“No — she didn’t leave anyone behind.” That was the truth, but it was also only half the story, and he suspected Kransky could probably work out the rest if he wanted to. “Eileen was career military,” he continued, “and that’s no easy thing for a lot of women, particularly when you’re as smart and as capable as she is. Most guys aren’t as smart as she is, and she doesn’t tolerate fools all that well.” He shrugged. “She likes you, I know that much, but exactly how she likes you isn’t for me to call. If you’re interested in her, that’s pretty much between the two of you, but I am her friend, and the commanding officer here, so if something does happen, I’d hope you were — what’s the saying? — operating with honourable intentions…”
“Whoa — no need to turn serious on me there, Max!” Kransky held up a hand and gave a lopsided grin as he shook his head. “She’s a great girl, but we’re friends and that’s all. As her friend and the CO, you’ve got every right to look out for her, but don’t be concerned: regardless of anything else, I’ll be back in the field soon enough and I can’t afford to get involved with anyone.” He took a breath. “Besides, I’m not all that sure she’d be interested in me as anything other than a friend anyhow.”
“Has she told you that?” Thorne was genuinely interested now, and Kransky had trouble keeping a smug grin from flickering across his features: the loaded remark had obtained exactly the reaction he was looking for.
“Not… in so many words…” He answered slowly, considering his response with care. “But you don’t last as long as I have in my line of work without being able to read people well, either up close or through a rifle scope. I think she’s got a lot on her mind at the moment, and maybe more than just being here with Hindsight.”
“Yeah, well it’s a lot to take no matter how much so-called preparation they gave us,” Thorne turned his head to stare off once more in the direction of the hangar doors and Eileen’s departure. “Guess I’d better go and apologise…”
“Might be a good idea,” Kransky agreed, nodding solemnly.
Kransky also actively searched for Eileen Donelson later that day, as the sun was lowering on the western horizon and the threat of a chill was beginning to creep into the air. With their varied daily schedules, the officers of the Hindsight Unit generally ate at different times, and he wasn’t able to catch up with her until after his evening meal. It had taken some time, but he eventually located her down on the wharf at the main naval base, seated alone on a thick, wooden bollard by an empty part of the dock as base operations went on about her.
Although things might well slow down at night, an installation as important as that at the Scapa Flow anchorage rarely ceased operations altogether, and that evening was no exception. There was enough general lighting to clearly illuminate the area, and the numerous jetties and piers were strewn with the signs of wartime operations. Oil drums and supply crates of varying sizes were stacked all about in piles, along with machinery, loading cranes and other equipment.
A couple of destroyers were moored a hundred metres or so along the pier, and in the channel between Hoy and the smaller island, Flotta, two battleships and a cruiser stood at anchor, silent and dark. Midway between the ships and the dock, a Sunderland flying boat taxied up to its own mooring, a phosphorescent bow wave starkly visible as it sprayed up on either side of the nose and disrupted the black water beneath. At that distance, the aircraft’s engines were no more than a soft splutter and hum.
To her left, piles of sandbags surrounded a static 4.5-inch AA gun with its pedestal mount set into solid concrete foundations. The crew manning it seemed relaxed, more interested in preparing to fight the cold of night than the Germans. Darkness was approaching quickly, and with sunset came a dramatic reduction in the likelihood of enemy air attack — a likelihood that wasn’t high to begin with.
“You’re a hard person to find,” Kransky observed as he drew near and she turned her upper body in his direction, a wan smile showing at the sound of his voice.
“I wasn’t exactly in the mood to be found,” she admitted, turning back to face the water once more. The lab coat was gone, and she instead now wore the Howard Green jumper over her T-shirt and jeans. Even Kransky could feel the chill in the air that was beginning to penetrate the long-sleeved shirt and fatigues he wore.
