16th Regiment of the 22nd Luftland Division. 65th Regiment came next, then the Falschirmjaegers of 7th Flieger and KG Barenthin, their lines ending at Setif on the main rail running east. Another group of these tough soldiers had also just arrived at the port of Bone, under Koch, so the Germans still had plenty of good infantry.

Fairly rugged highlands ran east and south from Setif, and von Arnim positioned Fischer’s 10th Panzer Division to watch the passes. Kübler still had seven battalions of good mountain troops around Batna, and then, behind it all, Herman Goering’s troops would be the fire Brigade.

It would take Kesselring, along with the combined weight of the entire General Staff at OKW, to convince Hitler that the position they had selected east of Algiers was one they believed they could hold. The rapid advance of the Allies would now meet a much better organized defense, and 5th Panzer Army continued to build up supplies in Tunis and Bizerte.

“Hot damn,” said Patton. “We’ve got them on the run again. My boys pushed them right out of M’Sila, and we’ve just retaken Barika as well. Now it’s on to Batna. That’s the real prize. We get that, and I’ll have their flank turned again.”

“Hold on George,” came a voice, and in walked General Omar Bradley, sent in by Eisenhower to help him look things over on the front, and troubleshoot problems. He had not come on the scene until the defeat at Kasserene raised a lot of questions, but in this history, he had just been selected out by Eisenhower for this special role.

Patton turned, smiling broadly. “Brad,” he said warmly. “How are you?”

“Fine George, but it’s the army I’m here to worry about.”

“What do you mean worry? Things couldn’t be better. I was just telling Truscott here that we’ve got the Huns on the run again. Pushed them right out of M’Sila, and that was Rommel’s old outfit, 10th Panzer. Come on, have a look for yourself.” He gestured to the map.

Bradley came over to take a look, though he already knew things that Patton was not privy too. Radio intercepts and ULTRA had picked up the German intention to withdraw. The conversations between von Arnim and Kesselring had been rather transparent. He knew that Kesselring didn’t want the fight at Algiers, but he also had to give Patton credit for keeping the pressure up on the flank, and the fighting at M’Sila had been the culmination of that maneuver on his part.

“Damn good job at M’Sila,” said Bradley. “But the British have been complaining about 34th Infantry—said they were dragging their feet in the push for Algiers.”

“Supplies, Brad. That’s all my fault. It took everything I could get my hands on to keep those two armored divisions out there moving. This is hard country—few roads worth the name, wadis and salt pans everywhere, and no rail lines feeding my move around this flank to M’Sila. That was the key. Every mile I pushed east while the Limeys were knocking on the door at Algiers, was one more mile the Germans had to hold on their flank. They tried to stop me—threw in the whole 10th Panzer Division, but our boys came out on top. Now I want this place—Batna.”

“Good lord, George. Talk about hard country. Those mountains look damn near impassible, particularly for armor.”

“The whole country is damn near impassible, but we made it all the way here, didn’t we? I’ve pushed them 700 miles in 30 days since we landed in Casablanca.”

“Outstanding, but now Ike thinks we need a pause.”

“A pause? What for?”

“As soon as we clear out the last pockets in Algiers, Montgomery wants to move two divisions over from Spain. He thinks we should coordinate our next offensive and not operate independently—Allies and all.”

“Coordinate? He’ll take a month before he decides to do anything. Allies? You let Montgomery settle in and he’ll want to run the whole goddamned show out here.”

“Well, George, your corps is strung out from here all the way back to 34th infantry near Algiers. You’ve got to consolidate, bring up supplies, and they want to land fresh tanks for the armored divisions at Algiers.”

“Well hell, we’ve got the Germans on the run, so now’s the time to keep moving. We let them settle into those mountains and it’ll be twice as hard to get around this flank.”

Bradley took a deep breath. “George, you might as well know this. Scuttlebutt has it that Kesselring moved heaven and earth to try and get permission from Hitler to make this withdrawal. They didn’t want Algiers, and they didn’t want M’Sila either. They were just locking horns with you there until they could convince the Führer to let them pull out.”

