“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.