Tovey would now find out exactly how the cricket field he would have to play upon might soon look. Planners for these operations, most notably Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, were eager to begin. “Procrastination is the thief of time,” said Keyes, “and time is half a victory, which, being lost, is irrevocable.” Tovey was presented with a list of merchant ships, oilers and troop liners available, and asked to provide two aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers and at least eighteen destroyers.
He took the news like a bleeding man being asked to donate blood, but in the end he agreed that Ramillies and Revenge could be pulled off convoy duty as he had already decided. He could either assign Ark Royal and Illustrious to the operation, or bring Furious out of her berth at the Clyde, and pull the enterprising Captain Wells and HMS Glorious from their present duty. In the end this was what he decided to do, still wanting carriers available for the watch on northern seas. Admiral Pound agreed, and Tovey was off to Bletchley Park, his briefcase just a little fatter with these reports and plans, and his resources just a little thinner.
It wasn’t until his car pulled up at the estate, and he saw Alan Turing fiddling with his bicycle gears, that he allowed himself to smile. This time he was the one about to spring the big news on the intelligence master. Let’s see if Turing can decipher this business about the Russian ship when I tell him what I know now, thought Tovey.
“Good to see you again, Admiral, though I wish the news in the intelligence circuits wasn’t so gloomy.”
“I can certainly agree with that,” said Tovey. “Anything more on the German buildup in Southern France?”
“We’re getting some bits and pieces decoded. The two motorized divisions we’ve identified are now on standby notice, and this might interest you, sir, the Germans have moved one of their big ships from the eastern Baltic to Kiel.”
“The Hindenburg?”
“I’m afraid so. The ship has apparently just completed trials. We’ve decoded an order indicating the Germans are bringing their fleet to a higher level of readiness again. Graf Zeppelin has moved to an anchorage off Oslo, and a few of their newer ships were assigned to that task force.”
“Is the Admiralty aware of this?”
“They will be shortly, sir. I believe the dispatches went out this morning, but you have it right from the horse’s mouth now.” Turing smiled.
“I must say it’s the last thing I’d care to hear about. I’ve just come from a meeting with Admirals Pound and Keyes. They seem to be intent on teeing up an operation against the Atlantic islands. It’s all this worry over Franco, Spanish neutrality and Gibraltar.”
“Those worries may be well founded, sir.” Turing had no comfort for Tovey this day. “We have now identified the code word for a planned German attack against Gibraltar as Operation Felix.”
“Any indication as to timing?”
“We’re watching, but the general consensus is that they might not go forward with such a plan until the next favorable moon. That could be any day now, as the moon is waning and will be dark on the 31st. If nothing develops, then the next window would be September 30th to October 3.”
“Let us hope nothing does develop in the short run,” said Tovey. “We’re playing for as much time as we can get now, what with so many ships laid up for repairs.”
“I saw the reports on Operation Menace, sir. Not very encouraging.”
“Indeed, well they’ve just handed me another briefcase full of the same sort. Coincidentally, those plans call for operations during that same period, September 30th as the moon wanes to black. You never heard that from me, Mister Turing.”
“Of course, sir.”
Tovey seemed to linger on an inner thought for a moment. Then he fixed Turing with a steady eye. “What I am now about to discuss will fall firmly within that same category. In fact, you will be the first and only person privy to the matter.”
Turing raised an eyebrow, proud to be so trusted, but also realizing what this must be about. “I assume it pertains to the envelope you asked me to send?”
Tovey smiled.
Chapter 24
“It does indeed,” said Tovey. “I shared those photographs with the Russians in a very private meeting recently, and I must tell you that they were as flummoxed as we both were over the matter. Yet that was only half of it. They pointedly admitted that the photographs were authentic.”
The interval of silence harbored something quite profound, yet both men now seemed to know that they were of the same mind. “Mister Turing,” said Tovey. “You made a telling point when I last left you, suggesting that no one could have anticipated or predicted the events depicted in those photographs, and that it would therefore be a complete waste of time for us to consider the documents you uncovered were part of some deliberate deception. It would be nonsensical.”
“Agreed, sir.”
“Well, this is precisely what the Russians believed, and more, their Admiral indicated that those photographs depicted events that he personally lived through!”
“Yet those dates are in the future,” said Turing.
“Quite so, and this was leading to a very alarming conclusion.”
It was that overwhelming question that he had run through his mind on the verse of T.S. Eliot… Oh, do not ask what is it, let us go and make our visit. This brought him to the tour of the Russian ship.
“At that point the Russians invited me to visit their ship, and what I will now tell you must be held at the highest level of secrecy. No one else will know it, and I mean no one-not the Admiralty, not even the Prime Minister… The real thunder comes now, Mister Turing. I was told that the photographs are authentic, and when I discretely pointed out the obvious misdating on the labels, I was told those dates were also accurate.” He let that stand, scratching his nose uncomfortably, but Turing simply nodded.
“You do not seemed surprised to hear that,” said Tovey.
“Oh, I find it earthshaking, but I suppose I’ve had a good long while to consider the matter. This echoes the very same logic I applied to the situation when I first uncovered those files. If they were all fabrications, that led to one mystery, as to why anyone would be producing such material. If, however, they were authentic, dates and all, then we had hold of another cat by the tail, and a rather ferocious one.”
“Well I think it may have sunk its claws into the both of us,” said Tovey. “The question now is how could this be possible? That was, of course, what the Russians asked. They were very disturbed by those photographs. One, in particular, was supposedly taken just after this Admiral Volsky and I had concluded a meeting-the very same meeting referenced in those reports you found in that box. Yet it was the date and time of the meeting that was truly astounding. The man claimed it occurred on August 17, 1942.”
“Indeed…”
“Do you take that with a grain of salt or are you inclined to believe such a statement?”
This was the heart of it, and Turing could see that Tovey was obviously leading him to the front door on something here, so he leapt ahead and rang the bell.
“Admiral, as impossible as it may sound, I must tell you that I am willing to take this Russian Admiral at his word. Because I have already worked out the only possible explanation for all of this, and I think you are about to confirm my own judgment on the matter.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes sir. You see, for any of this to be true, the photographs, the reports, the testimony of these Russian officers, one fact, and one fact only must also be true, and that is that these men, and their ship, have come from another time-a future time. It’s the only way this Russian Admiral could claim he met with you in 1942. Yes?”
Tovey smiled. “You have it exactly,” and he seemed very relieved, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. “Now then… As to this ship I was invited to tour, that was the icing on this little cake we’ve had in the oven. You will be amazed at what I tell you next. I was shown things on that ship that boggle the mind. I understand that you have designed some unusual equipment here to aid in your decryption effort.”