“Scuttlebutt,” said Patton, clearly unhappy. “Look, Brad, my men have fought hard out there. I won’t stand for somebody spreading a rumor that the Germans didn’t have their heart in this fight.”

“I feel the same way, but this fellow Kesselring is pretty cagey. Ike showed me the latest aerial photos. They pulled out alright, but now they’re setting up shop here, just west of Bougie on the coast, and the line will stretch all the way down to Batna. Now, you haven’t even made contact with them yet, but by the time you do, they’ll be dug in like Alabama ticks. This next push is going to need some muscle, because they’ve shortened their lines considerably with this move. All I’m saying is that when we do move again, we need to be ready. I saw trucks, jeeps, artillery strung out for miles east of here. We need to consolidate, and Ike sent me here to see that it gets done.”

“I see,” said Patton. “Brad, how about this. I could use a good Deputy Commander. Suppose you and I become allies? We’d make a great team out here. I’ll come up with the crazy ideas, and you see that I get the supply to do the job.”

“Thank you, George, but that will have to be up to Ike. Now why don’t we start by having a good look around. I want to see what your divisions look like. After that, you can make your pitch to Eisenhower, and I’d be honored to ride shotgun with you out here any time.”

That was what would happen, the beginning of a partnership that would see many battle lines ahead in this war. It was fire an ice, with Patton’s dash and headstrong nature tempered by Bradley’s caution and common sense. Little by little, the men, and the machines that would prosecute the war to a successful end in the old history, were now gathering in the parched terrain of Africa, which was becoming a testbed for the fledgling US Army.

But the real test was yet to come.

Chapter 18

“Come.”

Karpov knew who would come through that door. The Abakan had been seen approaching on radar long ago, and Tyrenkov had already contacted him to explain the situation. He had been on the bridge when the basked was lowered over the helo deck, swaying a bit with the wind, for Kirov was still in the cold northern waters of the Sea of Okhotsk, up north of Sakhalin Island. The cold was increasing, the ice already beginning to form, and he had been seeing to the last of the major supply convoys to the small port of Okha, delivering food, fuel, munitions, and trucks he had obtained from the Americans. Now he was in his stateroom, having given orders that Fedorov should report to him immediately.

And he was not happy.

The door opened, and in walked Fedorov, removing his hat as he entered, and tucking it under his arm. Karpov took a deep breath, looking up with a sour expression on his face.

“So,” he said, “the prodigal son comes home at last. Sit down, Fedorov. You and I have a great deal to discuss, and you can be thankful that I allowed you the dignity of coming here on your own two legs, instead of being escorted by a squad of my men.”

“I see your pet gorilla is posted outside,” said Fedorov, taking a seat. “Plan on turning me over to him after this?”

“If that is what it takes to get you to understand an order when you hear one.”

“That would have been a lot easier if I wasn’t desperately trying to save that KA-40, and everyone aboard. You put a goddamned missile on me, Karpov.”

“Just like you put five on Orlov when he jumped ship. That was, after all, what you were planning. Correct? But you didn’t really think you could get through my security to Ilanskiy, did you? So where in god’s name did you think you were going? Let me guess. You were so dead set on getting to Sergei Kirov, and if you couldn’t go kill him in 1908, you thought you’d go cozy up to him in 1942.”

“Initially, my only thought was to save my skin and see to the safety of my mission team,” said Fedorov. “What was I supposed to do? Comply with your order so you could take another shot at us? What would you have done in my place?”

Karpov smiled, raising an eyebrow. “I suppose I would have done the same, but you have become quite a nuisance. It was you who put Volsky on to me when I first tried to take the ship, and it was you who came after me in that goddamn submarine. Then you pull this little hide and seek routine this time around, until I saw through your little ruse. Now this.”

