Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “If you’re talking about Wells’ novels, I prefer The Time Machine meself,” Davids added as the rest of his crew grinned broadly at seeing a high-ranking officer squirm a little, “but that one’s pretty good…”

  “That’ll teach me for trying to bullshit a bullshitter,” Thorne observed sheepishly, happy to admit is indiscretion. He took another drink and paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “I’m not one to get straight to the point…” the Australian explained, going about it in a roundabout way most of his close friends would recognise as quite characteristic. “…I generally prefer to work my way around to things in my own good time… unless it’s something desperately urgent or suchlike…” He took another pause and a deep breath.

  “We shouldn’t be here right now…” Thorne began again, nothing but seriousness in his eyes now as he glanced about, meeting the gaze of each man at that campfire in turn. “When I say that, I mean right here… right here, trying to prevent the bloody Wehrmacht from pushing what’s left of the 8th Army into the Gulf of Suez and knowing we haven’t a hope in Hell of stopping them when they finally decide to get off their arses and come at us swinging…” Again the bitter tone crept back into his words as the others sipped at their own drinks and stared on in captivated silence.

  “This is gonna seem like a dumb question, but have you guys ever felt like something’s not quite right about the world; apart from the obvious, of course… felt that there’s actually something fundamentally wrong with the universe in a ‘six by nine equals forty-two’ kind of way?” Thorne knew there was no point in explaining the TV-show reference in his last question and instead waited a few patient seconds as everyone else present save for Davids took time to make the appropriate mental calculations and confirm the error in that mathematical equation.

  “Britain’s gone, a substantial part of The Empire is crumbling in front of our eyes, and the bloody Jerries are poised to hand us the latest in a long and very bloody sorry line of defeats,” Davids countered sourly, no happier about their situation than anyone else. “How much more wrong could things be…?”

  “Aye, we’re in a pretty pickle, and that’s a fact,” Angus added softly, nodding slowly as his ponderous words matched the speed of a brain better tuned to driving tanks than to considering more complex ideas.

  “I was born the youngest o’ ten living on the top floor of a Bristol tenement block,” Toms shrugged, unmoved by the question. “If it weren’t for the war, I’d be breakin’ me back down at the City Docks just like me Old Man and me Grandad before him more ‘n like…” He shrugged again. “Not much call for thinkin’ about what’s wrong or right when you’re worried about payin’ the rent and putting food on the table…”

  “That’s about as fair a statement as I could’ve hoped for,” Thorne observed thoughtfully, recognising the depth of meaning behind those simple words. “Don’t reckon there’s much time for the luxury of such thoughts when you’re hungry and worried about where your next meal’s coming from…” Toms and Ingalls both nodded simultaneously in silent agreement as he continued.

  “Well I don’t need to tell you that things are seriously fucked up – you can all work that out perfectly well for yourselves – but I can tell you one thing I doubt any of you were aware of:…” he paused momentarily for effect “…none of what’s going on in the world right now should have happened.” He took another breath and went on quickly before anyone could interrupt.

  “We shouldn’t be on the defensive here in North Africa…” Thorne stated emphatically, his tone almost plaintive as he moved onto a subject on which he was well-versed. “Where I come from, this isn’t what happened…! Next month, the 8th Army should be going on the offensive and kicking Rommel’s arse at a shitty little railway siding 60 miles west of Alexandria called El Alamein – the very same one at which we got our arses handed to us in a bag just a few weeks ago. The bloody Japanese should have attacked the Yanks at Pearl Harbor at the end of last year, dragging them into the war on the side of the Allies.” He paused again, the next piece of information almost as painful to him as he suspected it would be to the others. “Britain should still be free and fighting on alone against an Occupied Europe. Churchill should still be alive and George should have assumed the throne in 1936 after Edward’s abdication, rather than after his brother’s death at the end of 1940…”

  “Nice story…” Davids grimaced, the dubiousness of his tone suggesting he’d expected something a little more interesting to begin with. “…But I’ll still need tuppence for bus fare, all the same.” Memories of the death of Edward VIII held very personal feelings of pain for the young officer and their recollection didn’t leave him particularly well-disposed to friendly conversation.

