“We can hit them again if we know the truth… make sure of it…” Schiller tried to continue.
“We have nothing left to hit them with!” The Reichsmarschall snarled with vehemence, making Schiller flinch in surprise as he slammed his palm down on the tabletop. “Everything we have is needed for Seelöwe! Losing SKG1 alone has left gaps in our pre-invasion bombardment plans we can ill afford!” He exhaled sharply and nervously ran both hands through his short, greyed hair. “Our capital ships have taken almost everything our industry and manpower could spare over the last seven years, and what’s left has only barely been enough to provide us with the rest of the equipment we need for this invasion… that includes all the new tanks and armoured vehicles that’ve been so late in coming as a result! We have just three carrier-based surface groups, all required to support the invasion’s initial thrusts across the Channel. None of our air power can be released for exactly the same reason: I’m not going to weaken the Luftwaffe any further when we’re so close to S-Day… there’s no time to regain our strength. You two know all of this!”
“And if they have survived, and they decide when the invasion comes they have no alternative but to use one of the devices our agent believed they were guarding in the Galaxy’s hold?” Müller’s question brought up the one real problem with Reuters’ plans, and it was a question the Reichsmarschall had been avoiding.
“We’ve been through this before as well!” His tone was almost plaintive now… the pressures building up to what could be the most important moment in the history of the Twentieth Century were starting to become obvious now, greatly exacerbated by personal issues that were far from dealt with on a number of levels. “We don’t know that what they were keeping inside the aircraft were nuclear weapons… Klein never got close enough to confirm what they had in there. It they were nuclear weapons, then they were well shielded: the dosimeters he carried with him never detected any radiation whatsoever, and he was able to get close enough for there to have surely been something detectable, even if only in tiny doses.” He sighed deeply, his face and body language clearly showing the exhaustion and tension he was feeling. “We know there are three crates in that aircraft’s hold that we’ve not been able to identify… if they are in fact nuclear weapons, and Hindsight still survives then –at worst — they only have three nuclear weapons, and that changes nothing. They can damage our plans for Seelöwe only if they use them on tactical targets during the invasion itself, or on the assembly points before they sail. If this does occur it may… may… disrupt or halt our operations, but even that isn’t necessarily inevitable. Even if Seelöwe were postponed or abandoned, we can still blockade the British Isles with sea and air power and starve the country into submission: the U-boats and aircraft we have at our disposal are far more advanced that Germany possessed in Realtime. Whatever the situation at Scapa Flow, we’ll eventually prevail regardless of any potential nuclear threat. Right now it’s what appears to be the case that’s far more important than what actually may be!”
“You’re worrying more about our own Chancellor than you are about the enemy!” Schiller growled, unimpressed with the rationalisations behind Reuters’ words and not afraid to make his displeasure known.
“Because the threat from that direction is far greater, and far more real than anything the British can throw at us, bomb or no bomb… you know damn well that’s true, Albert!” The continual badgering had finally worn him down however, and he raised a hand to silence his friend as Schiller began to reply. “But… as you two are so adamant; we will send a recon flight by the end of the week… just to make you both happy.”
“We all want the same thing, Kurt!” Schiller moderated, appeased by the small victory. “There’s no one happier than I when we confirm Hindsight has been destroyed.”
“There’ll be one person happier,” Reuters said sharply, his voice cold as ice.
Prepared defensive lines at Smeeth
South-East of Ashford, Kent
That Wednesday evening was much the same as it had been most nights in the last two weeks for the tankers of A Squadron, 7th Royal Tank Regiment. Their encampment was dispersed a few kilometres south-east of Ashford for safety, and hidden at the edge of a small wood to the northern side of the Hythe Road (A20) as it continued on from Ashford down to Folkestone and the Dover Strait. The evening meal had been served from the back of a mobile field kitchen converted from one of the unit’s Bren carriers, and the meal, bland and tasteless as usual, had been forgotten within minutes of its consumption.
They spent their time smoking while playing Five Hundred or Canasta and occasionally sneaking a drink from an illegal stash of rum the CO knew about but ignored. The digging of defensive earthworks had been finished for some time, and as such there was little more for them to do save what they already were doing… waiting for what now seemed to be the inevitable. Infantry, anti-tank units and some cruiser tanks of the 1st London and the 47th Divisions were dug in along the coast from Dover to Dungeness, but the heavier armoured units were being held in reserve, ready to counter-attack if required or, as might well become necessary, to stand and hold the defensive lines further inland if the initial German assault broke out from the beaches.
The crew of Grosvenor watched that evening as a convoy of Bedford trucks rumbled past, heading for the coast with an assortment of anti-tank guns and support equipment in tow. Just half a kilometre north of the road at that point, Grosvenor was one of the closer of 7RTR’s tanks, and from where they huddled around their sheltered fire by the Matilda’s bow, the precession was clearly visible despite the failing light.
“They’re pushing their luck, ain’t they?” Gerry Gawler observed over an enamel mug of warm, weak tea with a malicious grin, making a great show of stretching his arm and glancing at his watch. “Still a few minutes of daylight left… Luftwaffe might get ‘em!” Very little moved during daytime hours due to uncontested Luftwaffe air superiority, and the nights were therefore full of activity from dusk until dawn as troop movements, reinforcements, resupply convoys and the like travelled this way and that around Southern England under the cover of darkness.
“Jerry bombers would ‘ave us too if they could find us, Corp,” Steven Hodges observed with a grin of his own, mouth half full of stale bread that he’d dunked into his own tea in a vain attempt to soften it up.
“Doubt they’d ‘ave Gerry, even if they could find him…!” Davids pointed out with a mischievous grin, the minor privilege of higher rank letting him get away with using the corporal’s hated nickname. “Those Luftwaffe boyos are right fussy, I’m told.”