“You want to look at things from my perspective?” said Fedorov. “It was you who tried to unlawfully seize control of the ship, subverting Orlov to back you up and then locking Volsky in the sickbay so you could drop a nuke on the Allied fleets. And it was you who refused the Admiral’s direct order to cease operations in 1908 and return with us, and look around. Take a good look at the world that resulted. Your little operation out there on Sakhalin would not be happening now if not for your obstinate disobedience.”

“If I had finished what I started there, without your damn interference.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Captain. That’s your real rank, isn’t it? And it’s my rank as well. You forget that I accepted you as my Starpom, receiving your pledge to serve, just as I gave you mine when you offered me the job here. I did so in the hope that I could have some influence over these events, and also in the hope that you had sobered up a bit after that nightmare when you went after Admiral Togo. I thought we had reached an understanding. After all, I was acting on your orders to undertake that mission. Then you throw a missile my way, and all bets are off. Now… you can trot in your security men and stand up Grilikov to cast his big shadow on the bridge whenever you’re there, but you’ve forgotten one thing, Karpov—the crew of this ship. They were the ones that stopped you off Oki Island, not me and Gromyko aboard Kazan. I thought you had learned at least one thing in all of this, but it seems you haven’t. The crew—without their cooperation and support, this ship cannot operate. You arranged that clever little meeting at Murmansk, again undermining the Admiral’s authority, and commandeering this ship under false pretenses. Thought you could pull one over on a witless crew, except for me. I saw right through your scam, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it just then.”

“Is that what you were doing, biding your time here with this agreement to serve as Starpom? You thinking to bend a few ears and work up the crew against me now. You know damn well I won’t let that happen this time. Besides, the crew is witless. They don’t know what’s happened—only you know. Well, I can manage you easily enough, and after this latest insubordination, you don’t give me much choice.”

“I’m not the only one who remembers.” Fedorov threw that out like a cold stone in hot water, and Karpov’s face registered real surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Now I don’t know how it was that I had my head filled with everything we went through before. Volsky was oblivious, as was most everyone else, even your other self. But I remembered. I went round and round with that, trying to figure out if all those memories were simply dumped into my head through some strange effect caused by the paradox—or if I was actually the same man who got slapped around by Orlov and sent down to sick bay on that very first sortie we made. I still can’t say which is true, but I can tell you one thing—I’m not alone.”

“Explain.”

“I mean other people on this ship are waking up, one by one. Something very strange is happening here.”

“Who? Who else knows? Don’t try to hide them, Fedorov. You know damn well I’ll see through them as easily as I saw through you.”

“Orlov, for one. Yes, your first co-conspirator woke up one day below decks, and you can be damn thankful that I was there when it happened.”

“What?”

“He started remembering, having bad dreams as he explained it to me. Then the dreams became recollections, and then he woke up. He knows, Captain. He remembers everything, and he was none too happy with you when it all came back. It seems that the two of you had a little falling out back then. And why do you think he jumped ship? Because he got busted and sent down to serve with the Marines while you wormed your way back onto the bridge with your false oath to the Admiral, and then again to me.”

This came as a real shock to Karpov, for it was something that he had never really considered. In fact, he had been counting on the crew operating here with a clean slate. If they started to remember… If they suddenly knew everything like Fedorov…. He shifted in his chair, his anger abating, and now looked at Fedorov a little differently.

“Are there others?”

“I believe so.”

“How, Fedorov? What is happening here?”

“I wish I knew. I told you that just before Paradox Hour, things got very strange on the ship. You remember what I said about Lenkov? Well, it got worse. Men started to go missing, and no one seemed to remember them ever being there. They were disappearing, one by one, and by God, those same men are right here now, and now I’m starting to think they’re going to wake up, just as Orlov did, one by one.” He was only now just coming to this realization as he said this to Karpov, who had a very harried look on his face now.

“You mean to say they might all remember in time?”

