“Fergusson has been begging for reinforcements,” said O’Connor. “It’s a wonder Wavell had anything left in the cupboard to send out here. How many are you? It was night and the bloody sandstorm made it impossible to see much, but it certainly sounded like there were a good number of vehicles in your detachment.”
“Yes sir,” said Kinlan. “They got the 7th pulled back together, though you are correct, we’re just off the boat, in a manner of speaking.”
“Well it’s about time we got support from England. I realize its all of 40 days to get here round the cape. Where were you serving back home? Were you with 1st Armored Division?”
“What else?” said Kinlan, as he knew that most of the armored reserves in early 1941 had been cannibalized from that division back home in the UK, and his own 7th Brigade was, in fact, still a part of the British 1st Armored Division in modern times.
They were out over the desert, and heading southwest. Fedorov was worried Kinlan would get talked into a corner by O’Connor, so he tried to keep the man distracted with the reconnaissance, and it was not long before O’Connor spotted something, his eyes keen enough to recognize movement on the desert, as he had spent many hours airborne over a battle zone himself.
“There,” he pointed.
The thin streams of dust were telltale evidence on the desert floor below. Something was moving there, the first probing outriders of an advance heading east.
“That has to be out from the Italian Garrison at Giarabub,” said O’Connor. “Just one little fish I couldn’t net when I moved west earlier.”
When he made his sweeping attack to smash the Italian position in Cyrenaica, a small garrison under Major Salvatore Castagna had been marooned at Giarabub, well over 200 miles south at the edge of the Great Sand Sea. It was one of the most isolated outposts the Italians had established, and was largely held to keep watch on the British controlled oasis at Siwa, some miles to the southeast. It was also a holy place, where a mosque and tomb of the founder of the Senussi sect attracted small groups of pilgrims from time to time, but now they were all gone. The Italian Army had come in their place.
“Look there, General,” Fedorov pointed as he handed Kinlan a pair of field glasses. “What does that look like to your eye, Berbers?”
Kinlan had a look and could see more than he wanted there. Those were obviously small patrols of armored cars, though he had never seen anything like them out here before. O’Connor seemed to know what they were, however, and shook his head.
“Damn little Autoblinda 41s. They’ve a nasty 20mm autocannon and a pair of good Breda 8mm machineguns. But those scout vehicles that rounded us up looked to be enough to handle them. What were they, something new?”
“Just out of the oven,” Kinlan smiled.
“The Captain says he can get you photography of those buggers to look over later,” said Popski. “But I’m more concerned with what’s behind those patrols. See that dust column there?” He had a keen eye for movement on the desert as well, having spent many days with his small patrols in this desolation.
“That has to be a larger force.” Popski did not know it at the time, but he was pointing at an unusual new arrival, the 136th Giovanni Fascisti Regiment, the fanatical Blackshirts that had been sent by Mussolini to try and put some backbone into the Italian infantry. They were here early, not having arrived in Libya until July of 1941 in the old history, and now they were out to begin writing the stubborn chapters they had etched into that history, by holding out in the face of overwhelming odds at places like Bir el Gobi. The British would come to call them “Mussolini’s Boys,” and they would soon reach Major Castagna’s garrison, adding three more battalions of tough infantry to the two already there.
“If that is what I think it is, then that Colonel Fergusson down there at Siwa is going to have more on his hands than he realizes soon.”
“Fergusson?” O’Connor remembered now. “Yes, 6th Australian Cavalry was out here keeping watch on Giarabub, but this looks like a strong reinforcement. I hope your boys are ready for a good fight,” said O’Connor. “If they get up some real strength here they just might get a notion to pay a visit to Siwa. It’s got much better water sources, and a couple decent airfields.”
Kinlan smiled inwardly, realizing that Fergusson was the name the Russian Captain told him to ask for at Siwa. Dobie’s section of the 12th Lancers had scouted down and found the man there, along with a company of Australian motorized cavalry and a battery of 25 pounders freshly arrived, and commanded by Jock Campbell, the man who had given his name to the famous ad hoc “Jock Columns” the British had used so successfully in these early desert forays. He gave Fedorov a knowing look, realizing the Russian had been straight with him all along, though it was still hard for him to believe what was happening to him, and to all the men of his brigade.
“That’s a large force,” Kinlan agreed. “At least a regiment. Can we swing over for a better look?”
They maneuvered discretely, and Kinlan was treated to a good look at the troops on the march, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Looks to be an infantry unit,” said Kinlan. “Not much transport, but that’s a good support column behind them.”
“Agreed,” said O’Connor. “Most likely supplies to relieve the garrison at Giarabub.”
When Popski translated Fedorov passed another moment of anxiety. This was not supposed to happen, but the facts on the ground were now making the strongest possible argument to the contrary. The history had changed again, another small eddy in the stream here.
