Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Seventeen pounder… seven hundred metres… bearing zero-one-four…!” That warning call came in over the radio from one of the L40/20s scouting ahead as the screening force of light tanks and armoured cars immediately broke formation in reaction to the new threat and began manoeuvring rapidly.

  Pascucci pressed his eyes to the viewfinder of his commander’s periscopes, turning them on to the correct heading as he desperately sought a visual confirmation of the contact report.

  “There you are,” he muttered softly, finally spotting the well-hidden gun emplacement in the middle of a ruined plantation of date palms almost directly ahead, the glint of sunlight off the anti-tank gun’s long, slender barrel almost the only giveaway to its position beneath a thick layer of camouflage netting and scattered palm fronds. “Anti-tank gun… eight hundred metres… zero-one-three… esplosivo alto…!” He called out to his gunner, adjusting the original radio call to allow for the difference between their locations as his driver immediately pulled the M41L to a sudden halt and slewed the entire vehicle in the correct direction.

  “High explosive loaded…”came the call seconds later over the rattle and clank of the breech block slamming home.

  “On target…!” Enzo responded seconds later but the order to fire died on Pascucci’s lips as high explosive shells from at least three other vehicles converged on the Allied emplacement in a flash of white flame and a billowing cloud of black smoke and shattered foliage. Tracer from one of the scouts ahead continued to stream in on the ruined target as the gunner hosed the area with his 23mm cannon.

  A streak of tracer arced in toward them from further along the road ahead, punching straight through the thin frontal armour of an L20/40 light tank and blowing it to pieces. This time the lieutenant spotted smoke of muzzle blast up ahead and the squat, rounded shape of the dug-in Sherman tank that had fired it.

  “Enemy tank dug in… eight hundred metres, right side of the road ahead…!” Pascucci warned sharply, calling both to his crew and to the rest of the units within radio range. “Bearing three-five-seven… effetto pronto…!”

  Only a small adjustment was required as the driver gunned the engine and slewed the turretless Semovente slightly to the left, allowing the gunner to quickly line up on the new prey.

  “Effetto pronto loaded…!”

  “On target…!” Enzo called again from beside the gun’s huge breech, his eyes never leaving his rubber-padded sights.

  “Fuoco…!”

  WHAM…! The main gun roared and recoiled sharply in its cradle as a 90mm HEAT round burst from the muzzle in a cloud of flame and hurtled down range, sizzling past the left side of the Sherman’s turret and exploding against the hard earth of the road a few dozen metres beyond.

  “Miss..! Reload…!” Pascucci called immediately, cringing as the enemy tank fired again and another fiery ball of red tracer howled toward them, this one making them all lurch and gasp with momentary fear as the 76mm armour-piercing shell struck the Semovente’s left side a glancing blow and caromed off the sloped hull armour in a howling ricochet, leaving a long, thin scar of scraped-bare steel in its wake.

  “Testa di minchia…!” Pascucci breathed in angry frustration, shaking his head as if that might assuage the ringing left in his ears from the horrendous clang of the impact. “Enzo…?”

  “On target, signore…!”

  “Effetto pronto loaded…” the loader called a second later.

  “Fuoco…!”

  WHAM! Another 90mm shell hurtled downrange, this one with far better accuracy as it struck the Sherman square on its mantle, slightly to the left of the main gun. The effect was instantaneous: a relatively small flash of detonation was followed by a huge belch of flame within the tank’s hull as its own ammunition cooked off inside. Hull hatches popped open and the shattered turret ‘jack-in-the-boxed’, spiralling high into the air atop a trail of smoke and flame to land several metres away as powerful jets of roaring flame continued to stream from every opening.

  “Hit…! Well done, Enzo!” He keyed the transmit button on his unit radio. “Forward slowly, boys… we’re in their territory now and they’ll know exactly what ranges to fire on – we won’t get many chances so make your shots count…”

  The 235th Semovente continued to push slowly forward, encountering relatively light resistance on that front. For all that, the thinly-spread defenders that stood against them were no less resolute for lack of actual numbers. Two troops of Sherman tanks and a battery of 17-pounders supported by a platoon of infantry had fallen before the weight of the Italian advance, but not before they’d destroyed three Semovente and six more tanks of varying types and a number of armoured cars.

