“I'm a navigator, Mister Orlov,” said Fedorov. “I can read a map.”
“You can’t tell me NATO has hidden this facility just for this exercise. What is going on here?”
They flew down as far as Kapp Wein, Cape Vienna as it was called, with its distinctive off-shore rock formations. “Let’s get home,” said Fedorov. “There’s nothing more to see here and the weather isn’t getting any better. May I use the radio, sir? The Admiral ordered me to report as soon as we concluded our investigation.” He was looking with great interest on the identity card the Siberian sergeant had taken from one man. It was an old style card, unlaminated, with no barcode or digital tape to be scanned, and no hologram for security. It was just a typewritten card, and from the looks of it an old style typewriter had been used. The name was Ernst Ullring.
“Very well,” said Orlov. “Pilot, take us back to Kirov.”
Fedorov was on the radio at once. He had little to say, as the Admiral had given him clear instructions.
“You see this book you lent me?” the Admiral had said to his navigator. “You need only tell me whether I should be wasting my time with it or not.”
Fedorov was to use an encrypted channel and he spoke a few brusque sentences. “Scout one reporting, repeat. Scout one reporting. You may wish to do some further reading, sir. We are inbound now, ETA 0400 hours.”
Part IV
Decisions
“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
Chapter 10
Admiral Volsky had assembled all his key officers in the wardroom, with the bridge being manned by substitute watch standers. He sat at the head of the briefing table, his eyes on the video monitor, watching the playback that had been recorded during the overflight of the island. From time to time he would stop, and ask Orlov if this footage was indeed what he had seen. The chief nodded grimly in the affirmative.
As the video concluded, the Admiral closed his eyes briefly, rubbing a spot at his temple, then looked up at his officers and spoke in a quiet, firm voice.
“Gentlemen, from this footage it is clear to me that the meteorological station on the island is obviously missing. There is no evidence of the station facilities at any of the locations investigated, and the Loran-C antennas are missing as well.”
“Yet we did see signs of impact craters on the ground there, sir,” said Orlov. “It looked to me as if the site had been bombed or shelled. Perhaps we are at war and we have put in an air strike on NATO installations there-wiped them out!”
“These were fairly large facilities,” said the Admiral. “Did you see any evidence of wreckage? Even if these facilities had been destroyed, there would be some sign of wreckage or debris.”
“Nothing other than the impact craters we noted, sir. But the site itself seemed reconstructed from damaged metal beams and scorched wood planks.”
“Fedorov tells me this is exactly what the weather station looked like in 1941. And there was no sign of the roads that were constructed on the island after the war, nor the airfield.” The admiral tapped at one of Fedorov’s maps of the island clearly indicating these major features. “Where did they go?”
The silence around the table was profound. The men looked at one another, some wearing confused expressions, others noting the reaction of key officers, particularly Karpov and Orlov. The Admiral could clearly see that only Karpov seemed to fidget uncomfortably, the man’s restless eyes clearly revealing that he was unwilling to grasp the obvious facts they were now reviewing.
“Now,” said Volsky, “please note this photograph Mister Fedorov was kind enough to retrieve from one of his history books.” He smiled, passing a photocopy of the image around the table for the officers to review. It clearly showed the ragged bare metal beamed roof and lean-to where the helicopter had set down, as well as the piles of black volcanic rock that had been stacked into a makeshift wall at one end of the site. Then he pointed to the screen again where an image was displaying that had been taken by Fedorov's digital camera, just minutes ago. The two images were remarkably similar.
“If my eyes do not deceive me, gentlemen,” said the Admiral, “then what we are seeing in that digital photograph is a near replica of the weather station on this island as it appeared in April of 1941. As to the effects confiscated from the three Norwegians present, Mister Fedorov was able to identify one of these men. The Admiral nodded to his navigator.
“Ernst Ullring,” said Fedorov. “This man was a leader of a twelve man team from Norway which landed on March 10, 1941. Now I will read from one of my history volumes, Great World War II battles in the Arctic, by Mark Llewellyn Evans. He clearly states: ‘Once they were set up, they began sending regular weather reports every three hours, which the Germans quickly intercepted. The Luftwaffe decided to obliterate the island and launched a raid from their airfields in Norway. The German bombers streaked in low and pounded the weather station but did nothing but stir up a little lava dust. Neither the station nor the men were even scratched. Unknown to the Germans, the weathermen relied on a very sophisticated early warning system: their Norwegian huskies heard the approaching Luftwaffe engines long before their masters did, and the dogs’ barking alerted the men in time to reach shelter.’ This explains the impact craters we observed, and the dog.”
“Yes, there was a dog,” said Orlov. “A rather of obnoxious dog as well. Barked its fool head off.”
“You have further information concerning this man, Fedorov?”
“Yes, sir. His identity card states his date of birth as 18 June 1894. He was an officer in the Norwegian Navy, receiving the war cross with sword for his efforts in maintaining these Arctic weather stations, a very high distinction. He oversaw operations on this island as well as Svalbard.”
“Born in June of 1894?” said Karpov. “The man would be 127 years old! This is clearly impossible.”
