Davall calmed himself as he made his way out of the flat and back into the main streets, pausing only to drop the valuables in a waste bucket before slowly making his way home. The Germans he passed on the streets ignored him, but he took care anyway as he entered his own street, keeping one eye out for them as he opened the door and sighed. He’d killed a man with his own hands; he expected that he would feel different, but all he felt was numb, dispassionate. Johnston had died, but his death should have affected his killer more, right?
In the distance, he could hear the sound of guns.
Chapter Nineteen
London, England
“I think that we can get started now,” Churchill said, as he took his seat at the head of the table. The conference room might be buried under a London that was being bombed intermittently, but it was still surprisingly comfortable; the insight into how the rich and powerful lived made DeRiemer roll his eyes. “For the moment, Parliament has granted us the power to run the war to the bitter end, so…where exactly do we stand?”
The heads of the services exchanged short glances. “I have an update from Admiral Fraser at Scapa Flow,” Admiral Cunningham said after a long pause. “The surviving units of Home Fleet have decamped from Scapa and are sailing to the Tail of the Bank, up at the Clyde; Scapa Flow is too insecure for continued use. The base itself took a serious pounding, and while we can repair much of the damage quickly, the remaining facilities will take months to repair. At best, we’re looking at weeks of heavy repair work at massive cost.
“Home Fleet itself is a shadow of its former self,” he continued. “All the carriers were destroyed and most of the heavy ships were lost or damaged; the damaged units will take months to repair, even assuming that we could get them to a dockyard without the Germans turning their attention to completing the job. The net result, Prime Minister, is that the Germans have effective control over the North Sea as far south as Dover, and can reinforce almost at will.”
Churchill looked as if he had been struck a physical blow. “We cannot prevent the Germans from reinforcing their positions?”
“The main forces earmarked for that role were Home Fleet and assorted destroyer and MTB units based along the east coast,” Cunningham said, grimly. “Home Fleet has a handful of smaller units left, but they don’t have the fire-power to survive against the German battleships and carriers. One of the MTB units was actually based at Felixstowe; one of their ships managed to escape before the Germans seized the harbour, the others were either destroyed in the fighting or were captured and pressed into German service.
“I have ordered MTB units and submarines to launch attacks as and when they can against German ships and have ordered everything of ours out of the war zone, so that they don’t have to worry too much about hitting our ships,” he concluded. “Regardless, our ability to prevent the Germans from reinforcing their bridgehead is severely reduced and if we attack, we will lose units we can ill spare.”
Churchill held his eyes for a long moment. “What do you recommend we do?”
“We have to recall the Mediterranean and Eastern Fleets at once,” Cunningham said. “As long as the Germans control the seas, they can land more or less wherever they like, preventing us from concentrating against their beachhead. Once we have those units concentrated and backed up by the RAF, we can engage the German fleet in a duel and defeat them, ending their ability to supply their forces.”
Churchill nodded. “And how long will it take to reinforce to that degree?”
Cunningham said as he tapped the map. “It depends. The Suez Canal is going to be blocked very soon by the Italians and their German reinforcements, which will mean that the Eastern Fleet will have to sail directly from Singapore to Panama, and then from Panama to Gibraltar. The Germans will be aware of that threat, and we can expect them to throw all of their submarines at the Eastern Fleet, maybe even a commando assault against Panama, aimed at blocking the canal. At best, Prime Minister, I’d say forty days, which might be too optimistic.”
“There’s no helping it,” Churchill said, slowly. For a moment, the old war-dog looked beaten down by events. “What about the air force?”
Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory scowled. He’d been accused, years ago, of having fomented a plot to remove one of his predecessors, the iron-willed Hugh Dowding, from his post. He was nervous. Dowding himself was still alive and Churchill might recall the man who had won the last Battle of Britain to take command of the current fighting. Dowding was a skilled and experienced officer, with many enemy kills to his credit, but there was that question mark over his loyalties.
“Enemy raids were directed against our airfields. Almost every airbase and radar station along the east coast was hit, sometimes badly,” Leigh-Mallory said, his accented voice, rich with the tone of the upper-class, rolling out over the table. “The combat air patrols in many places fought bravely and well, but the scale of the attacks were beyond our immediate capability to deal with them, particularly when the chain of command began to break down under the scale of the crisis. Once we gained a picture of what the Germans were doing, I ordered the RAF units in Scotland to concentrate on defending Scapa Flow, but as their own airbases were under attack, many aircraft were caught between two fires.”
He paused. “As the hours wore on, we were able to rotate planes from the western airfields and reinforce the planes already in the air,” he continued. “The Germans now have the capability to hit almost anywhere within Britain, but once our forces were in the air, we were able to attain local superiority over the west coast and expand our presence down to London…”
“Too late,” Churchill commented grimly. The RAF had made its appearance in the skies over London unable to prevent the Germans from launching their final bombing raids. “What about the current situation?”