  By the time Pascucci’s unit received reports from his left flank of contact with SS units to the west, the 235th was down to almost half-strength, and the lieutenant was becoming gravely concerned for how they might fare should they come up against serious opposition. Every metre of ground had to be fought for against well dug-in tanks and infantry armed with what seemed to be an endless supply of PITA recoilless rifles and US-made Bazookas, either of which, in the right hands, could be deadly against armoured vehicles.

  To the rear of the column, one troop of self-propelled artillery from the 135th Regiment were at that moment receiving an urgent, priority request from the local command, and the four vehicles immediately pulled off to one side as their crews went about preparation to fire.

  The Semovente M40M da 105/28 was based on the Italian M26/41 hull platform (itself drawn from the German P-3 medium tank) and carried an open-topped, thinly-armoured turret mounting a French-designed 105mm Schneider gun. Already in common usage with Italian ground forces as a field gun, the weapon was mounted as a howitzer in M40M and was capable of firing a 15kg HE shell out to around twelve thousand metres.

  The current fire mission was intended for targets at a much closer ranges, and the first quartet of shells were on their way downrange a moment later as all four guns spewed huge clouds of flame and smoke high into the air. A moment or two later and another battery of heavier 149mm mobile guns on the other side of the column also joined in the fray, the boom of their discharge felt clearly through the ground as shockwaves thrummed dully off the armour of the passing tanks.

  East of the raised, north-south rail line that had become Kibrit’s initial western defensive perimeter, Captain Andrew Reginald St. John-Smythe and the crew of XFV002 Elwood cringed openly as shells fell upon the ruined village to the south and began to slowly ‘walk’ toward them. Through his low-magnification observation scopes he could already see infantrymen falling back in planned withdrawal the moment the fire had swept past their positions.

  “Well, that’s it chaps!” He announced cheerfully, ever the epitome of the classic English ‘gentleman’ even in the face of dire odds. “Orders are clear we’re not to try holding these forward positions under heavy fire. I suspect those blighters are going to force an advance through that smokescreen and I don’t want to be showing them our arse when they come through… let’s get this lovely girl back to the perimeter, shall we?”

  His driver needed no more urging than that, and the prototype AC-1 Sentinel tank surged backward from its prepared position in a roar of revving diesel and clouds of blue exhaust.

  They’d been sheltering behind a low adobe wall by the crumbling remains of a shelled home, the exposed barrel and upper turret surfaces covered in a thick layer of palm fronds and uprooted local foliage in an attempt at camouflage. All of that fell away now as the tank reversed back into open space behind, turned quickly through 180° (the turret remaining pointed westward at all times) and powered past the shattered remnants of broken structures that had once been the humble dwellings of local farmers and herdsman, threading its way back eastward toward the air base.

  Three Shermans – two M1A1s and a Firefly – formed up around the Sentinel as it rumbled off through an environment that quickly changed back from a narrow strip of green, well-irrigated land to
the far more usual landscape of uneven, rocky terrain mostly devoid of vegetation. The last thousand metres or so to the main gates and perimeter was a well-cleared ‘killing zone’ with numerous pre-registrations for artillery that would make any advance a veritable death-trap for anything but the most heavily-armoured attacker.

  A dozen or more universal carriers, M3 halftracks and M101A APCs also drew in on each flank, towing several anti-tank guns and carrying the remaining infantry from their own defensive positions to the eastern side of the rail line. Like St. John-Smythe and his men, they too had directed to withdraw in the face of heavy opposition and they were all quite happy to have their unit commanders interpret those orders in a liberal fashion that erred on the side of caution rather than foolhardiness.