“If I may, sir,” said Fedorov, “in 1941 he would be just 47 years old, about the age of the man we saw at the site, the very same man Sergeant Troyak took this identity card from.”
“Perhaps it was his father's, then,” said Karpov sourly.
“Considering the other evidence, that seems unlikely, sir. The man also had this notebook, in which he has been making meteorological notations on a daily basis.” He passed the notebook to Karpov. “You will note the date of the most recent entry, July 28, 1941. And sir, I also found this.” He pushed the newspaper he had found in the dugout across the briefing table, and Karpov glanced at it briefly, being more interested in the notebook for the time being.
“Now that is an old newspaper, to be sure,” said Fedorov. “It dates back to March of 1941, so I can only assume these men brought it with them when they landed at that time, as the history clearly indicates. But if it were authentic it would be far more weathered than it is now, yes?”
There was silence around the table until Volsky spoke. “We must also reconsider the evidence we obtained on the surface contact Rodenko has been tracking. The video feed showed ships that Mister Fedorov here has identified as WWII class vessels. We suspected this feed may have been tampered with, but seen in this light, the whole situation begins to paint a rather convincing picture, even if it must seem impossible to us all.” The Admiral stared at them, his dark eyes fixed and steady. “Gentlemen, it appears that we are not where we belong. Appearances can be deceiving, but all the evidence indicates the present year is 1941. This means that somehow, possibly as a result of that strange undersea explosion, we have shifted seventy years into the past!”
His expression was one of clear amazement. “Believe me, I have given consideration to every other possible explanation, but the evidence of our own eyes speaks volumes. We cannot contact Severomorsk on our normal coded radio channels because they did not exist in 1941. We hear nothing but old signals broadcasting WWII documentaries on the shortwave, no matter what station we tune in. We have images
of obsolete ships on video, and were overflown by a plane that exists only in a museum just hours ago. And now all this…” he gestured broadly at the accumulation of evidence on the table.
“Yet if this is a psychological operation perpetrated by NATO this is exactly what they would want us to believe,” argued Karpov.
“Doctor?” The Admiral had invited the ship’s physician to the meeting as well. “Are we all losing our minds here or do we have good reason to reach these conclusions, as preposterous as they may seem.”
“Well… I am finding it difficult to assume NATO has removed all these vital installations and facilities simply for the sake of playing a psychological game on us here. Who would have dreamt up such a thing-to try and convince the flagship of the Northern Fleet that she has moved in time? The whole idea is absurd. Do you think they staged all of this, the ships, the plane, the island, just for theater? Consider the cost and requirements of such an endeavor, and could they do such a thing right here in our own back yard, as it were, without us knowing about it? Hundreds of people rely on the daily weather data transmitted from the Met station on Jan Mayen. Yet we hear nothing now. Where are the facilities that should be on the island? Fifteen or twenty buildings do not simply vanish overnight. And you cannot obliterate an airfield. If it were there, and attacked as Orlov suggests, then you would have seen obvious signs.”
“That is no more preposterous than the notion that this ship has suddenly become a time machine and the year is actually 1941,” said Karpov.
“Perhaps,” said the doctor, “but do you have another explanation that fits with all the other things we have noted?”
Karpov steamed. “You ask me to choose between two nonsensical alternatives,” he said brusquely.
“Yet that is exactly what we must do here,” said Zolkin. “We must decide and choose, and then act accordingly. If we are in our own time, then our actions will soon bear that out. We can simply turn about and steam for Severomorsk, and that will settle the matter once and for all. Before that we should consider the situation carefully. Because if, by any stretch of the imagination, all these facts do add up to the improbable conclusion that we have somehow shifted in time, then realize what this means.” He looked at them all now, casting a knowing glance at the Admiral as well. “It means that we would be sitting in the most formidable ship in the world, with full knowledge of the history that is about to unfold, and the power to change it…”
The doctor had the undivided attention of every man present. Even Karpov seemed to settle into some deep inner thought, ruminating and planning. His eyes betrayed the operation of his mind as he considered the incredible advantage of the position he might now find himself in, no matter how much his every instinct screamed that this whole premise was patently ridiculous.
“The reactors,” said the Admiral in a low voice. “Chief Dobrynin said the reactors sounded odd when we experienced those strange effects in the sea. He had unusual readings and requested we reduce speed. I wonder…” He had not yet formulated a complete thought here, and so he put the matter aside, the other evidence appearing to be conclusive in his mind, however preposterous it seemed.
With the weight of both the Admiral’s considered opinion and that of the ship’s physician, both well liked and respected men, the others present voiced no objections, waiting in silence. Even Orlov, practical and gritty in every respect, a man who would normally be delivering a stream of invectives at such nonsensical ideas, sat dumb.
“Mister Fedorov,” said the Admiral. “For those of us not so well schooled in the history of the Great Patriotic War, can you tell us anything about what would be happening at this time if it were indeed late July of 1941?”