“That’s what I think is happening. We handed Time a real dilemma, two ships, two crews, and what was she to do with them both laying claim to the same moments? You weren’t here when it happened. You were off on your airship—elsewhere. The men on the ship didn’t have that protection. Time had to choose, or so I believed. But it seems she’s come up with another solution. I think Time is doing what amounts to a save with replace.”

“What?”

“Yes… You save a file you’ve been working on, but forget to rename it. So it overwrites the old file with the new. You’re writing a story, or a report, and you don’t want to lose it so you hit that save button, and the old file is updated with all your work that day. Only in this instance, the story has already been written. That’s what got dumped into my head if it happened that way, and I’m willing to bet that somewhere—out there, somewhere, I was one of those men who went missing on the original ship. And if my theory is correct, it will happen to everyone else—even Lenkov, god rest his soul. I’d hate to be there when he remembers what happened to him….”

Silence.

The two men just sat there, forgetting their own petty quarrel and rivalry now. There was something else going on, something deeper, almost sinister from Karpov’s perspective. If they all remembered…. If they all suddenly knew all the things he had done, then Fedorov was correct in what he said a moment ago. He needed this crew, for in a very real sense, they were Kirov, they were the heart and soul of the ship. Without their Aye Aye to his order, the ship would go nowhere, nor would any man here stand to battle stations, and the missiles under that forward deck were absolutely useless. He had told himself that when he took command here, but power had a way of making his head just a little too big for his hat.

“Where is Orlov?” he said at last, his first instinct being to cover that square.

“Well Captain, Admiral, I’ll call you what you please. We have another problem now.” He told Karpov what had happened on the mission; how the ship reached 1908 as they overflew Tunguska, and how he could not find that timely cruelty within him after all. He told him what was said to Sergei Kirov, and what had happened to Orlov as they ascended the stairs.

“He did what? He sneezed?”

“And he must have reflexively moved his hand to his nose,” said Fedorov. “That broke the chain of contact that I was counting on pulling us all to the very same timeframe here. Why I came through, and not Orlov, is just another little snicker from Mother Time as she laughs at us. But we’ve got a real problem here now. Orlov went missing, and Orlov knows everything that happened—everything.”

“God almighty,” said Karpov, a look of shock and distress on his face. “Where could he be, Fedorov? Where could he have possibly gone?”

“That’s anybody’s guess, but it would most likely have to be some time in which he did not already exist.”

“But yet my brother and I share this same time.”

“That I haven’t figured out yet. Yes, you were elsewhere when he shifted here, and that’s the only reason I can put to it.”

Now Karpov remembered his own tortuous reasoning on this very issue, and the reason he had called off Fedorov’s mission in the first place….

Time makes mistakes.

That was all he could think of. Time isn’t perfect, and the chaos they had caused was so great, that she slipped a few stitches. That satisfied where things like the magazine they found were concerned, but not for his own personal fate.

I’m not just anybody, he thought. I’m Vladimir Karpov. I built this entire world! I was the one who pissed off Orlov. Absent that, he never jumps ship. So all of this is my doing, because I am first cause for this world to exist. That is why I persist here—why I will continue to persist. Time might dearly love to get rid of me, but she can’t, I’m just too damn important. Without me, none of this ever happens.

But what about my brother?

Who is the pretender to the throne here, me or my brother? How could time allow him to enter my world while I was here? Ah… but I wasn’t here. That’s what all that travail was aboard Tunguska. I was somewhere else when my brother self appeared here aboard Kirov. My brother was supposed to replace me! Time was planning to crown my brother king here. That bitch was trying to eliminate me completely, but something happened. I eluded her grasp and survived.

So time is quite content to let this time line persist—in fact, that is exactly what she is planning! There is only one errant thread in her loom as she weaves all this together again—me!”

Now a real fear struck him, and one he had tiptoed around in his own thinking for some time. “Fedorov,” he said, his voice lowered ominously. “If what you say is true—Orlov remembering, other crewmen waking up—then what happens if my younger brother remembers? Have you thought about that?”

