Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Heard reports of some of your ‘exploits’ through intercepted Nazi transmissions,” Kelly grinned. “I figured at least some of ‘em were probably true, although the bollocks about blowing up that SS General didn’t sound much like your ‘form’.”

  “Aw, don’t you start on that as well! Just about every act of resistance carried out in England over the last two years has been blamed on me,” Kransky growled sourly as the MTB cleared the end of the quay and began to come about. “I’m amazed I’ve had time to do anything else with such a busy goddamned schedule!”

  “You always were a hard workin’ feller!” Kelly chuckled softly, and as the helmsman gunned the MTB’s powerful engines in preparation for departure he glanced up momentarily at the village once more and on a whim raised a hand to wave at a distant bystander on the Upper Road. Amazingly the fellow must have seen him and Kelly chuckled again as he faintly caught the flash of the man’s arm as he waved back in return. “Better hang on to somethin’,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “This bitch can get a good head ‘o steam up at full throttle and we’re not really interested in hanging about the area long enough to say hello to any o’ the local Kriegsmarine units.”

  Without another word, the low rumble of the vessel’s engines grew almost instantly to a deafening, full-throated roar as the helmsman pushed his throttles forward. Kransky was barely able to desperately take hold of a hand rail before the ship’s bow lifted and she began to power away. Within a few minutes, MTB 102 was cruising at her full speed of almost 50 knots, heading north-west toward relative safety in the open ocean. Looking down from the Upper Road, she quickly became no more than a barely visible black speck against an ocean that was almost as dark, the only evidence of her passing the faint glow of a long, phosphorescent trail in her wake beneath the glare of the setting sun.

  Campbeltown Docks

  Argyll & Bute, Scotland

  Reich-Protektorat Grossbritannien

  Campbeltown was a small Scottish coastal town of the Argyll and Bute council area. With a population of just a few thousand people, it lay on the shores of Campbeltown Loch and was part of an area of great importance to the country’s whisky production, being famous for its single malts of the same name. Campbeltown had once been home to more than 30 separate distilleries and for a while had declared itself to be the whisky capital of the world. Most would close their doors forever following the Great Depression and the era of alcohol prohibition in the United States, with just a few remaining in operation prior to the outbreak of WW2; the most well know being the Glen Scotia and Springbank distilleries.

  Campbeltown had been a busy fishing port in its time and for a while had also been an important local centre for shipbuilding. A nearby airfield, once known as RAF Machrihanish, was now home to III gruppe of fighter wing JG5, bomber unit II/KG30 and a staffel of maritime patrol aircraft from the MFG506 coastal patrol group. With access to the Irish Sea and situated in a strategically-important position overlooking the North Channel, the airfield had played an important role for the RAF prior to the German invasion of September 11, 1940 – not the least of which it being tasked with guarding the approaches to the Holy Loch submarine base, the River Clyde and the Port of Glasgow itself.

  Kapitänleutnant Leon Toepfer was proud of his command. Schnellboot S-59 was a relatively old vessel – one of the first built of the current S-35E class – but she was well-made and a reliable boat for all that. Toepfer had taken control of the boat just prior to the beginning of the war in Europe and had personally picked and trained up his excellent crew. Since then they’d seen a great deal of action. Basing first out of Wilhelmshaven in Germany, and then later out of ports along the French Coast, S-59 and her crew had earned a fine reputation for hard work and fighting ability as they carried out interdiction operations against Allied shipping in The English Channel. They’d also made a small but significant contribution to the September Eleven invasion, leading a three-ship flotilla of S-boats into battle with RN coastal monitors and gunboats defending The Swale and the mouth of the Thames and personally sinking four ships into the bargain with torpedoes and gunfire. That action had resulted in Toepfer being awarded Das Schnellbootkriegsabzeichen – the S-boat War Badge – and had also earned his entire crew a brace of Iron Crosses of either 1st or 2nd Class.

