Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

  All the ones that are left, you mean… the voice echoed in his head, dark and accusing and no longer giving any pretence of sounding like his dead wife.

  “We may not be able to save all of ‘em,” he muttered, not caring who heard at that moment, “but we’ll save the ones who can hold on…”

  On a whim, with tears struggling at the corners of his own eyes, Thorne leaned down and placed a single, quick kiss on Eileen’s cheek, suddenly overwhelmed by the emotion of being so relieved that she was going to be okay. Without moving her eyes from the patient beside her, Eileen reached up and laid her own hand on his as it still rested there on her shoulder, and for a moment the pair shared the comforting intimacy of that basic human contact.

  Now high above the Sinai Peninsula, the Super Galaxy cruised on ever eastward toward the relative safety of Iraq and beyond while some distance away, Trumbull slotted the F-35E in behind the KC-10A extender to top up his depleted tanks. The main cargo hold was cramped and hot and incredibly uncomfortable, but the hundreds jammed inside that space all made an effort to persevere as best they could, heartened somewhat by the news that for the most part they wouldn’t be required to stay on the aircraft for much more than another ninety minutes. For most it was a small inconvenience in the face of the almost certain death they’d left behind.

  That Reuters said nothing at all when the news finally came through of the Galaxy’s escape was probably more frightening in its own way than if he’d flown into the wild, uncontrollable rage Schiller had been expecting. For the second time in two years, the seemingly ubiquitous, nagging ‘toothache’ that was the Hindsight team had managed to slip through their fingers and escape destruction once again. That that escape had come at the end of a massive Allied defeat was of little consolation to a man who seemed to have become completely obsessed with Max Thorne and his associates.

  “Take us back to Cairo, Albert…” The Reichsmarschall said eventually after a long, long silence, his voice dark and hollow as he stared into nothingness from his seat inside the command vehicle. “Make sure my transport waiting to take us to Germany: I have a ‘date’ to keep with Director Hegel and I really don’t want to keep him waiting.

  “Jawohl, Mein Herr…” Schiller answered simply, not seeing any point in adding anything more as he considered the impending fate of Wilhelm Hegel and a chill ran the length of his body.

  21. Dangerous Games

  RAF Station Habbaniyah

  West of Baghdad, Iraq

  October 3, 1942

  Saturday

  It’d been six hours since the landing and Thorne still hadn’t left the base hospital, seated by Eileen’s bed as she slept fitfully. Many parts of her upper body that weren’t covered by clothing were wrapped in crisp, white bandages, some of which showed through faint stains of blood from underneath. Apart from wounds that were mostly superficial, she’d been suffering from concussion and shock when admitted and, once provided with a mild painkiller and sedative, had slipped into a restless sleep filled with dreams, moans and soft whimpers.

  The room was a small one of just a dozen beds and was for officers only, with just two other patients present at that time, one at the far end of the room and the other directly opposite. As the only female patient, a set of moveable cloth screens on castors has been provided to protect Donelson’s modesty should the need arise, although these were currently pulled back in a clustered group on near the next bed in line.

  The room was as well-equipped as could’ve been expected of any 1940s hospital, which of course was absolutely primitive on Thorne’s opinion, but was clean and properly maintained for all that. A dedicated nurse was on call to assist with any requirement, and a young but experienced doctor would pass through every twenty minutes or so to keep a close eye on the patient. High Command had made it clear how important these new guests were, and every effort was being made to keep them as comfortable as possible.

  Somewhere else in the hospital, a team of surgeons were operating on Jimmy Davids. Thorne hadn’t needed any expert opinion to know that the man had been in critical condition as he’d finally been unloaded from the Super Galaxy after that excruciatingly-long ninety minute flight from Kibrit. Blood loss alone had been almost enough to kill the man several times, with one of the medics on board the Lockheed at one stage forced to defibrillate to restart his heart using a portable unit that had been included in the C-5M’s on-board first aid supplies.

  Now all that was left was the waiting as the operations continued, and it was only at the insistence of the chief surgeon that Thorne had not been permitted into the operating room to keep watch over a man he’d come to consider a fine officer and a friend over the course of the last three weeks or so. Thanks to Jimmy Davids, he was instead able to sit by the bed of Eileen Donelson and hold her hand comfortingly as she slept, the terror and pain he’d felt in those moments after the first rocket strike all still too clear in his mind.

  For a very short period of time that felt like an age, he’d feared Eileen dead from that huge blast, and the realisation of how much that had terrified him had awakened within him emotions he’d believed long gone. The experience had raised many rather uncomfortable questions that he was currently unable to answer… questions that would need answers soon enough, regardless of how uncomfortable the might make him.

  He glanced up with a start a moment later, realising he must’ve dozed off for a moment, and found Eileen’s doctor standing in front of him. He was a young man in his late twenties, barely of average height with dark hair, a close-shaven beard and moustache who walked with the aid of a silver-headed cane that went some way toward alleviating a heavily pronounced limp in his left leg. The man had obviously said something that had gone completely unheard and was regarding Thorne with the expectant expression of someone awaiting some kind of response.

  “Uh… sorry, Doctor… what was that…?” He began with mild embarrassment, gently lowering Eileen’s hand to the bed at her side and giving the man his full attention.