“The Germans are raiding us hourly,” Leigh-Mallory said, ignoring the accusing tone in Churchill’s voice. “The main targets of the attacks are still airfields and radar stations but this time the Germans have studied their failure in the last war and have adapted their tactics to hammer away at our command and control network. We have something like five hundred fighter jets in service at the moment – we lost nearly two hundred in the first encounter – but we have effectively lost control over the south-east of England.”
He nodded towards the map. “I have hopes that that situation can be reversed fairly quickly, but for the moment, our ability to resist the Germans in the air has been badly reduced,” he said, slowly. “One new weapon the Germans have revealed – which we never had a word of warning about – is a bomb that somehow homes in on radar emissions, destroying the radar installation and severely damaging the station itself. The boffins are currently working on ways to jam it, but until we can develop a countermeasure, I must warn you that our ability to stand off a German raid has been greatly reduced.”
Churchill said nothing for a long moment. “We are relying on you and your men to hold the air for us,” he said finally. “I expect your men to fly constantly if that’s what’s needed to keep the skies above our army clear. What about our ability to hit back at the Germans?”
“Bomber Command is ready and raring to go,” Leigh-Mallory said, glancing down at a sheet of paper on the desk. “It has been suggested that they concentrate on targeting the German fleet, but the presence of the five German carriers means that they will be unable to hit the Germans hard enough to break their ships, so I suggest concentrating our targeting on the invasion ports and damaging them enough to interfere with the German ability to reinforce.”
Monty glared at him. “Our men on the ground need support from your boys,” he snapped, angrily. “Where is that support when they need it, hey?”
Leigh-Mallory glared back at him. “The Germans are maintaining a constant combat air patrol over their landing zones and have augmented that with defences on the ground and several radar stations on British soil,” he snapped back. “Everything I send into the area gets s
hot down; I cannot even get you some aerial recon pictures because they have the ability to shoot them down! Their reconnaissance aircraft are drifting over the country at will and I cannot do anything to stop them!””
“Enough,” Churchill said, shortly. “This is a council of war, not a fighting room. Monty, just how do we stand on the ground?”
Monty looked over at DeRiemer. “Alex did most of the work of pulling it all together,” he said, nodding to the map on the wall. “I believe that he should give the briefing.”
“Thank you, General,” DeRiemer said. He’d learned that Monty preferred to be addressed as General. “As you know, gentlemen, England has been invaded by the armed forces of the Greater German Reich, the first landings being effected at roughly 1900 last night, despite the best efforts of the Home Guard. Since then, the Germans have expanded their beachhead in the direction of Ipswich and, we expect, will assault the town in the next few hours.”
He paused. “We have debriefed every man and woman who has come out of the invasion zone, before passing them on to form new units,” he continued. “We have confirmed that the Germans have received at least seven large ships in the port and have press-ganged British workmen into helping them unloading their ships, providing a rough estimate of around ten thousand Germans with their armoured support. The presence of panzers and armoured fighting vehicles has been confirmed and we expect their troops numbers to multiply rapidly. Intelligence believes, as I said, that the Germans intend to take Ipswich and use it as a hub of their operations, which we believe will be aimed at London.”
“Makes sense,” Churchill said, after a moment’s pause. “London is the linchpin of our society and if they can take it, continuing the struggle will be difficult. How long do you think it will be before the Germans will assault the town?”
“Hours, at most,” DeRiemer said. “They should know that we’ll be straining every sinew to reinforce General Barron as quickly as possible, so the more they spread out, the harder it will be to dislodge them. As they have almost uninterrupted recon capability, they will be able to target their assaults with the aim of destroying the defences and capturing or killing the soldiers.”
“Once the army goes, the town becomes impossible to defend,” Monty said.
“We must launch a counter-attack at once,” Churchill said, suddenly. “If we cannot beat the Germans on the water, we must defeat them on the land before they have a chance to build up and break out of their lodgement…”
Monty took the plunge. “Prime Minister, that will be impossible at the moment,” he said. “Perhaps I could brief you…?” Churchill nodded irritably. “The Germans have damaged a great deal of our transport network, which means that it will take us days, at least, to move heavy forces into Suffolk to reinforce General Barron. The armoured forces can be moved fairly quickly, but the Germans will break out before we can build up enough to stop them, although I am sure that General Barron will bleed them badly.”
“So, you think that we will lose Ipswich?” Churchill asked. “Do you expect us to win the war?”
Monty didn’t rise to the bait. “I believe that Ipswich is currently impossible to defend successfully,” he said, after a moment. “We need to focus our efforts on first stopping, then defeating, the German army, but our contingency plans concentrated on a defence of the Dover region. By landing in Felixstowe, the Germans have outmanoeuvred us in the first blow, outflanking most of the defences until they reach the GHQ line around London. Their success presents us with a serious problem.”
