Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Japan attacked the United States at the end of 1941 and drew the Americans into the war on our side. Germany had already attacked the USSR earlier that same year and also forced the Soviet Union to side with us. It would take another four long years, but the Allies eventually defeated the Axis in Europe and the Pacific in 1945. Six years of war resulted in over fifty million dead – military and civilian – with approximately half of those casualties suffered by the USSR alone.” He gave another grimace and a shake of the head. “These are the facts we three grew up with… facts learned in a world that now no longer exists.”

  “Bloody Jerries…” Toms growled under his breath.

  “Bastards…!” Angus added with soft vehemence, little more needing to be said to convey his disgust at their current situation as Ingalls nodded in agreement.

  “What changed…?” Davids asked thoughtfully, the only member of the crew thinking deeper into what Thorne had said. “If any of this is true – and I mean ‘if’ – then what’s changed everything? One thing’s for sure; in any of the time travel stories I’ve read in those magazines – good or­ bad – there’s always a reason. Nothing ever ‘just happens’…”

  “He’s a smart one, this one…” Eileen expressed her own approval, noting the intelligence behind the man’s question as he gave a single nod of recognition in return.

  “I do believe he is, Eileen,” Thorne agreed with a smile of his own. “To answer your question, captain, our group – it’s called ‘Hindsight’… pun most certainly intended – isn’t the first to return back to your time. Early in the Twenty-First Century, the British Government funded some exciting new research into something called ‘Temporal Displacement’: a long and rather flash name for time travel. Two Jewish scientists by the name of Lowenstein and Markowicz were leading the project and their work had reached a point where low-level field trials were almost due to begin when disaster struck…” He took another breath.

  “A group of filthy-rich Neo-Nazis calling themselves the ‘New Eagles’ – German businessmen and industrialists who couldn’t cope with the fact that their country had lost the Second World War – kidnapped the lead scientist, Samuel Lowenstein, and forced him to complete his work for them instead. They then proceeded to take a shitload of plans and modern technology back with them to sometime before the beginning of the war with the intention of telling Hitler where he went wrong…”

  “…And change history in the process?”

  “Too bloody right,” Thorne confirmed, noting that Davids had obviously grasped the basic premise of what he was saying well enough. “Most of the weapons and materiel they’re currently using has either been developed straight from- or been modified by that same technology these guys brought back with them.”

  “Just like you’re people have done with our new tanks and that mobile ack-ack…” Toms declared brightly as he also began to work out what was going on.

  “Exactly that,” Thorne nodded with a faint grin. “Their G1 assault rifles and MP2 submachine guns are direct copies of models designed in the 1960s by a company called Heckler & Koch. The Panther Tanks – believe it or not – are a modification of a Russian design from the 1950s, while their Focke-Wulf J-4 fighters were an original Luftwaffe aircraft that in my world wasn’t brought into operational service until much later during the war.” He shrugged with resignation. “There are so many other examples, including ball-point pens and even the bloody plastic rings that hold your six-packs together, that I could go on for hours but I don’t want to bore you blokes to death…”

  “So you and this Hindsight Group came back to try and stop ‘em…?” A question from Angus this time with almost his first words of the night, having spent most of his time quietly watching with an impassive expression and – as much to his own surprise as anyone else’s – formulating a quite astute conclusion.

  “Honest answer: yes and no…” Thorne replied after a moment’s thought, making a mental note that he should no longer make assumptions regarding any lack of intelligence based on the Scotsman’s outward appearance. “We arrived here in July of 1940 hoping to intercept the New Eagles prior to their making contact with the Nazis of this time. We discovered that they’d already been here for some time – many years in fact – and although we did everything we could to prevent the invasion of Britain we were – of course – ultimately unsuccessful.”