“Interesting proposition? In one sense, I was thinking that as the two of you are not identical, two different men in so many ways, that Time made allowances. Yet if the other version of yourself does start remembering, that could get very thorny.”

“Well I’ve told him things that happened; things we did. It doesn’t seem to have shaken anything loose. Maybe he can’t remember if I’ve got those memories locked away in my head. How about that possibility?”

“I wish I could say I knew,” said Fedorov. “Perhaps Kamenski might weigh in on this, if he were still with us. But what will happen concerning your brother isn’t something we can control. Orlov, however, is another matter. He’s going to turn up somewhere, and my first thought was to start scouring the history to see if I could find any clues.”

“You mean in the event he appears in the past?”

“Yes. Remember that you fell out of a shift and appeared here long before we did—in 1938. That’s what gave you the time to work your way into Kolchak’s web. Orlov might do that. Technically, he could appear in any time after that moment in 1908, and before the 30th of June in 1940, which was when we arrived here again after attempting to shift forward with Kazan. He could also appear some time in our future. But speaking of that, we have another problem—Kazan.”

“What about it?”

“The submarine has reappeared. Gromyko is here again. We picked up a message beacon on our secure radio set. I actually spoke with him.”

“What? He sent a message? We never heard it.”

“Perhaps atmospheric conditions were not good, but remember, I was much closer to his position when we picked it up.”

“Where was he?”

“Up near Murmansk, and he wanted to talk. In fact, if you want to know the truth, I was trying to arrange a rendezvous with him.”

“So you could lock arms and come after me with that damn sub?” There was a flash of anger in Karpov’s eyes now.”

“Nothing had gone that far in my thinking,” said Fedorov. “Don’t get yourself all in a fit. But he’s here, and Kazan is here, and now we have that to consider. I never made my rendezvous with him, as we made that incredible detour to 1908. I almost could not believe my luck in that, but when it came right down to it, sitting there with a pistol in my hand under the table, I just could not kill that young man. I couldn’t do it.”

Karpov’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded his head. “I didn’t think you could either, and as you can see, everything is still here as it was. Your theory about our reaching an event here that would knock out some key pillar in the line of causality is all bullshit. That was what I figured out after you departed, and why I cancelled the mission. I don’t know what might have happened if you did kill Sergei Kirov, but I wasn’t going to take the chance of finding out. So I…. over reacted—the missile. Understand?”

Fedorov knew that was as close to an apology as he might get from Karpov, and he nodded his head. “And I over reacted as well,” he said. “See how easy it is to fall back on reflex, open old wounds, become enemies when that’s the last damn thing this world needs of us now. We’re in some deep shit here, Karpov. We’re responsible for this whole mess, and it’s up to us to do what we can to clean it up.”

“Still thinking we can reset all the pieces on the board? We can’t, Fedorov. This is the game in front of us now, and all we can do is make the best moves possible in this situation, win, lose, or draw. Time is settling in to the reality we’ve created here. You and I remember things that never happened here—all that bullshit we threw at each other when you first came in. I think Time has abandoned that game, called it a draw, and moved on. This is where things count now—this game decides it for the world championship, and were’ two pawns down, with one knight missing—Orlov, and another out there somewhere that we need to move to a good square—Gromyko.”

“That was what I came to in the end,” said Fedorov. “This is it for us now. We’ll never get home, and we’ll never switch it all back. Frankly, if I were you, I’d blow that damn railway inn to hell and be done with it, because you’re right, Karpov, this is the only game left now, and by god, we’ve got to win it. Volkov is out there raising hell, and now the Japanese have yet another edge with that destroyer. It’s time we showed some muscle.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Karpov. “Yes, now we fight to win this thing. Help me. Stand with me, and let us forget the past. The future is enough of a burden for us, and something tells me it will take both of us to carry it.”

Fedorov offered a solemn nod of his head, then extended his hand. “Allies,” he said. “And now we fight to win.”