“I’m sorry,” Ritter continued, almost feeling honestly apologetic, “but I of course cannot give you any more information about the aircraft than I already have…”
“You think I’m trying to get some ‘dirt’ on your bloody aircraft?” Thorne actually laughed out loud at the idea. “Shall I tell you about your bloody aircraft, mate?” Without waiting for an answer from the surprised German pilot, Thorne searched his memory for what he’d re-read the day before regarding the Douglas A-1H Skyraider.
“The ‘Messerschmitt Lion attack aircraft, as you call it,” he began, giving emphasis to the title. Powered by one radial engine of around two thousand kilowatts… about twenty-seven hundred horsepower — pferdestärke — or thereabouts. Powerplant probably manufactured by BMW or Junkers, as I’m informed they’re the more prevalent engine manufacturers, but more likely BMW considering it’s a radial. Aircraft’s maximum speed would be about five hundred and fifteen kilometres per hour, with a cruising speed of just over three hundred. Wingspan of around fifteen and a half metres, and a length of just under twelve… it can carry up to three and a half thousand kilograms of weaponry on fifteen underwing and fuselage hardpoints. All this along with what appear to be four twenty-millimetre cannon, all firing outside the disc of the propeller, and one twin thirteen millimetre machine gun in the rear cockpit. Without auxiliary tanks, it should have a range of around fifteen hundred kilometres.” He gave the astounded Ritter a casual grin. “That about sum it up?”
“How can you know all this?” Ritter demanded as he stood stock still. “The armaments and dimensions you could possibly work out from the wreckage, but the range… the speeds! How can you know all these things?”
“That’ll become clear at a later date… there are a few things I’m considering showing you in the next few days that might give you a few new insights into life as you know it in Grossdeutschland!”
Back in his cell that evening, Ritter found himself left with a great deal to consider regarding Thorne’s comments of that day, and of his own imprisonment at Scapa Flow. Although his capture was pure chance — of that there could be no doubt — he was filled with the uncanny feeling that this Australian officer somehow knew him… or at least knew of him. It was a sensation that promoted some highly unwanted uncertainty, and the overall level of complexity in his life had taken a turn for the worse when, in his mind, it’d become far too complex already. How did this Australian have so much information regarding the aircraft he flew — information that should’ve been top secret? How was it this man seemed to know things about him? That was the worst of it… Thorne, a man whom he’d never before met… an officer of the Royal Air Force — the enemy — had intimated he knew a great deal more about Ritter than he was revealing. There was a riddle here that would require solving… if for no other reason than to allow some simplicity to creep back into the pilot’s life.
At the same time Ritter was sitting in private reflection in his cell, Thorne was at Alternate on Eday, seated at the PC on the Galaxy’s upper deck and working on the idea for a presentation he could put before Carl Ritter. He’d originally intended to use an audio-visual piece prepared specifically for display to Allied military personnel at the Hindsight Unit, similar to the one he’d shown Trumbull. A well produced sixty-minute documentary, it’d taken two months to put together using stock and archival footage alone, and a leading, international director had compiled it with the full assistance of the BBC, the Imperial War Museum, the Smithsonian Institute in the United States, and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The production of the documentary was extremely important, as it was intended purely for use in convincing uninformed military personnel of the present — the 1940s — of the existence of the Hindsight Unit and of the correct path for history.
Television as a medium was still extremely rare in the Nineteen-Forties — the first prototype unit had been developed just twelve years before, and the idea was still in its infancy. Audio-visual media had been chosen for this very reason to best convey what Hindsight was trying to accomplish. Television’s power as a tool of learning — and of propaganda — was well known in a time where it was a readily accepted norm in almost every home, and it’d been reasonably deduced that well-compiled images and a concise narrative could have a devastating impact on an audience with no idea of the capabilities of a 21st Century production studio. Just as the unscrupulous might utilise such production techniques to lie and deceive a nation’s population — or an individual — the truth could also be as effectively and graphically put forward.
Thorne decided against that particular piece at the last moment however, as it was decidedly biased in its undertones and dialogue, having been produced for a ‘target audience’ of Allied personnel. Germany was the main aggressor in the European Theatre to be sure — there was no possibility that could be denied — but there were different ways in which one might convey the message intended. To all intents and purposes, what Thorne was intending to do was to convince a man of high principle to betray his own country. That was something that came far more easily in Thorne’s era than Ritter’s, particularly within so loyal and regimented an environment as the German Officer Corps. Something much more graphic and powerful was required than the standard ‘tell it like it is’ video, and to that end the Australian had delved into Hindsight’s DVD library for something else they’d brought along with them.
Part of that collection was the entire ‘World At War’ series produced at the end of the Realtime 1970s. Narrated by Sir Lawrence Olivier, it’d been acclaimed internationally for its in-depth chronicling of the history of the Second World War, and of the twenty-five fifty-minute episodes, the one chosen by Thorne was one he’d always felt to be both the most painful and most powerful. As detached a student of history as he generally was, he’d only been able to bring himself to watch that particular episode once despite the high regard he accorded the entire series.
Thorne grimaced as he realised he still thought of the shows’ narrator as the ‘late’ Lawrence Olivier. In that reality, Lawrence Olivier was still very much alive, yet to be knighted, and had only just completed probably his greatest acclaimed work the year before… Wuthering Heights… assuming of course that within this altered timeline, the film had even been made. With some mild trepidation, Thorne nevertheless felt that particular episode would have the right effect on Ritter. If the passages in the man’s diary could be believed, the pilot was a man of principle — a man who’d in no way support the atrocities committed by the Nazis throughout the Realtime Second World War. There could be no way he might support the much greater atrocities yet to be committed by a Nazi-led Grossdeutschland that was victorious in Europe.
Thorne’s mouth was dry as he ran the back of his hand across it and shut down the DVD playing software on the PC. He badly wanted a drink, but managed to find the strength to refrain for the second evening in as many days. It took a great deal of effort, that was certain, but the mere fact that at least one other person now knew about his problem provided just that little extra willpower he required: that and the other consideration that if one person knew, it was almost certain others as yet unknown to him also either knew or suspected.