  “So, that’s it then?” Davids asked with frustration creeping into his tone. “Britain gone and the rest of Europe too, and us about to be kicked out of North Africa once and for all… and you make it sound like there’s nowt else can be done about…”

  “On the contrary,” Eileen countered, feeling a subconscious urge to defend Thorne’s words despite none of the three being particularly offended by the implication. “We’re doing everything we can to turn this war around. We know the New Eagles have been in this world since at least 1934, meaning they had years to make Nazi Germany stronger and leave the Wehrmacht completely prepared for war. We, on the other hand, were left with just a few months before the invasion – not enough time, as it turned out. With so much less time and far more limited resources at our initial disposal we were originally forced to play a much more conservative hand.

  “Much of the weaponry you all now use has also been developed with our help and has been influenced by our knowledge of the future. We weren’t able to stop the ‘9/11 Invasion’ but we’ve been working furiously ever since to bring our own technology up to a point where it’s at least level with that of the Axis. But we’re not just looking to close the technological gap now: with a little more time and the vast manufacturing capability of the United States at our disposal, we intend to take the lead; as you can probably tell with the prototype tanks we’re testing.”

  “Too late for us here, though,” Ingalls observed sourly.

  “Don’t blame you for not feeling too happy about that,” Thorne conceded with an apologetic nod, “but the fact remains it takes time to accomplish what we’re trying to achieve. Hindsight’s working with the Commonwealth nations and the US to basically make a scientific ‘leap’ forward that skips at least a generation, and cranking out a few pretty little prototypes like Jake and Elwood on their own ain’t gonna be enough to do that. None of the new weapons, armoured vehicles or aircraft we’re developing will be any use at all if we don’t have the infrastructure in place to back them up.”

  “You still haven’t produced anything that actually proves what you’re saying,” Davids pointed out, arms folded and displaying a vaguely smug expression. “You sell a good story all right, but is it enough for us to believe you?”

  “Well, I think you already do bloody well believe me,” Thorne shot back with a grin of his own, reading the man’s body language correctly, “but I’ll indulge you anyway seeing as you’ve a need to be so bloody pedantic.” He took a deep breath and released some of it as a sigh. “Have you lot every heard the old Chinese proverb ‘Three men make a tiger’…? Well,” he continued as all four tankers shook their heads in unison, “the story goes that a bloke walks along the road and runs into someone else coming the other way who warns him a tiger’s loose in the village ahead. The guy thinks this fella must be crazy, dismisses the warning out of hand and keeps on walking.

  “A few minutes later he comes across another person coming toward him who says the same thing – that there’s tiger up ahead. Our hero starts to really think about what he’s hearing now: he’s not convinced but he’s at least considering the possibility. And so he continues on and sure enough… along comes ‘contestant’ number three with exactly the same story. So after the third person warns him of a tiger, this bloke doesn’t need to hear anything else… he turns right around and scarpers back the way he came…”

  “So… was there a tiger…?” Connolly asked, scratching his head slowly as he considered the tale at length.

  “It doesn’t matter whether there was a tiger or not, Angus,” Davids said quickly, beating Thorne
to an answer. “The point is that fella believed there was after he’d heard it from three different people…”

  “…And here we are…” Thorne added, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. “Neither Eileen nor Evan here are denying anything of what I’m saying, are they…? This might all be a complete lie but why would we bother with something so unbelievable if that were the case…? And what are the odds that all three of us are so crazy as to all have the same delusion that we’re from the future, if it weren’t actually the truth?”

  Delving into the satchel still hanging at his shoulder, Thorne drew out the same iPad he’d handed over to Monty some weeks before. Opening the protective case, he handed it across to Davids as its screen flashed into life.

  “Have a look at this little bugger,” he suggested as Davids stared in puzzled wonder at the strange device in his hands. “There’s an application in the lower right corner of the screen titled photos: tap twice on that – quickly –to open it up, and do the same to the album inside marked ‘personal’. You’ll see some pictures taken of my own life prior to ‘coming back’ that might interest you.”

  Davids did exactly that as the rest of his crew rose quickly and clustered about behind him, staring over his shoulder as he opened the first of a multitude of strange and incredible images. The first was of a far younger but quite recognisable Max Thorne dressed in a pilot’s flight suit, standing beside the long, pointed nose of an incredible jet aircraft none could ever have recognised as an RAAF F/A-18A Hornet.