“Do you want me to go…?” He asked instantly, not wanting to upset her. “I don’t mind…”
“No… it’s fine, Richard… don’t go.” And with those words, he stepped across to pick up an empty packing crate from nearby and drag it over to the bollard. The wooden box wasn’t overly large, and with his long legs, his appearance was almost comical as he seated himself beside her.
“You okay?”
“Aye, I’m fine, really,” she shrugged, the attempt at a smile mostly fading. “Just in a funny mood today.”
“That, I gathered,” he admitted with a wry grin. “You’re still mad at Max…?”
“Oh, I’m well pissed off at him, but not for that stupid carry-on earlier. We had something of a disagreement on business matters this afternoon, but being the CO, he won of course.”
“Wanna talk about it…?”
“One of us needs to go down to London to help streamline the reorganisation of British production. My opinion is that I’m the most suitable person to do that, but Max wants Hal to go instead. He’s sticking to some ‘official’ bollocks about my being too bloody ‘valuable’ to send because of my memory.”
“Your memory…?” Kransky didn’t understand.
“I have what’s known as an eidetic- or photographic memory. I can literally see pages of text or technical drawings in my head, even if I’ve only had the chance to study them once. With the bombings of industrial centres and factories going on in Southern England at the moment — which is only likely to get worse — Max fears that if I were killed, the loss of the information I carry in my head would be too great a risk.”
“Is that what you meant earlier when you said that you’d definitely have remembered it, if you’d heard of me?” Kransky queried, making the link to their discussion earlier that day.
“Aye, that’s what I meant right enough,” she nodded, paused for a short sigh, then shook her head slowly. “I suppose he’s right when it all comes down to it, but I’m still not happy about it. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve trained for my whole life. Hal will do a good enough job all right, but I was meant to do it!”
“There’ll be plenty here for you to do, I’m sure,” he smiled. “Plenty of field operatives to nursemaid and provide with swell little gizmos.”
“Aye, that there’ll be, I reckon,” she agreed with a smile of her own. “I can’t stay angry with Max for long anyway: I know he’s only doing what he has to. He’s a brilliant man, and in some ways he’s a born leader, but he can’t stand the idea of being in command instead of just being ‘one of the boys’. He’s too much of a big kid at heart to enjoy making the kind of hard decisions he has to make as CO.”
“He did say something was playing on his mind, now that you mention it,” Kransky mused, his thoughts running back to his conversation with Thorne in the hangar.
“Really…?” Eileen was suddenly very interested. “What did he say?”
“Well, I’m not sure if I should say anything, but… is there something wrong with a ‘Sookie and Bill’ that he knows? He said he was kinda concerned about how they were doin’ back where you guys came from.” As she heard those words, Eileen forgot her melancholy for a few moments and broke openly into outright laughter, the lilting sound making Kransky feel much better himself, although he didn’t understand exactly what it was he’d said that was so funny.
“On, my God…!” Eileen wheezed, gasping a little for breath as her mirth eventually began to subside. “The man truly is a great bloody bairn…!”
And the smiling naval officer went on to explain to an uninitiated Richard Kransky about the concept of syndicated cable television shows and the world of the TV
show True Blood.
Shakespeare Cliff Observation Post
Farthingloe (near Dover), Kent Coast
Sunday
July 28, 1940
The White Cliffs stretched sixteen kilometres around the Kent coastline, from north of Folkestone to just south of Deal. At some points towering as high as a hundred metres or more above the surface of The Channel, the imposing walls of white chalk, streaked with black flint, had served for centuries as a symbolic natural ‘fortress’ against would-be invaders from Continental Europe. Keeping watch above the Straits of Dover, the iconic British landmark was clearly visible from the opposite French coast across little more than thirty kilometres of water at The Channel’s narrowest point.
Just a few kilometres south-west of Dover, Shakespeare Cliff Halt Railway Station lay on a section of the South Eastern & Chatham line running between Dover and Folkestone. The siding lay upon a small flat section of land quite literally carved out of the chalk face of the cliffs, originally created toward the end of the 19th Century as part of a serious attempt to build a rail tunnel between England and France. The project failed to eventuate due to political and public pressures, however the exploratory tunnelling subsequently revealed a rich source of coal that resulted in the opening of the Shakespeare Colliery in 1896, in support of which the railway station had been constructed.