When he was cut off by O’Connor’s attack, Major Castagna knew he was isolated and could only receive meager supplies by air at the small airfield serving the oasis, but he stubbornly determined to hold out, encouraged when he received a personal message from Rommel promising reinforcements and supplies. With six machinegun companies and a number of light guns, Castagna set about fortifying Giarabub, digging trench lines, laying barbed wire and mines, and building small gun positions to resist any attempt to take the place by storm. In the heart of the oasis, there was also an old fort, which he strongly reinforced, determined to hold out indefinitely. He put his troops on rations, knowing lack of food would be his greatest liability in time, but he did not have long to wait.
Rommel would keep his promise.
This had never happened in the history, and Fedorov now knew that the small battle that was fought here by the Australian Divisional Cavalry and other units might soon take a frightening new form.
“They will take Siwa if they come in strength,” he said through Popski.
“That’s no bloody good,” said O’Connor. “We need the place as a staging zone for our long range desert patrols. But Fergusson won’t be able to hold on here. He’s only a single battalion, and he’ll soon be bottled up or simply sent packing east, and it’s a long way to the Nile.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Kinlan with a grim smile.
“That’s the stiff upper lip,” said O’Connor, “but unless you’ve at least a full brigade with you, you may find the going rough, General. We’ll have to warn Fergusson, and then inform Wavell.”
Fedorov thought on this for a moment when he got the essence of O’Connor’s reaction from Popski. Then he ventured something. “You managed to capture or destroy an entire Italian Army with a much smaller force. Perhaps we can do more here with what we have in hand than you may realize at the moment.”
“I’m all for it,” said O’Connor. “At the very least we must give them a good punch in the nose if they come east for Siwa. Discourage them.”
“Why General,” said Kinlan. “That was exactly what I was thinking. I’ve a battalion of good Gurkha light infantry that can strengthen that garrison.”
“Gurkhas? Bloody good troops. I wasn’t aware they were here.”
They moved off, not wanting to draw anti-aircraft fire, and scouted the way north as well. Fedorov knew the real battle was there, and that much would hinge on the fate
of Tobruk at this stage in the fighting. If the Germans could take the place, then their lines of communication back to Benghazi and Tripoli would be cleared, and they could move east. But he did not know that Rommel had already made that decision, and was even now about to engage the thin defensive line Wavell had established south of Sidi Barani with the 2nd New Zealand Infantry Division and what was left of his armor. News of that battle would come to them soon after they landed, and it would pose another thorny question for both O’Connor and Kinlan.
O’Connor had a good look at what was on the ground now, amazed at the size of the force Kinlan had at his disposal.
“You’ve a good deal more than a battalion of Gurkhas! A full brigade? Here? Whatever for? Siwa is useful, I’ll grant you that, but the real fighting is north on the coast. That’s where this force should be, and as soon as possible. Whatever possessed Wavell to send you here? I must speak with him directly.”
He had not yet seen the tanks close up yet, as the helo deliberately landed several miles from the main column where Major Isaac was waiting with a Sultan Command Vehicle and two Dragon 8-wheeled scout cars. Fedorov knew that each passing hour was going to raise more and more questions in O’Connor’s quick mind, and he wondered what to do about it. He pulled Popski aside to confer with Kinlan one last time.
“General,” he said. “I think it is fair to say you are now convinced of what I have told you?”
“As loony as that sounds, the evidence is hard to deny. Yet my men know nothing of this, and I’ve a long road to walk with them.”
“You mean to go north?”
“Where else? We can’t sit out here indefinitely.”
“You’ll be needed there. My guess is that Wavell has his hands full. One good battle there could smash Rommel’s Afrika Korps, and buy the British the one thing they desperately need now—time.”
Kinlan nodded. “Ironic,” he said. “Time…”
Fedorov gave him a knowing look. “Then am I to assume I can collect my Marines and operate as I please?”
Kinlan hesitated, wondering whether he should let this fish off the hook just yet. Something still rankled at him about this whole situation, and the presence of this Russian team at the very moment his force was attacked by that ICBM. In spite of the man’s apparent sincerity, there had been long years of growing enmity with the Russians, ever since Putin started trying to patch the old Soviet Union back together again when he annexed the Crimea and meddled in Ukraine back in 2014… Back in 2014? If any of this were true, that time was now decades away, in the future. He still struggled with it, in spite of the obvious evidence.
“What do you propose to do?” he asked Fedorov.
There it was… The question Fedorov had been struggling to answer himself. He was in a real quandary over how to handle the issue of O’Connor. The evidence he had presented to Kinlan had been enough to establish that all important factor of great doubt in the man. He knew from his experience aboard Kirov that he had to find some key evidence that was wholly inexplicable by any other means, and this would leave time displacement as the only possible solution that could resolve that issue, and also account for all the other evidence.
The presence of Popski, the men from the LRDG, and O’Connor with his downed Blenheim were strong local evidence as to their position in time, but they could be easily dismissed, just as Karpov had tried to dismiss the Fulmar fighter that first overflew the ship, and even the radio intercepts of local era news broadcasts, thinking it was all an elaborate hoax staged by NATO as a deception. He knew Brigadier Kinlan was likely to come to the same conclusion, unless he could present the man with incontrovertible evidence that could not be easily dismissed or explained away. When they had first displaced in time, so long ago it seemed now, that evidence had been obtained by reconnoitering Jan Mayen Island for the weather station that was located there. When that facility was not found, along with the modern airstrip that should have been there, it strongly argued that they were not where they belonged.