His hand traced a line on the map. “I propose that we concentrate the defence line here, here, and here; a line running from Colchester to Cambridge to Peterborough. If we have to, we’ll focus part of the line at Chelmsford, which will present us with some reserves when – if – the Germans break through the early line. I propose, furthermore, that we concentrate our own mobility forces behind this line, in preparation for an early assault if the Germans somehow fail to take advantage of their own mobility and attack the defence line. It should be possible, within a week, to have enough men and fire-power in the area to give the Germans pause.”
Churchill studied the map. “And if they decide to strike out in a different direction?”
“I am hopeful, Prime Minister, that that is what they will do,” Monty said. He tapped the map thoughtfully. “There’s very little point in trying to strike north in the direction of Edinburgh, or even as far as Newcastle, as there’s much less there to attract their attention. They must know that as long as the British Army remains in being, their conquests will be anything, but stable – therefore, destroying our army is their top priority.
“Ideally, we would want to lure them into ground of our own choosing, as Wavell did in Egypt during 1st Alamein,” he continued. “We have large Home Guard forces massing to the north of London, and up in the direction of Manchester and Liverpool; given time, we’ll out-mass them, so they will want to crush us as quickly as possible. It is my intention, Prime Minister, to meet that assault and defeat it.”
Churchill leaned forwards, his eyes afire. “Can you defeat it?”
“It depends on how much time we have to make preparations,” Monty said. “We may have to rely on our underground forces to delay the Germans enough to build a defence line that will hold them and break them.”
Churchill looked over at Major General Colin Gubbins. “One simple question,” he said, “can the Auxiliaries distract the Germans?”
“For a short period of time,” Gubbins admitted. “Unfortunately, by the very nature of the units, it is difficult to assign them any orders, specific or otherwise. The orders we did give them were to go to ground during the early stages of the invasion, but to commence attacks as soon as possible. We do not, however, have any specific locations for their targets.”
“I understand,” Churchill said. “What about the cells overseas?”
The master of the Special Operations Executive sighed. “There has always been a reliability problem with the cells we attempted to form over in France and most of Western Europe; they may hate the Nazis, but they don’t want to risk themselves when there’s no hope of freedom. Our ability to encourage them to do things has always been limited, mainly restricted to providing weapons in exchange for intelligence and some other support, but now…well, they’re not going to want to risk themselves for us.”
He shook his head. “I will attempt to encourage them, Prime Minister, but setting Europe ablaze will probably be well outside their capabilities,” he said. “I have higher hopes for our own units on the ground, but we have very little in the way of communications with them, mainly carrier pigeons and some buried cables.”
“I see,” Churchill said. He looked over at Monty. “I am appointing you overall commander of British forces in the field,” he said. “I want you to bring victory, understand?”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” Monty said. If it occurred to him that he’d just pledged to defeat an army that had beaten every other army in Europe and defeated the British Army in several bitter engagements, it didn’t show on his face. DeRiemer hoped, for Britain’s sake, that he knew what he was doing. “I shall see to it at once.”
“Good,” Churchill said. “Admiral, Air Chief, I expect you to bend every effort in getting as much help as possible to the troops, understand?” They both nodded. “Good; meeting adjourned DeRiemer, stay here one moment.”
DeRiemer waited until the room was clear. “Prime Minister, I…”
Churchill shook his head. “Jack,” he said, addressing one of the guards, “please send in Professor Anderson.”
Professor Anderson proved to be the kind of man who made DeRiemer want to stay a safe distance from him; he combined an air of scientific genius with a distinct air of being willing to experiment with anything, anywhere, even to the point of blowing up a cup of coffee just to see what would happen. He had short hair, a face that suggested that he had managed to singe his goatee off numerous times, and wore a s
uit that somehow managed to appear like a lab coat.
“Thank you for coming,” Churchill said. Anderson didn’t look awed at being addressed by the Prime Minister; he looked more irritated at being dragged away from his work than anything else. “I need a complete briefing on the Omega Project, right now.”
DeRiemer listened in growing disbelief as Anderson outlined progress, much of which was well above his head, his comprehension dwindling as Anderson’s explanation became more and more complicated. Churchill listened as if he heard speeches like that every day, which was actually quite possible. When Anderson finished, DeRiemer was left feeling completely puzzled, and bemused. Why had Churchill wanted him to hear that?
“I don’t want to hear more science at the moment,” Churchill said, curtly. “I just need the answer to two questions; how long until you can produce a working device?”
Anderson considered it. “The funding for the project was cut back sharply in 1944,” he said. “We have much of the theory, but not the equipment to test the theories and build the device. It would take at least six months with an unlimited budget; once the Americans discontinued their interest in the project, we lost access to their research as well.”
The Invasion of 1950 Page 18