  “You simply drag your finger across the image to move to the next one,” Thorne added, smiling faintly as he watched the surprised reactions. Another thought occurred to him in that moment, and he turned his attention back to an equally-reminiscent Evan and Eileen. “That bloody Luftwaffe ELINT aircraft still turning up around sunset and running patrols behind their lines?”

  “The ‘Tea-Time Prowler’…?” Eileen replied quickly. “Aye, I believe he’s still a regular night-time feature hereabouts.”

  “Any chance we could confirm that?”

  “Should be no problem,” she shrugged, not seeing where Max was going with the query but unclipping the speaker/mike from her own belt and raising it to her lips all the same.

  “Miss Havisham to Pumblechook… Miss Havisham to Pumblechook… come in please, over…”

  “Pumblechook reading you loud and clear, Miss Havisham…” the reply came through almost immediately “…what can we do for you, over…?”

  “‘Pumblechook’ and ‘Miss Havisham’,” Thorne repeated, mouth agape and a little too surprised to actually laugh out loud. “They’re our codenames for today…? Who thinks up this crap?”

  “Characters taken from Dickens – Great Expectations, I believe,” Lloyd filled in quickly, grimacing. “Brownie thought them up – bit of a bookworm, it turns out…” he grinned. “Pumblechook’s today’s codename for the Tunguska. Don’t you read your emails?”

  “Sorry, mate,” a chuckling Thorne shot back without missing a beat. “A bit short on network coverage out this way…” Turning to Eileen, he added: “You’d be ‘Miss Havisham’, then?”

  “Och, dinna get me started!” Eileen shot back sourly, her accent showing through her momentary, mild irritation as she raised the mike once more to reply. “This is Havisham, Pumblechook… Magwitch is requesting a check on our ‘night-time friend’ – is the ‘prowler’ out and about tonight, over…?”

  “We’re currently tracking a single aircraft patrolling on a steady north-south circuit, approximately two thousand metres behind enemy lines, Havisham. Profile fits our regular visitor right enough, over…”

  “‘Magwitch’…? Who’s ‘Magwitch’…?” Thorne growled suspiciously, eyes narrowing.

  “If I remember Brownie correctly, Magwitch was the protagonist’s benefactor in that story... an old bugger who was secretly a returned convict from Australia…” Lloyd advised with a fair pretence of seriousness (something requiring a significant level of self-control).

  “Understood, Pumblechook,” Eileen replied immediately, forcing a smirk from her own features as Thorne swore softly in the background. “Please hold for further instructions, over…” She held out the microphone to Thorne, adding: “Your audience awaits…”

  “‘Magwitch’ my ass…!” Thorne growled, taking the mike from her and stretching the curled cord as he drew it to his own lips. “Max here… you sure this isn’t a ‘friendly’…?”

  “There are no Allied flights scheduled in this area at this present time, Magwitch. We have a single bogie here flying low level and pushing around two hundred miles an hour… profile fits for one of their smaller A-2G ELINTs. There’s no IFF and there’s no way the Jerries would let one of ours get that far into their airspace without a challenge, over…”

  “Understood, Mitch,” Thorne answered quickly, ignoring standard radio protocol in an effort to avoid using his ridiculous codename. “Weapons free, effective immediately,” he added after a short, thoughtful pause. “Please notify Air Force Command of imminent engagement: as soon as they’ve confirmed, feel free to torch the son-of-a-bitch!”

  “Roger, Magwitch… understood… Pumblechook over and out…”

  “No searchlights, no flares and barely any moon to speak of…” Thorne observed slowly, a smug, almost evil grin spreading across his features. He once again drew the full attention of the men clustered about the iPad as he handed back Eileen’s mike, staring directly at Davids the entire time. He gestured for another beer, and one was immediately tossed over. “No way anyone could score a direct hit on a blacked out aircraft at night in these conditions, right…?” He shrugged. “Even radar-guided gunnery with proximity-fused shells would be pushing it at low level from this distance...” No one was stupid enough to answer as they all waited in tense expectation of what was about to happen.