Sultan Apache had been that same inexplicable dilemma for Kinlan. The only possible solution had been the impossible notion of time displacement. It was the only thing that explained what could have happened, and also account for Popski, O’Connor and all the local era evidence.
Yet now he had another challenge—how to bring General O’Connor to the same place in his understanding? Kinlan had been correct in pointing out that the man would have no foundation to admit the possibility of time displacement as an odd aftereffect of nuclear detonation. He would have no knowledge of nuclear weapons at all, as the physics involved was still theoretical and would not be tested for another five years. Convincing O’Connor of what had happened would present a whole new set of problems.
With each disclosure of the secret of their identity, Fedorov knew the risk of damage to the chain of causality that extended forward from this point would grow more and more severe. Only a very few men had eventually managed to discern the true nature and origins of the ship, Turing, Admiral Tovey, and the select few he admitted to that grey priesthood he had come to call the Watch. A ship like Kirov could be easily hidden in the world, out to sea on the vast oceans, and out of sight. That was not the case now for General Kinlan and his brigade of modern British troops! They were here, and their presence could not be hidden indefinitely.
At the moment, the isolation of this place, and the desolation of the endless desert around them, served as a thin buffer between Kinlan’s world and this one in 1941. But the General could not sit here for very long. He had neither the supplies or fuel to operate independently for any extended period. His men would need food, fuel, water, and when they ran through their own organic supplies, perhaps enough for a week or two, they would be forced to move to a place where they could survive.
And then it would begin…
Chapter 5
What could they do, Fedorov wondered? The oasis site of Siwa presented one option. Could the brigade move there? Perhaps, but that would only become a brief outpost against the inevitable. They might be able to sequester Colonel Fergusson and his Australian cavalry units, and keep the lid on things for a while, but one day someone would get through to Alexandria on a radio, or the simple silence and lack of contact from the outpost would prompt the British to determine what was going on there. Another a relief column would come and they would be facing this same moment again, standing at the precipice just as they were now.
No. Fedorov knew that trying to conceal the fact of Kinlan’s presence here would only delay the inevitable. His other choice was equally difficult. It meant he would have to subject the locals here to the sudden shock and realization of what had happened, and by so doing, the chances that knowledge of this would spread became astronomical. He could hear the rumors now, of invincible warriors from another time, or another world, come to rescue Britain in her hour of gravest need. The shock would be profound, but he wondered how the Axis powers would react to such knowledge?
Certainly Volkov knew the truth by now, particularly if he met and spoke with Karpov. He was, himself, a denizen of that future world, and this was most likely something he had held secret since he first disappeared—over 30 years now since he manifested in 1908, if that was really what happened to him. Images he had retrieved of the man belied his age. Volkov was easily in his 60s as far as Fedorov could tell.
Then what to do? He had difficult choices on every side. Should he simply spirit O’Connor off to Alexandria and leave things as they were? There would be a brief interval of calm, until Kinlan decided he would move north, and then all hell would break loose. He needed to sort this through.
“General,” he began. “We must face the problem of your presence here, and the shock it will cause. If you go north I can tell you what you will find, just as I told you about Sultan Apache. One division is still besieged in Tobruk, and the British are making a last stand below Sidi Barani. From intelligence we gathered, Rommel is stronger than he was at this time, and he’s m
oving east well ahead of schedule. Do you know this battle?” He was going to say ‘this history,’ but he was choosing his words carefully with Popski translating the bulk of what he said.
“Somewhat,” said Kinlan. “I can educate myself quickly enough.”
“Well I can brief you. Rommel has two German divisions in hand now, the 5th Light and the 15th Panzers. He should have only one, but that second division arrived sooner than expected. Between the two he’ll have four battalions of armor, four more motorized infantry and a pioneer and recon battalion in each division. These are veteran troops, even at this stage in the war, and he also has two more Italian motorized units at hand, the Ariete and Trento divisions. they will be opposed by a single division, the 2nd New Zealand, and if Rommel is true to form he’ll execute a flanking maneuver. The problem is that the British have insufficient mobile reserves to counter that. The remnant of the 2nd Armored is no more than a weak brigade now, and just retreated all the way from Mersa Brega on the Gulf of Sirte. Their vehicles and men will be worn out, and their 7th Armored division is in equally bad shape, refitting at Alexandria.”
“Well…” Kinlan offered a grim smile. “The 7th is about to get some reinforcements, Captain.”
“Then you mean to engage here?”
“I mean to go north as planned, and if these divisions are in my way…” Kinlan did not have to say anything more.
“Yet you realize that Mersa Matruh will be no haven for you,” Fedorov explained. “If you do this, then you will be joining the British Army up north. There’s no other way to look at it, and we have the issue of how they will react to your arrival.”
Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) Page 4