Wednesday
July 3, 1940
A few minutes after midnight, and stars filled the dark, cloudless sky over Northern France. Although a relatively mild night for the middle of summer, it was still warm enough to move about quite comfortably outside without need of a jacket. There was still activity at the mansion outside Amiens, even so late into the night: a military headquarters never really slept, and the movements of security guards and men manning the surrounding anti-aircraft batteries was matched by the unloading of supply trucks at the kitchen doors of the main building. It’d only be a few hours before the catering staff awoke before dawn and began baking bread in preparation for the morning breakfasts.
Just a few dozen metres away at the rear of the mansion, the stables had become a quite serviceable guardhouse for the Wehrmacht security force billeted in the servants’ quarters nearby. A long, narrow structure of white-painted wooden planks and beams, a low-set thatched roof covered the lot and did a good job of keeping out the elements. Beneath that roof, the majority of the building was designed with a wide, central ‘aisle’ running down the centre, off which were six individual horses’ stalls, three to a side. The far end held a large hopper for hay, and food for the horses on one side of the aisle, while on the other was a small room that’d originally been intended as a changing area for riders.
The room had been easily converted into a makeshift quarters for the single prisoner currently being held in the guardhouse. A basic but nevertheless quite comfortable wooden cot with a straw mattress lay against one wall, while a small table and two chairs were positioned against the other, and a small cast iron stove provided ample heating in cold weather at the far end of the room, its chimney pipe rising straight up through the roof above. A small book case had been squeezed in against the wall between the cot and the doorway, and was filled almost to overflowing with text books of a variety of sizes and bindings.
The guard on duty made no effort to challenge Joachim Müller as he arrived at the entrance to the building at that time of night. Müller was well known, as was his proximity to the Reichsmarschall, and they’d all become accustomed to his regular visits at the guardhouse in any case. The single prisoner they held within had arrived with the HQ group, and had remained there with them the whole time, during which he’d been no trouble whatsoever and had actually become quite friendly with most of the guards.
The door to the small room at the far end of the stable was open, but Müller waited and knocked anyway as a matter of course. Inside, the single occupant lay on his back on the cot, staring at the ceiling. He’d heard the man’s approach, but only looked up as he’d heard the knock at the door to catch sight of the Müller silhouetted in the opening.
“Does it really serve any purpose to knock?” He asked with a tired voice, only the faint hint of sarcasm in the soft tones. “I’m hardly in a position to refuse.”
“It costs nothing to retain good manners all the same,” Müller countered with a genial smile. “I’m not disturbing you?” Both men spoke in English, and the prisoner’s Cambridge accent clearly indicated he as a native Briton.
“Well, I was thinking of taking a nice walk, and perhaps a boat ride across The Channel, but with the weather and all those guards, I decided to stay in instead… come…” he added finally, a wave of his hand bidding the other man to enter. As Müller stepped into the room and turned on the light switch near the door, before moving across to sit at one of the chairs by the table. At the same time, the man he’d come to visit sat up, turning about on the cot until his legs were hanging over the side and they were facing each other.
At fifty-eight years of age, Samuel Michael Lowenstein had dedicated more than three decades of his life to research into physics and quantum theory, prior to his disappearance late in Realtime 2009. With piercing, pale blue eyes and a rough-hewn beard and moustache of around two months’ growth covering the lower half of a weathered and knowledgeable face, Lowenstein stood at just average height, although he was nevertheless somewhat taller than Müller.
His hair was as grey as his beard, and was generally thick and unruly, although a thinning section at the crown of his head threatened the likelihood of eventual baldness. Having been transported back in time with the New Eagles group however had of course removed that danger as he was now as impervious to ageing as any of those who’d come from the future with him.
“It’s been a while, Joachim,” Lowenstein observed softly, watching the other man with subtle intent. “I’d started to think you’d finally forgotten about me.”
“It’s been crazy, Samuel,” Müller replied, almost sounding apologetic, “so much organising still to be done, and none of it made easier with a war going on.”
“Yet still you find time to come and visit a humble man such as myself… I feel honoured.” The remark contained more bitterness than Lowenstein had actually intended, and he immediately relented somewhat. “Don’t mind me,” he added with a dismissive wave of his hand, nevertheless noting that the words indeed seemed to have hit their mark in the guilty reaction on Müller’s face. “That’s just the boredom talking…idle hands and all that. I can see you’ve come for a reason, Joachim. What do you wish to ask me?”
“Just a chat, Samuel… just a chat…” Müller shook his head, relief clearly evident on his face that the ice had finally been broken. “For all my abilities, I’ve never come close to attaining a fraction of the understanding you’ve gained of temporal displacement over the years. It’s me who’s honoured to have the opportunity to talk to so knowledgeable a man as yourself.” Although there was no hiding that there was an as yet unspoken agenda in Müller’s presence, that statement was also the truth. “I never seem to spend time with you without learning something knew about the processes behind what we’ve accomplished here.”
Lowenstein almost found that remark almost amusing. Müller had used the pronoun ‘we’, and had actually included him in that statement. It was a somewhat ironic concept for a man whose entire initial involvement in assisting the New Eagles had only been secured through the use of kidnapping, brutality and torture. He recognised that Joachim Müller hadn’t personally been involved in any of that — he’d been brought in as technical advisor to the project quite late — yet the man, pleasant as he was, was still a member of the same despicable group that had subverted his legitimate research and used it to bring about what might eventually prove to be the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe.
Born and bred in Southern England, Sam Lowenstein neither sounded nor looked anything like the stereotypical caricature image of a Jew that many less tolerant beliefs espoused. His Cambridge accent and almost Celtic appearance gave no real indication of the Judaic heritage that his surname suggested and he fiercely adhered to.
Fifth-generation English, his ancestors had nevertheless suffered more than their fair share of anti-Semitic discrimination and abuse from fellow Englishmen and Europeans alike in the generations who’d lived prior to the Second World War. Even after the end of the war that had supposedly ended the Nazis’ reign of terror in Europe and their attempted extermination of the Jewish faith… even after the creation of the State of Israel and the Jewish homeland… the persecution and discrimination around the world continued, albeit in a far more subdued fashion that was– for the most part at least — considered to be unacceptable by a larger part of the Western World.