  Instead, Thorne this time placed his beer on the ground and gestured to Angus, who was currently in control of the communal cigarette packet.

  “Spare us a fag, digger...” He ventured with a grin, paraphrasing part of an old cartoon he recalled from somewhere in his childhood memory. The request was a surprise for most of those present save for Eileen: she’d known the man for many years, and although Max generally wasn’t a smoker – addiction to nicotine definitely wasn’t of his vices – they’d been friends long enough for her to recall infrequent instances when a combination of good conversation and alcohol had caused him to smoke the occasional cigarette.

  As he accepted the packet and accompanying lighter with an acknowledging nod, he drew one of them out and raised it to his lips. He raised the Zippo’s tiny yellow flame toward the cigarette and took a few precautionary puffs before pausing to give a faint and somewhat malevolent grin, adding softly: “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em...”.

  The display had – of course – been mostly for dramatic intent (something else that his old friends knew was characteristic of the man) and he’d timed the action quite well. Several hundred metres away, the huge turret of the 2K22M Tunguska mobile flak vehicle known as Ivan began to rotate at that moment, its missiles and twin cannon turning toward the west as its crew powered up their fire control systems. Now spinning quickly above the turret, its large search radar was already ‘painting’ the unseen enemy aircraft with radar waves as unsuspectingly flew on, many kilometres behind enemy lines.

  As it now brought its weapons to bear, the phased-array tracking radar mounted on the turret’s front face between the guns easily locked on to the aircraft’s signal and began following it slowly across the sky. Even at a range of almost ten kilometres, the Tunguska’s gunner was now also able to track it via thermal imaging and night vision systems and was able to identify the aircraft to be the type they’d suspected: a Messerschmitt A-2G ELINT aircraft. It was a model based directly on the Luftwaffe’s S-2D Löwe attack model – something Max Thorne would’ve recognised from another time as a Douglas A-1 Skyraider.

  None of those around the camp fire
heard the soft whine of the Tunguska’s hydraulics as the turret turned to keep pace with its target. None of them heard the short discussion between the members of the vehicles crew as they spoke in clipped, professional tones and went about their business with calm precision.

  Everyone except Thorne jumped noticeably a few seconds later as the 2K22M released a single missile from its port side bank of six, the noise horrendous as it accelerated quickly to several times the speed of sound and arced away toward the blackness of the distant horizon at the head of a flaming tail of fire and a long trail of grey smoke. It was gone before anyone could react or cover their ears against the sound, and it was only a matter of seconds before the disappearing smoke train suddenly kinked sharply to the left in the dark distance and ended in the tiny flash of detonation.

  “Pumblechook to Magwitch,” Mitch’s voice again came through over Eileen’s radio, the calm tone of professional pride clear in his words. “Smoke one prowler… over and out…”

  “What levels of technology d’you reckon you’d need to manage that…?” Thorne observed smugly, staring in turn at each of the stunned tankers around that campfire. He then took up the new beer he’d been given and cracked it open, taking a long drag and savouring the taste before slipping Davids a sly wink and half-raising it as if proposing a toast.

  “Here there be tygers…!” He added finally, grinning broadly all the while.

  9. The Destroyers of Worlds

  St Peter’s Church, Tocumwal

  New South Wales, Australia

  September 27, 1942

  Sunday

  (West of the International Date Line)

  The fire had been terrible, of course. The crates of spirits stored on the cellar had burned with the fury of an inferno, sending flames right through the structure within minutes of ignition. It had been fortunate for the neighbouring residences – Maude’s included – that the local bushfire brigade volunteers had been quick to respond and had arrived on the scene well-prepared. It was a real stroke of luck – everyone agreed – that that Private Leonski from the airbase had just happened to be close enough to raise the alarm so quickly. Without that warning, more homes and lives would almost certainly have been lost.