Little more than a pair of sidings, signal box and open wooden shelter, the halt was completely isolated from the cliffs above save for the Abbott’s Cliff rail tunnel to the south-west, the Shakespeare rail tunnel to the north-east, and a narrow set of zig-zag steps cut into the cliffs near the Dover end to allow pedestrian access. The colliery had closed in 1915, but the siding, although never listed in any public timetable, had continued to be used as a drop-off point for rail staff living in the area.
A landslip had closed the tracks for some time during 1939, but even after re-opening in January of 1940, there’d been little ongoing use of that section of the line. Daytime operations had basically ceased altogether following the fall of France and the arrival of occupying German forces along the opposite coast. The line between Dover and Folkestone ran right along the edge of the cliffs for the most part, and was completely exposed and vulnerable as a result. Trains were generally too fast to present a viable target for cross-channel heavy artillery, however a single shell hit on empty track could derail a train or at the very least render the track useless all the same. In any case, there was always the ever-present danger of aerial attack and it was generally considered far safer to redirect services on that line to the Chatham route, via Faversham and Priory Stations.
Positioned as it was at the narrowest part of The Channel, Shakespeare Cliff was a logical site for a network of army observation posts and bunkers that stretched in an almost continuous line across the towering cliff tops. Just a few hundred metres inland from the cliffs, the Dover Road ran parallel to the coast from Dover before turning north-west at Folkestone as the A20 and heading inland toward Ashford and, ultimately, on to London. The ground sloped downward as it moved inland from the cliffs, generally masking road traffic from the prying eyes of the enemy across The Channel and therefore allowing the four Lanchester 6x4 armoured cars that arrived in convoy that afternoon to approach unseen from Folkestone along the Dover Road.
The Lanchester was an older design that dated back to the 1920s, and as such it’d already been removed from front line service and relegated to the realms of a few reconnaissance units within the Territorial Army. Nevertheless, it was a solid and reliable vehicle with good on- and off-road performance, and was armed and armoured well enough to make it a reasonable choice as an escort vehicle in times where some protection was required without the desire to attract too much attention.
As the troop came to a halt by the side of the road, close to a gated fence line that cordoned off the cliffs themselves with rolls of barbed wire, General Sir John Dill stepped from the passenger side of the second vehicle in line and stretched his body after a long and tiresome trip down from London. He donned his cap as a pair of junior officers also dismounted from the following vehicles and jogged quickly up to join him. One officer, a captain, wore the red tabs of Army General Staff, and although the second man, a major, wore the same khaki officer’s dress as the others, he also displayed the insignia of the Royal Marines.
Beyond the fence line on the cliff side, the low roof of a partially-buried concrete bunker sat close by, a rifle-armed guard standing by the open entry. Upon sighting the officers, he called to someone inside and just a moment or two later, a young lieutenant appeared from within. Making an effort to quickly straighten his cap and uniform, he made his way quickly down to the fence and met the group at the gate.
“Lieutenant Ramage, sir,” the man snapped to attention instantly upon coming to a halt, presenting a very crisp salute. “First Marine Siege Regiment…”
“Very good, Lieutenant,” Dill acknowledged immediately, barely coming to attention long enough to give a perfunctory salute in return. “I believe you boys have something you’d like us to have a look at?”
“Yes sir…!” The young man was professional, but was also quite nervous. The Royal Marines might technically be under the command of the navy, but he was in the presence of the British Army’s Commander of Home Forces nonetheless, and it was a quite intimidating situation.
“Lead on then, lieutenant,” Dill urged, his expression and tone complete seriousness as Ramage opened the wrought iron gate and ushered them through.