  There’d been little combat of any form for the courageous crew of S-59 following the first few days of that fateful invasion. While the war on British Soil had continued fiercely, there’d been an almost complete cessation of naval engagements as the Luftwaffe destroyed any remnants of the Royal Navy wherever they dared show themselves. What had followed were two full years of basically quite mundane patrol work that was a far cry from the high-octane combat they’d seen during the invasion.

  That being said, their current posting was a pretty comfortable one all things considered. They were one of just two S-boats assigned to the Campbeltown port, guarded as they were by a platoon-sized garrison of infantry that had commandeered the local public library and museum for use as its barracks, situated just a few dozen metres from the docks at the corner of Hall and St John Streets. Holy Loch, near the mouth of the River Clyde, was still being used as a submarine base – now for Kriegsmarine U-boats, of course – and there was a new, larger naval base under construction at the Port of Glasgow, however at that moment S-59 was one of just a handful of small surface vessels assigned the important task of guarding the northern entrance to the Irish Sea.

  In constant contact with maritime patrol aircraft and with radar installations on shore, S-59 and her colleagues would set out each night – patrols were predominantly at night, when it was easier for enemy or illegal shipping to potentially slip through undetected – and carry out their sweeps across the North Channel, often making landfall with Northern Ireland several times during the night dependent on how their monthly diesel ration was holding out… and also how zealous the captain was feeling on an given day.

  S-59 had actually been due out earlier that evening however diesel taken from a contaminated drum had resulted in a blockage somewhere in the fuel lines and Vogt, their chief engineer, was still no closer to locating the course of the obstruction let alone actually rectifying it.

  “Any news, Til…?” Toepfer called down into the engine room from the afterdeck, glancing up nervously at the glow of the sun setting on the western horizon.

  “No luck yet, Kaleun,” Vogt’s disembodied voice answered back from somewhere down in the relative darkness below, using the common shortened and informal version of Toepfer’s rank of kapitänleutnant to address his CO. “I’ve managed to isolate the problem to the lines on number two engine though and there’s not much of that left to go through.”

  “How long, do you think?”

  “Maybe only another twenty or thirty minutes to check, Kaleun, and assuming we do find the stoppage, then maybe another twenty or so to put everything back together.” There was a pause as Vogt, knowing his commander’s pathological dislike of disruptions, considered other options. “We can go now on our remaining two engines, sir. It’d mean no repairs until we return to base but it’d mean we could basically go now if you’d prefer?”

  With a plain appearance that belied his skills and combat experience, Leon Toepfer, at thirty-two years of age, seemed completely average in height, weight and just about every other fashion in which one might appear ‘average’. His dark hair and beard were both cut short and neat, he wore his uniform to regulation standard and he always – always – made sure his boat and crew put to see on time as scheduled.

  Yet he was also a man who always adhered to strict guidelines of safety and common sense. In almost two years of service since the cessation of hostilities on the British mainland, S-59 hadn’t fired a shot in anger. On the face of it, it seemed impossible there’d be any harm at all in their putting to sea with one engine out of operation. That would however mean their top speed would be reduced from 45 knots to just thirty and in the unlikely event
that some alert or emergency did arise, that loss of power and manoeuvrability might well prove the difference between success and disaster.

  Toepfer glanced up at the darkening western horizon once more and thought long and hard on his decision. It was ‘red sky at night’ and most sailors – being the superstitious lot they inevitably were – considered that a good omen: an indication of fine weather in the hours or days to come. As he stared up at that blood red sky however, Toepfer was suddenly filled with an unfathomable sense of dread and impending doom that he couldn’t shake and the inexplicable sensation left him feeling shaken and ill-at-ease.

  What it also did however was to help him make up his mind regarding their best course of action. Better to wait the extra time – whatever that might be – and head out on patrol with all three engines operating correctly. That was sound, safe reasoning, and if they pushed the engines a little in the first few hours they’d no doubt be able to make up for any lost time in any case.