“Well sir, at this time Great Britain’s lone stand against Nazi Germany has been broken by the German invasion of the Soviet Union some months ago. And as we heard in some of the radio broadcasts we have intercepted, German panzers have reached Smolensk and will be fighting an encirclement operation there for the next month. They will then turn south to take Kiev before pressing on to threaten Moscow in what will be called Operation Typhoon in October. The Germans are also tightening the noose around Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was called then, and the siege there will begin in early September of this year.
“Remember that the United States has not yet entered the war, and will not do so for five months until the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in December. There is, however, increasing cooperation between Great Britain and the United States, particularly over the conduct of operations in the Atlantic. The United States landed the 1st Marine Brigade at Reykjavik and officially began relieving the British garrison there the first week of July, 1941. They have already transferred fifty destroyers to Great Britain to assist their defense of the convoy routes, and the Lend Lease law will have narrowly passed the American Congress allowing the Allied powers to ship supplies and material directly to the Soviet Union in the Murmansk convoys. The first of these, Convoy Dervish, would be very close to setting out for Murmansk. It was a small, and rather insignificant convoy, just six ships carrying raw materials and fifteen crated hurricane fighter planes. It was meant to demonstrate the feasibility of organizing Arctic convoys to the Kola Peninsula area in the future.”
“I can't believe I am hearing this!” Karpov exclaimed. “We have enough to worry about given the situation in Europe and Asia now, let alone this nonsense about having to refight the Second World War.”
“True,” said the Admiral. “But assuming these facts present us with an impossible truth, we would be well advised to study the tactical situation we may now find ourselves in. Consider it an exercise, if you will. If events soon prove otherwise, you can have a good laugh about it. If however…”
Karpov shook his head, pinching his nose, his eyes tightly closed. “We should return to Severomorsk at once and put an end to this fantasy,” he said.
“You advise we withdraw to the bosom of Mother Russia?” Volsky leaned heavily back in his chair. “That would be an easy course to take. In a few days we would either be sitting on base with cold beer and a horse laugh or two while Mister Samsonov there entertains us with his balalaika.”
Samsonov smiled, nodding his head. “And if all this is nonsense,” the Admiral continued, “then we can return to our humdrum existence there in the cold, gray north, hoping the country can perhaps deliver another frigate or two, or maybe even a new destroyer and few more modern submarines before the end of what promises to be the most threatening period in our history since the conflict Mister Fedorov is so well schooled in.”
Orlov had a sallow look on his face. “And we’ll all end up sleeping with some old babushka and wishing we were young again to have a little fun,” he said.
“Very true,” said the Admiral. “On the other hand…We could do some snooping around while we are out here. We will also have to account for the loss of Orel and Slava. There will be questions, very many questions, I’m afraid, and as yet we have no firm answers. What is this surface contact up to? Where is it going? What about that submarine contact? If these are NATO forces then we are the only countervailing military force in theater at the moment. So no matter the date, we must carry out our mission, which is to secure and defend our nation against all harm.”
“One way or another you are going to bump into the reality of the situation,” said Zolkin, even as he had advised earlier in the sick bay. “You must act, and the truth will become obvious.”
“I thought that was what I was doing by sending this detachment to Jan Mayen,” said the Admiral. “Yet we are left in much the same uncertainty as before. We see the evidence, it leads us to an obvious conclusion, yet we are unwilling to believe it.”
“Alright, alright,” said Orlov gruffly. “Let’s assume the worst. Assume something happened to the ship. I’ve been to Jan Mayen myself,” he said to Karpov now, “and believe me, Captain, that was not the same island. It was completely empty! No roads, no buildings, no airfield.”
&nbs
p; “Very well,” said Karpov sharply. “Let us indulge ourselves in the fantasy. We have two contacts approaching us from the south. Let us go and have a look at them, up close and personal. No long range video feed that could give us any reason to doubt what we see. Will that settle the matter?”
“You will see the light cruiser, Adventure and a single destroyer, the Anthony,” said Fedorov. “At least this is my best guess given the history. One of the British carriers we saw earlier was supposed to join this group, but…something has changed…”
“Indeed,” said Admiral Volsky. “Did we change it? We have done nothing of any consequence as yet.”
“We’re here, sir,” said Fedorov. “We’re here and we shouldn’t be, and the British forces operating in the Arctic waters have discovered our presence and already made decisions that were clearly not made historically. So far the variation seems insignificant. HMS Furious was supposed to accompany these other two ships for a time, and instead it remains with the main body that Rodenko has been tracking. A small change. Nothing momentous. But the Admiral commanding those ships out there knows an unknown ship of considerable size is at large, and he’ll be wondering about us. It could be he’s decided to keep his two carriers together as a precaution until he can learn more. And these two ships approaching us may have been sent out as a reconnaissance group. If we proceed as you suggest, understand that we may begin to make a few more ripples in the waters of history, and the changes might be very significant.“
“Yet one question remains,” said the Admiral. “The good doctor here put it to me when I first raised this problem with him in the sick bay. If these are found to be British ships, old British ships that should have been broken up for scrap metal decades ago, then it is a question we must surely answer, and it is this: Who’s side are we on in this war?”
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