  “Hey, you were the one so all-fired eager to hear what I had to say!” Thorne shot back, only vaguely annoyed and unwilling to be so petty as to pull rank in what was otherwise a quite informal gathering. “Ever wonder where the fuck we got the know-how to design those two big bastards over there?” He added, gesturing vaguely backward in the direction of the prototype Sentinels. “The powerplant, armament and optics we’ve put in those tanks are a generation ahead of the antiquated shit being used in the Shermans…” he snorted with derision “…and they’re nothing compared to the technology used in that mobile bloody flak vehicle!” He took a long, deep breath and his next words were spoken as a blunt statement of fact rather than anything resembling pride. “None of that would’ve been possibly if it weren’t for Captain Donelson and myself… and the team we originally arrived with back in June of 1940.”

  “‘Arrived with…’?” Davids latched on to the most significant piece of Thorne’s last statement and ran with it, fixing him with a sharp stare that was an equal mix of excitement and scepticism. “Why don’t we stop dancin’ about the subject, Mister Thorne: where exactly is it you’re s’posed to have arrived from…?”

  “Ay, now there’s the rub!” Thorne countered with a thin smile, raising his can in recognition of the question and again misquoting Shakespeare. “However although quite lucid and to the point, your question nevertheless isn’t quite the correct one…” He grinned, mostly to himself. “As you so succinctly alluded to earlier when recounting the myriad of rumours circulating about me, the crux of this conundrum isn’t so much a matter of ‘where’ as it is a matter of ‘when’…” he tilted his head, as if considering a memory long-forgotten “…I’m sure I’ve likewise corrected others who’ve asked questions along similar lines over the years…”

  “I’ll admit I was playing Devil’s Advocate back there, sir,” Davids began in reply, his face filled with doubt as he realised what Thorne was driving at, “but are you seriously implying what I think you are…?” A large part of the conversation was now over the heads of the others present but they listened intently all the same, instinct telling them unequivocally that they were about to become witness to something important.

  “I wasn’t implying anything,” Thorne sniffed with mock disdain. “I’m saying right out loud that – !”

  “Oh fuck me, he’s been at the grog again!” The sound of Lieutenant Evan Lloyd’s voice from right behind Davids cut the conversation off mid-stream and caused every head to snap in his direction in surprise. “Pain in the arse… I can’t bloody leave you alone for a bloody moment when you’re off duty!”

  “Excuse me…” Thorne shot back in mock indignance, well aware that Lloyd was pretending to be serious and only barely smothering a grin of his own, “…I’m down here keeping up the morale of the troops! Very important job, I’ll have you know!”

  “Important enough for you to miss dinner dates, obviously…” Eileen pointed out with the faint hint of annoyance in her voice. It had been difficult to see Lloyd through the darkness and it had been impossible to see Donelson as she stood in the taller man’s shadow, masked from the light of the campfire.

  “Oh, bloody hell…!” Thorne muttered in poor approximation of a Yorkshire accent, pulling
a face in semi-serious recognition of the fact that he might well be in actual trouble.

  “‘Aye, you can say that again, Max,” she snapped seriously as the pair moved forward to step into the light of the fire and join the group. “Please tell me I wasn’t overhearing you preparing to reveal classified information to these men? Please tell me I’m mistaken…”

  “You should try having to look after him, Eileen… he does this all the time…” Lloyd growled plaintively, dropping to the ground and sitting himself cross-legged beside a glaring Thorne while laying the M2A2 he carried across his knees, facing it away from the group. “Ninety per cent of the rumours spread about Hindsight and where we come from originate straight from just one over-talkative bloody air vice marshal… usually after he’s gotten himself a skin-full of bloody beer! We’ve become the worst-kept secret in the entire Commonwealth, if not the friggin’ world… and he’s happy to admit as much to any bugger who’ll listen…”

  “Are you quite done…?” Thorne asked Lloyd tersely, still glaring at both of them as Eileen refused to sit, instead taking a standing position directly behind Lloyd with both hands placed defiantly on her hips.