  Having inflicted heavy casualties against the enemy and stalling his advance – which had been their primary objective in any case – they now fell back toward the main defences, forming a single column of speeding vehicles as they followed the line of a narrow, clear track running back to the gates, flanked on both sides by hastily-laid fields of thinly-spaced mines.

  Unterseeboot U-1401

  Mediterranean Sea, 80km north of Alexandria

  “All weapons armed and secure, Mein Herr,” the chief weapons officer declared a moment later as a bank of four large lamps at the centre of his panel all turned green in quick succession. “Weapons are ready to fire.”

  “Communications…!” Kretschmer again called loudly into the main control room, this time for his radio operator. “Kindly inform Kapitän Prien that we are commencing launch sequence…”

  “Jawohl, Mein Herr…!”

  “Secure the boat: launch imminent…!”

  “Jawohl, Mein Herr…!” That response came from his XO, and orders were passed down the chain for all outer hatches to be closed and secured.

  “Herr Leutnant…” Kretschmer continued, over the sound of claxons and clanging hatches “…you may proceed with launch on weapons one through four.”

  “Jawohl, Mein Herr…!” The weapons officer responded instantly, his hands working their way across the panel before him, flicking switches and turning dials with crisp professionalism. “Opening raketröhre zwei…”

  Outside the vessel, the second in line of the four hatches at the rear of the conning tower fairing began to crank slowly open, forced upward on powerful hydraulic jacks. The tip of a huge, white-painted missile was visible within, its pointed tip coloured a deep red. Wisps of white/grey smoke began to curl up around the nose cone even as the hatch continued to open, only to be scattered forever by the gusting wind.

  Ignition commenced the moment the hatch had opened fully, with flames and thick black smoke billowing up from around the missile in torrents. The weapon, all eleven metres and six tonnes of it, sprang upward from its silo atop a pillar of lurid, black-orange fire, quickly tipping over onto a south-easterly heading within a moment or two of launch as it thundered downrange at the head of a boiling tail of grey exhaust.

  The moment the missile had cleared the conning tower, the fourth (rearmost) hatch in line cracked and began to crank open, preparing to loose the boat’s second weapon. Like the first, it too was soon streaking skyward on a pillar of smoke and, similarly, was followed directly by another, this time fired from the first silo in the line of four. A moment or two later a third was hurtling downrange, the first two already difficult to see through a haze of spreading exhaust smoke.

  “Malfunction on tube three door, Mein Herr!” The weapons control officer called out, suddenly, taking in the report that came through on his headset from elsewhere in the submarine as a bright red light lit up in the middle of his instrument panel. “Leitender ingenieur advises the hydraulics are jammed... working to repair now…”

  “Keep me updated, Herr Leutnant,” Kretschmer advised sharply, cursing under his breath. “Communications… inform U-1404 they are clear to launch: we’ll fire our last weapon after they’re done.”

  “Jawohl, Mein Herr…!”

  Two kilometres east of their position, U-1404 launched the first of its four missiles.

  The Galaxy had commenced loading with two or three hundred already packed inside and many more gathering about, the number continuing to grow as refugees were offloaded from the steady stream of trucks ferrying them across from the main gates. Disruptions had so far been minor and the few armed troops present had been able to maintain control over the crowd in general, but all of them, Thorne included, knew full well how fleeting that control actually was. It was a small comfort that they were already on a desperately tight schedule to avoid the Luftwaffe air strikes they all knew were coming: every extra moment wasted brought the danger of riot or chaos exponentially closer.

  Ground crew continued to work a few dozen metres away, desperately striving to refuel and rearm the F-35 as Trumbull circled about, casting orders this way and that and generally becoming more an more agitated as the passing time played on his mind also. Thorne could clearly tell the man’s levels of nervousness and frustration were increasing even from that distance, but there was little he could do other than grant the man his silent sympathies… the reality was that he was feeling most of those same desperate sensations himself, but he forced them to the back of his mind and continued on with the job at hand.