  “Better we carry on with repairs, Til,” Toepfer called down his decision a moment later with a grimace and a shrug of resignation. “No point putting ourselves at risk for some pointless schedule.”

  In the hours to come, Kapitänleutnant Leon Toepfer would discover exactly how disastrously wrong that one, seemingly innocuous decision would eventually prove to be.

  GHQ Panzer Armee Afrika

  Semiramis Hotel

  Garden City, Cairo

  The Hotel Semiramis rose six stories above the Corniche El Nil as it cut through Cairo’s elite Garden City, following the eastern bank of the mighty Nile River. The hotel was an impressive, stylish structure of solid stone with balconies on each floor sporting ornate balustrades and well-crafted fittings. Garden City was a quite affluent district positioned just south of Tahrir Square and the centre of Cairo itself, and had originally been devised by the British to surround their Embassy with the beauty of its curved, tree-lined streets.

  Prior to the Axis invasion, the hotel had served as the British HQ in Egypt and a large, backlit sign remained above the entrance that carried images of a pyramid and palm tree, still labelled accordingly: ‘HEADQUARTERS – BRITISH TROOPS IN EGYPT’. Some enterprising German soldier however had taken the initiative to acquire a brush and a pot of black paint, using them to draw a large stroke across the word ‘BRITISH’ in that title and instead insert ‘WEHRMACHT’ in tight, uneven letters above (the painted word overlapping the icons of pyramid and palm tree at the centre.

  General Walther Kurt Josef Nehring, commanding officer of the 18th Panzer Division and acting commander of the Panzer Armee Afrika was feeling somewhat out of sorts that evening as he sat by a window of his fourth-floor office and looked out across the Nile, the cityscape and the incredible desert sunset beyond.

  The office itself was relatively small, looking out to the west across the city, and was barely large enough to allow space for Nehring’s desk, a low bookcase against the wall behind, three or four chairs, some filing cabinets and the small, circular side table by the window at which he now sat. A picture of The Führer (of course) hung on the wall above the bookcase but to some it might also seem telling that there were portraits of other important figures hanging on either side. To the left hung the image of Otto von Bismarck, a fellow Prussian, First Chancellor and universally-recognised ‘father of the unified German Empire. To the right was a similarly-framed picture of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German emperor whose reign had ended on the 9th of November, 1918 and whose death on June 3rd, 1941 while living in exile in Occupied Holland had nevertheless still been noted with much sadness and solemnity throughout Germany.

  At fifty years of age, Nehring was a career soldier and had served the German armed forces for more than half his life. A Prussian of Dutch heritage, he’d been awarded the Iron Cross during the First World War and had received the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross – the Ritterkreuz – for his successful command of the 18th Panzer in the Balkans and in North Africa. A relatively tall man, his broad, intelligent features were somewhat accentuated by a receding hairline that also sported a small widows’ peak above his high forehead.

  The Panzer Armee Afrika, which had spawned from and grown out of the Afrika Korps, had been the brainchild of Hitler himself and had been commanded by an at the time up-and-coming Generalleutnant by the name of Erwin Rommel. Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters had developed identical plans of his own regarding that same young general and a posting to North Africa with the DAK, however he’d been more than happy to allow The Führer the luxury of believing it was his idea alone.

  Originally placed under local Italian command, the Afrika Korps had grown and expanded as it produced a string of successes and the Axis advanced eastward out of Tunisia, the genius of its inspirational commander leading his troops all the way. Nehring’s command, the 18th Panzer Division, had joined the DAK in late 1941 and had quickly become an indispensable part of its core of veteran units.

  Nehring himself had proven a capable and intuitive commander, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed with his superiors. Following a freak navigational flying error resulting in the Allied capture of the Panzer Army’s previous 2IC, Ludwig Crüwell, Nehring had been the obvious choice as his immediate replacement. The posting had proven a rewarding but difficult one with many demands placed on the second-in-command, particularly at times when Rommel was called away to Berlin or elsewhere as was currently the case. The field marshal’s absence that day in particular had so far created a number of problems, some of a quite immediate nature. Nehring certainly appeared uncomfortable with regard to the current conversation in which he was involved, although the situation was as much to do with the subject matter as it was the company.