As the quartet made their way up the slope toward the nearby bunker, the drivers of the armoured cars took that as their queue to stand down for the moment. They turned their vehicles off the road and onto the grass verge on the opposite side, seeking what little cover they could amongst clumps of shrubbery and low trees. The Lanchester 6x4 was a huge, seven-tonne beast with a six cylinder engine and nine millimetre armour plate. A two-man turret was mounted above the fighting compartment at the rear of each vehicle, each armed with both a .50-caliber and .303-caliber Vickers machine gun.
As the men shut down their engines, one gun crew remained on alert in their turret, keeping a careful eye out for danger from the sky while the rest took a break and brewed some tea. Another crew would relieve them in a few minutes until each had done a ‘shift’ in turn and all had had a chance to get some tea and a bite to eat.
Ramage led General Dill and the others past the first bunker and further on up the slope toward the cliffs. Mostly cleared land gave way to seemingly impenetrable thickets and gorse bushes, although the lieutenant managed to find a narrow pathway that had been cut through. They moved quickly through the underbrush in single file, the bushes at times towering above their heads, and the heavy ground cover suddenly opened out into cleared land once more as the group drew close to the cliffs themselves. At that point, Ramage stopped for a moment and crouched low to the ground, all copying his actions through instinct.
“Pays to keep one’s head down this close to the edge, gentlemen,” he advised, slightly breathless and whispering as if there might be an enemy close by to hear them. “Jerry’s watching us as sure as we’re watching them, and although they generally don’t bother making anything of it, they may decide to call in some Stukas if they think anything out-of-the-ordinary’s going on.” He cocked his head to the right. “Not far now… right this way, sir!” And with that he was off again, moving quickly but still keeping low to the ground as he took them through the thick grass of that windswept summit toward the rear of another bunker twenty metres away that appeared to be sunk directly into the top of the cliff face itself.
A concrete-sided trench barely wide enough for two men was cut into the earth at the cliff edge, and at the far end awaited a thick, metal door. A wide embrasure was cut into the concrete wall beside the door at eye level, allowing an old Lewis gun to poke through. As they approached, the weapon remained trained on them the entire time, a pair of cold and serious eyes watching from behind the weapo
n.
“Open up, Sar’nt Rogers…!” Ramage called out as they drew near the door, and it was only as the sound of bolts being drawn could be heard inside that the muzzle of the Lewis gun turned away. The iron door opened outward and the lieutenant pulled it wide, allowing the other officers to pass through. The inside was standard for what was known in the area as a ‘Dover Quad’; a type of pillbox found exclusively in the Dover area. A square box of brick and reinforced concrete measuring four metres along each wall, the structure possessed wide embrasures on all sides and an overhanging slab roof that gave good protection against fire from strafing aircraft, although some experts claimed that in combination with the wide embrasures, it was also inherently vulnerable to ricochets from machine gun fire from below. A large brass telescope on a heavy tripod was bolted to the concrete floor at one of the forward embrasures, looking out over The Channel and the French coastline beyond.
“Ten…hut!” Rogers, the ranking NCO inside the bunker shouted loudly as they entered, and the other three men present instantly snapped to attention.
“At ease, men,” Dill declared with a slight grin, barely stopping to brace up himself as he quickly returned the sergeant’s salute. “Don’t mind me… I’ll not take up much of your time.” He turned his attention back to Ramage, adding: “What do you have for me, lieutenant?”
“Of course, sir,” Ramage replied instantly, stepping up to the telescope and checking it was correctly aimed and focussed. “It’s all ready for you.”
As the lieutenant moved back out of the way, Dill took his turn at staring through the eyepiece. The telescope was quite powerful, and on such a bright and sunny day it was able to bring the distant French coast into clear focus. Taking in a section of countryside between Sangatte and Escalles, it provided an excellent view of the massive construction site that had been created above the beach near Peuplingues. Although still not enough magnification to allow any real detail, it was already clear to a military man of such experience as Dill that what he was staring at was undoubtedly some kind of gun emplacement in the making.
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