  For their part, the tank crew were happy to sit back and take in the show and all found the rather unexpected turn of events immensely entertaining. It wasn’t often they were given the opportunity to see a high-ranking officer squirm and they were going to enjoy every moment of it, even if it was at the expense of one of the friendlier and more down-to-earth officers they’d encountered during their varied careers.

  “What the hell’s happened to you while you were away, Max?” Eileen persisted, choosing to ignore the faint sounds of warning creeping into Thorne’s tone. “You take off to the United States – I don’t see you for over a year – and when I finally do, you’ve come back sounding like a bloody American! Using phrases like ‘Penny-ante’ or insults like calling Italians ‘Guineas’, and you pronounce the word ‘arse’ as ‘ass’ now: it’s like you’re turning in to a bloody Yank on us!”

  “Wash your mouth out…!” Thorne shot back, trying to defuse and deflect with attempted humour rather than let go of the anger building within him over becoming the centre of attention for reasons other than those under his control. A fiercely proud Australian, he didn’t appreciate the inference that he was becoming Americanised, particularly as he knew that it was at least partially accurate.

  “It’s true, mate…” Lloyd shook his head sadly, trying not to smirk as he maintained the façade of an intervention parody. “You’re starting to get a bloody American accent as well…!”

  “Are you implying I sound like Greg Norman…?” Thorne asked sourly, heat building beneath his collar as he rose to the bait under the influence of the alcohol he’d consumed.

  “I was gonna say Terri Irwin, myself…” Lloyd shot back, his entire body beginning to shake with a suppressed chuckle as he found himself no longer capable of maintaining the pretence of seriousness.

  “Oh, get fucked…!” Thorne snapped curtly in exasperation, slapping Lloyd on the shoulder and stifling a grin of his own as he finally realised he’d been taken for a ride. “I swear to God, I’m gonna sneak into your tent while you’re sleeping and start playing ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’ in your ear. By the time I’m finished, you’ll have the God-awful thing stuck in your head for the rest of your piss-poor excuse of an immortal life!”

  “I quite like that song, actually…” Lloyd replied with a broad smile, not prepared to give any ground as the rest of the group broke up into laughter also, Eileen included. The tank crew might not have known the actual song in question but they understood the implication well enough. “Would you care to explain why you have a copy of that handy, seeing as you despise it so…?”

  “Purely for ‘research purposes’,” Thorne countered dismissively, finally laughing along with everyone else, “and that’s the story I’m sticking to.” He glanced up at Eileen and beckoned quickly to her with one hand. “Sit down and join us, captain, and I’ll ‘buy’ you that drink I promised… we’ve still got a few coldies here somewhere.”

  Eileen stood motionless for some time, smiling but with hands still on hips as she considered the request. She acceded in the end, releasing her own sigh of amused exasperation as she moved across to sit down between Thorne and Davids.

  “You’re a big bloody bairn and a hopeless incorrigible, Max…” She said finally, shaking her head but still smiling all the same.

  “…And that’s exactly why you love me…” he responded immediately, sailing far closer to old history than he ever would’ve dared without the ‘assistance’ of alcohol.

  “I still can’t believe you were going to tell them…!” She observed softly, intending the remark for his ears alone as she intentionally ignored his last statement.

  “The air vice marshal was going to tell us something before we were unexpectedly interrupted, captain,” Davids pointed out quickly as he handed over a cold beer taken from a large icebox half-buried in the sand between him and Angus, “but he never got the opportunity.”

  “I’m sure you’re well aware that my naval rank equates roughly with that of an army colonel, Captain Davids…” Eileen returned with equal speed, her tone level and without any obvious displeasure as she accepted the offered can with a nod of recognition. “That being said, I’ll therefore assume you were making that statement in an attempt to keep the air vice marshal out of any trouble rather than actually imply that I was interrupting...”