  The main reason for his misgivings that late afternoon currently sat directly opposite him across a small, circular table. Commanding officer of the feared 1st SS Shock Division (the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler), Oberstgruppenführer Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, was the same age as Nehring however the similarities basically ended at that point. For someone dedicated to military service, Sepp Dietrich came about as close to being a ‘career Nazi’ as was humanly possible.

  A tough and hardened individual both emotionally and physically, Dietrich was generally as disliked and despised by most of his superiors in the Wehrmacht as he was loved and respected almost universally by the men serving under him. A man who’d worked as a butcher and hotel servant before enlisting in the Bavarian Army, Dietrich had served with the artillery corps during the First World War before being posted to one of Germany’s first tank units.

  Dietrich joined the NSDAP in 1928 and become head of Hitler’s SS bodyguard. He’d been promoted quickly through the ranks of the nascent Schutzstaffeln, his progress particularly accelerated following his direct involvement in the 1934 mass assassinations of Hitler’s enemies and potential rivals that became known as the ‘Night of the Long Knives’. Considered unintelligent and barely competent for command by his superiors, Dietrich nevertheless possessed an undeniable genius for squad-level tactics and was also adept at surrounding himself with able and gifted junior officers.

  “You do realise what you’re asking of me?” The General hissed softly, almost as if fearing they might be overheard despite being alone in the room. “I am the acting commander, and nothing more… as such, I’m expected to carry out the orders of my superior during his absence rather than vary them… and certainly not to directly ignore them!” Nehring silently cursed the fact that Rommel’s return from his visit to Berlin for a meeting of the General Staff had been unexpectedly delayed, forcing the current situation upon him in the Field Marshal’s absence.

  “Generalfeldmarschall Rommel left before he could be apprised of intelligence reports concerning the arrival of these new British tanks at Suez,” Dietrich countered with intensity, casting his hand over the set of black and white photographs spread across the table between them. “Surely you can see the significance of this as easily as I…?”

  The photograp
hs were some of those taken at Port Taufiq by Khalid al Hakim two weeks before, and they clearly showed the huge size and obvious power of the two new tanks that had arrived that evening aboard the LST. Supplementary reports that had arrived from other sources had indicated that both vehicles had headed west upon leaving the city and that could mean only one thing: the new tanks were destined for deployment along the Allied defensive lines at Agruda, little more than one hundred kilometres away as they sat at the table that afternoon.

  “Our final push against Suez is just days away: it’s imperative we learn more about the capabilities of these new weapons prior to the commencement of the main assault.” There was also no small level of exasperation in his tone as the SS commander argued his point. Although an able commander, Nehring was far too cautious and conservative in the eyes of a man of action such as Dietrich – someone accustomed to leading his men into battle rather than observing from what he classed as the relative safety of the rear.

  “What you’re asking of me is to abandon our closest ally at their greatest time of need, effectively allowing them to drive right into an ambush against an unknown and potentially powerful enemy force.”

  “I’m asking exactly that!” Dietrich confirmed with cold, pragmatic stare. “In three days’ time, the Leibstandarte and the rest of the Armee Afrika will be throwing itself into battle to force the fucking Englanders out of Egypt once and for all. Your men… my men…!” There was real sincerity and passion in his voice now as he spoke of the welfare of his own troops. “While I have the utmost sympathies for our Italian colleagues regarding this ‘probing attack’, if men must die then I’d much rather the deaths be theirs than ours!” He snorted dismissively, as if the alternative seemed obvious. “I’m not asking you to actually do anything… just ensure that any requests for air support or artillery during the engagement are unable to be met. I’ve no doubt a resourceful man such as yourself can imagine all sorts of ‘procedural’ or ‘administrative’ problems that could prevent Wehrmacht forces being sent into action…”