“More U-boats…?” Kowalski ventured, his own historical knowledge making that assumption seem logical.
“That’s what we’d have expected…” Nick agreed, but shook his head. “As it turns out, it seems that U-boats have been pushed back on the shipbuilding agenda rather than given priority.”
“Why cut back?” Davies frowned. “They almost brought the Brits to their knees in Realtime with what was, in reality, just a handful of subs: with a fully-operational force they could shut the country down altogether.”
“That’s a worrying situation on the face of it…” Eileen observed, giving it some thought. “It implies the Germans aren’t worried about needing to isolate Britain.”
“That’s our conclusion here also,” Alpert nodded with a grimace. “It gets worse: instead of U-boats they’ve instead embarked on an expanded capital ship program. Most of this information has been gathered since I landed in ‘Thirty-Nine, but there seems to have been a lot more frequent and open trading in technology and knowledge between Germany and Japan over the last half of the decade, and part of that has included warships.”
“Oh shit.” Thorne groaned in sour anticipation and Nick nodded in dark agreement, understanding the man’s reaction.
“Yes — reconnaissance and espionage reports indicate that Bismarck and Tirpitz were launched a few months ago and are believed to be completing sea trials soon, if they haven’t already.”
“So they’ve got their two battleships out a bit earlier?” Green began, with more hope than he really felt.
“Sorry, Bob — not quite that simple,” Alpert explained. “We’ve also got pictures of two more battleships of the same class nearing completion in the shipyards– a class that definitely shouldn’t exist on this side of the planet. Hitler apparently refused to abide by the Washington Treaty right from the start and the mentality of appeasement throughout the last half of the Thirties meant he bloody-well got away with it, just as he did in Realtime.”
“Battleships…?” Davies interjected, frowning. “Why goddamn battleships? They should be building carriers if they had any sense.”
“You can bet your bottom dollar there’ll be a few carriers out there too somewhere…” Thorne explained, thinking on his feet as Nick nodded silently in confirmation. “…but you have to take into account the times…in 1940 the world was — is — still obsessed with the battleship as the symbol of naval power: Yamamoto didn’t destroy that myth until Pearl Harbor, although the Brits’ attack on Taranto a year earlier suggested naval air power was on its way. If Reuters is involved then they’ll be building carriers all right, but the image of sea power will be just as important to people like Hitler and the pricks in charge of foreign policy over there. Battleships give a nation a lot of ‘street cred’ when ‘Flying the flag’, as it were, to the rest of the world.”
“There’s also their utility in a worst case scenario,” Eileen pointed out. “If the Germans do come across the Channel, there are few things as useful to an invasion force as a battleship’s guns — that has been a constant for centuries.”
“Yeah, well they’ll get a nasty surprise or two if they do try that!” Davies gave an evil grin. “A very nasty surprise or two…!”
“That’s as may be,” Thorne growled, not liking to take too much for granted. “But I’d still make sure we’ve a contingency plans in place.” He turned his gaze back to Nick. “Were ‘Alternate’, ‘Waypoint’ and ‘Bolthole’ prepared as required?”
“They’re being finished as we speak, although work has taken longer than I’d originally hoped. ‘Alternate’ is complete, and at a pinch, we could probably get in at Tocumwal right now, but it may be another month or so before the Ceylon strip’s finished — seasonal rains and supply problems have delayed things a bit. Fuel may also be a problem: we’ve a refinery — finally — that can cope with producing jet fuel to a high enough standard and the underground tanks here are full, but again it may also be a month or so before we can get enough shipped out to Ceylon for use at Waypoint.” He gave a grimace. “That’s assuming the U-boats that are operational don’t make things difficult.”
“In any case we’d better have ‘Larry’, ‘Curly’ and ‘Moe’ prepared for immediate use — we might need them.” Thorne shrugged, accepting Nick’s answer as the best they could’ve hoped for under the circumstances. “We got an aircraft that can deliver them?”
“Bomber Command has given us a Halifax we’ve had modified to specs. She’ll carry one of the weapons to Berlin and back well enough from here.”
“Assuming they make it out of the target area…” Thorne pointed out, then added: “But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it: worst case, the F-35 can take one in anyway and I’ll pilot the frigger myself if it comes to that.”
“I’ve a detailed report prepared for all of you to read when you’ve had a chance to settle in,” Nick continued, returning to the topic at hand, “but the upshot is that it’s obvious the New Eagles have definitely been here quite a while…a lot longer than we’d have liked. We know for a fact that at the very latest they arrived earlier than June of 1934.”
“How in God’s name can you be so certain?” Thorne was genuinely puzzled.
“I’m surprised you haven’t realised already, Max,” Nick answered evasively with a broad grin, making no effort to conceal his glee as he decided to keep his CO guessing. “All this time we’ve been sitting here and you haven’t noticed?”
“Oh, F-F-S…!” Max replied with an exasperated smirk of his own, beginning to cast his eyes about the room as he recognised and accepted he was about to become the butt of a trick of some kind.
“Christ on a crutch!” Eileen breathed softly in exclamation, the first to notice what Nick was talking about as all looked all about seeking the same clues. “The mantelpiece, Max…!”
“The mantelpiece…? What about the bloody…?” Thorne’s initial glance in that direction yielded no revelation, but as the others also stared and there were more gasps of recognition, he finally caught what Alpert was referring to. “Holy crap…!”
As was standard practice in any military mess anywhere in the Empire or Commonwealth, there was always a picture or portrait to be found hanging somewhere prominent of the reigning British monarch. The Officers’ Mess they were in at that moment was no exception and a large portrait hung high above the mantelpiece by the bar. The image was of the King standing alone at the top of a set of stone steps, dressed in ceremonial robes with a sword at his belt while holding hat and gloves in either hand.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary at all to begin with until Thorne had taken more notice of the actual person in the picture and had realised the same thing Eileen, Bob Green and Hal Markowicz had discovered. The person they saw standing in that posed portrait was not of the man they’d expected to be depicted there.
“What the fuck’s he doing up there?” Thorne blurted, completely caught off guard.
“That, Max, is an official portrait of the King by the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith and Emperor of India: Edward the Eighth.” Nick went out of his way to include the entirety of the king’s full title to add weight to the impact of the revelation.