  Although Thorne readily promoted a very informal setting within his group – something Eileen generally agreed with in principle – she wasn’t quite so disposed to the idea when it came to receiving what sounded like a rebuke from a junior officer. She wasn’t generally one to hold grudges but she was nevertheless quick to make sure the young man remembered his manners. With the friendly warning given, she was happy to maintain a light and friendly atmosphere.

  “Just an observation, Ma’am,” Davids explained with genuine sincerity, “…no offence intended, I assure you.”

  “…And none taken, captain…” Eileen replied similarly as a grinning Thorne gave Davids a ‘thumbs up’ symbol over her shoulder and silently mouthed the words ‘clever boy’. There was a short, pregnant pause as another soft burst of sniggering ensued among the crewmen on the opposite side of the fire. “He’s either making faces or giving you a ‘thumbs up’, isn’t he…?” She added with knowing resignation.

  Without waiting for the inevitable answer, she turned back toward Thorne, moving slowly enough to allow time for him to quickly lower his hands and stare up at the night sky, feigning innocence. None of it was enough to save him from a punch on the shoulder that was playful but at the same time was solid enough to leave a mark beneath his tunic.

  “I’m sure we’d all still love to hear the rest of this ‘classified’ story, Ma’am,” Davids ventured with a smile as Thorne made a great show of clutching in pain at his abused shoulder. “Mister Thorne has left us all hanging here…”

  “He’ll be bloody well hanged himself if he keeps shooting his mouth off,” Donelson quipped with a tight smile.

  “Oh for cryin’ out loud, Eileen,” Thorne said finally, shaking his head in exasperation and ignoring his own use of another American-style phrase. “The Australian Government knows the truth… the British Government-in-exile knows the truth… the Yanks know the truth and even Reichsmarschall Reuters and Adolf-bloody-Hitler know the truth… who exactly are we keeping this so-called bloody secret from… and what does it accomplish anyway?

  “…What I was getting to earlier, before I was rudely interrupted,” he continued once more, this time addressing the tank crewmen as Donelson and Lloyd shook their own heads in resignation, “is that most of what’s happening in the world right now isn’t the way things should be and certainly weren’t the events that I learned about in history classes when I was in school…”

  “You’re really serious, aren’t you…!” Davids b
reathed softly, not certain whether to be excited or concerned for the man’s sanity. The rest of his men still weren’t truly grasping what Thorne was alluding to, but Davids was pretty sure he understood quite clearly exactly what the Australian was saying.

  The Welsh tank commander was an avid fan of science fiction and as such had read more than a few wild and fantastic tales in his time, but what he was hearing that night was as incredible as anything he’d read of H.G. Wells or Jules Verne. Whether what he was hearing could be believed or not was another thing entirely however, but there was at least one thing he was certain of as he held the other man’s level gaze: reality or the delusion of a deranged lunatic, there was no doubting Max Thorne one hundred per cent believed every word he was saying.

  “You don’t need to travel eight hundred thousand years into the future to find Morlocks plotting against innocent Eloi, Jimmy,” Thorne started to explain, nothing but seriousness in his voice and stare now as he finished the last of his beer and discarded the can. “You only need to jump forward about seventy years or so to find evil trying to destroy the world…” He extended a hand in a gesture that encompassed himself, Eileen and Evan. “…To destroy the world we all grew up in, anyway…

  All three of us here grew up in the last years of the Twentieth Century, although I’ve got a few years on these two ‘young’ uns’ here,” he continued with a faint smile, staring off into the darkness as he lost himself in memories and his two colleagues lowered their eyes and for a moment remembered their own lives past. “Captain Donelson here served as a commander in the Royal Navy and Lieutenant Lloyd was a trooper with the Australian Special Air Service. I worked for MI6 and served with the RAAF as a fighter pilot before that.” He grimaced as he paused for a breath, his words vaguely sullen and laced with defeat.