  “What the bloody hell’s that…?” The bewildered query cane from a rifle-toting private standing a few metres away, and as Thorne turned in his direction he found the man staring almost straight up into the sky, pointing off to the north. Every single pair of eyes within earshot then followed the line of the man’s extended index finger into the bright, almost painfully blue sky above. Something was approaching from that direction… something that seemed at first to be little more than a tiny pinpoint of sunlight trailing a long, white contrail behind… something that at first appeared to be moving at a relatively slow speed.

  There were fighters circling about the base at medium altitude now on combat patrols and more joining them as every moment passed, but somehow he and everyone else knew that what they were looking wasn’t an Allied aircraft.

  “What… the… fuck…?” Thorne growled softly, fumbling with the radio mike before lifting it to his lips. “Hacking…!” He demanded sharply without bothering over formalities.. “Hacking, we’ve got something inbound from the north: where’s it come from…? What happened to our bloody early warning?”

  “We’ve got nothing on radar, sir,” came the bewildered reply a moment later. “Nothing in the air that isn’t ours for at least thirty miles…”

  “Well, I’m looking at the thing that’s ‘not on our radar’ right now, Squadron Leader, and I’d really like to know where the bloody hell it’s come from and – more to the point – where its bloody well going to! The only thing on this entire friggin’ planet right now that’s invisible to radar is sitting about thirty yards from me, so what the fuck am I staring at…?”

  “I can see it too now, sir – sorry, sir,” Hacking replied with real apology in his tone, not to mention no small amount of fear. “I think I’ve got it on radar now, sir, but… what…? No, that can’t be right… check again…!”

  “What can’t be bloody right, for Christ’s sake?” Thorne snarled in exasperation, still staring up at the white trail in the sky and feeling a sudden, unexpected chill run down his spine.

  “I – I think our systems are malfunctioning, sir,” Hacking explained hurriedly, pausing to verify something before continuing. “It appears to be moving too fast for accurate readings, but what we’re getting indicates something at an altitude greater than twenty miles, heading straight for us at something in excess of…” another pause, the disbelief in his own voice evident “…in excess of three thousand knots…!”

  “Fuck me…!” Thorne breathed softly, a quaver of fear in his voice as realisation set in and the microphone dropped from his hand, suddenly forgotten. What to the untrained eye had appeared to be travelling at relatively low speed had in fact just com
pleted an atmospheric re-entry and was still at incredibly high altitude, travelling at an extremely high speed.

  Others realised in was an incoming rocket of some type in the following moments and started running for cover, seeking out nearby slit trenches or something solid to hide behind. Air raid sirens began to wail all over the base, and Thorne understood that it might well land close but he was also somehow certain there was absolutely no point seeking cover.

  Two years earlier, Kurt Reuters, standing outside his own HQ in France, had spotted a nearby bomb descending out of a darkened sky and had instinctively understood that he was watching the fall of a thermonuclear weapon. Not knowing at the time that the device would prove to be inert, the Reichsmarschall had believed in those intervening few seconds between sighting and impact that he was experiencing the final moments of his own life.

  Had Max Thorne been aware of the details of those events as he stood there now, two years later, he might’ve understood completely how the Reichsmarschall had felt. As he stared up at that plummeting streak of shining metal and white/grey smoke he realised that he was without doubt watching the approach of a missile at the end of its ballistic arc.

  Born of a time when no missile so large would ever have been used to deliver conventional high-explosive, Thorne, like Reuters two years before, imagined he was watching the fall of a nuclear warhead. A sense of sad resignation flowed through him as he waited for it to hit, fully believing there was nowhere to hide in the seconds they all had left to live.

  Remember! Remember this moment! The admonition formed and died within him, echoing throughout his consciousness like some hurled accusation.

  A thousand thoughts flooded his mind: thoughts of home… of his past life… an overbearing sense of failure in the belief that the Nazis had beaten him in producing a deliverable atomic bomb. To his own surprise, his final thoughts in that moment were suddenly of Eileen, and a single, errant tear appeared at the corner of his eye as he squared his shoulders with all the bravery of one facing ‘certain’ death and braced for impact.