  “I said, sir that Captain Davids’ surgery appears to have been successful. He’s being moved out into recovery as we speak.”

  “That’s excellent news, doctor,” Thorne observed with obvious relief, rising from his chair to stand before the man. “I assume it will be some time before we’ll be able to speak to him?”

  “I’m afraid so… an hour or two at least before he’s safely recovered from the anaesthetic, if not more. As you can understand, he’s going to be incredibly weak regardless of the success of the operation, and there’s also going to be the issue of how he’s been affected mentally when he awakes: coming to terms with losing his legs is not going to be easy.”

  “Of course… of course…” Thorne nodded in agreement, not relishing the task of the responsible surgeon in having to give the young man the bad news. “He’s going to have a hard road ahead, these coming months…”

  “Possibly even years,” the doctor countered with a rueful smile, “although I can attest that one does manage… eventually…” To Thorne’s complete surprise, he used the cane in his hand to tap sharply against the left leg of his white hospital scrubs. Rather than the soft, flesh-like ‘thud’ one might’ve expected, there was instead the sharper, metallic ring of something else beneath the material.

  “I – I’m sorry… I had no idea…” Thorne stammered, at a lost as to what to say next.

  “Why should you, sir? I’ve learned to get along well enough now that most people think it’s just a limp, particularly with the new one they fitted me with last year.” He paused, and then added: “How long is it since you’ve eaten, sir?”

  Thorne considered the question seriously for a moment and realised that he couldn’t actually remember.

  “Long enough,” was the only answer he could give in the end, a wry grin flickering across his lips.

  “Well, sir, the Officer’s Mess is always open and I think you could do with a good meal.” He gave a faint nod toward the woman lying on t
he bed beside them. “Don’t worry, sir: we’ll take good care of her. I suspect you could also do with a bit of sleep…”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Thorne admitted reluctantly, a great weight of hunger and exhaustion suddenly crashing down upon him. With a final nod of surrender, he clapped a gentle hand on the doctor’s shoulder by way of thanks and shuffled off toward the door at the far end of the room.

  It was dark outside now with twilight well and truly gone, but it was still quite warm for all that and there were ceiling fans suspended from the ceilings above, turning lazily as they made a desultory effort to circulate the dry, lifeless air. There was still a great deal of activity evident inside the building however despite the onset of night. Hospital staff hurried this way and that, going about their business with the sharp efficiency of experienced veterans as patients were wheeled hither and thither along the halls by white-coated orderlies.

  A German-backed rebellion had been smouldering on-and-off within Iraq for the better part of eighteen months now with sparse but nevertheless quite damaging support on occasion from the Luftwaffe. Fighting that had originally been quite intense during the first half of 1941 had generally died off after a month or two as British forces re-established control and occupied the country, reinstalling the ousted Regent 'Abd al-Ilah of Hejaz by June of the same year.

  Anti-British sentiment had festered and grown within Iraq ever since however, as it had in many countries throughout the Middle East, and there was still the occasional outbreak of violence or localised uprising here or there, the incidents frequent enough and damaging enough to warrant the maintenance of a significant garrison force within Iraqi borders… a force of British troops that might otherwise have been put to good use fighting against the Wehrmacht in North Africa.

  The last such display of unrest had occurred just the week before in Baghdad itself, 90km east of Habbaniyah, with several days of urban fighting only brought to an end following the loss of several dozen British soldiers and hundreds of Iraqis – both insurgents and innocent civilians caught in the inevitable crossfire. The hospital was therefore filled with casualties – military and civilian alike – as staff worked round the clock to nurse the survivors back to health where possible and care for the last days and hours of those too badly wounded to survive.

  That the base’s medical facilities were being used to help native Iraqis meant little to the Anti-British insurgents, whose goals of ridding Iraq of Colonial Powers would never be swayed by such insignificant acts of kindness or decency. It meant even less to the German ‘advisors’ working within the country to aid the insurgency and coordinate air strikes. Anything that could be done to tie up substantial British forces that could otherwise be deployed fighting the Wehrmacht was a worthwhile pursuit in their eyes.

  Thorne barely registered any of this as he wandered aimlessly along the narrow halls, exhaustion making his gait slow and erratic. Occasionally he’d need to steady himself with an outstretched hand against the nearest wall as he walked on, eyes cast downward as if no spare energy remained for them to be raised any higher.

  There were probably two dozen men in the mess still despite it being well after normal dinner hours. At least half were clearly doctors, one of two still wearing bloodied theatre gowns, and all of them looking tired to the point of exhaustion. The remainder were a random selection of officers from either army or air force with pilots in the majority. They too looked worn out and weary, and several of them sported bandages or dressings of one type or another, suggesting that some at least weren’t merely visiting.

  In one corner, Thorne spotted Lloyd, Trumbull and Rupert Gold all seated at a single table well away from everyone else. Passing Lloyd a nod of recognition as each caught the other’s eye, he lined up behind a young pilot officer at the bay maries, selected a tray and worked his way along, gratefully accepting a mug of beer and several steaming plates of hearty food he’d be hard pressed to remember five minutes later. Carrying the tray across to the table with more unsteadiness than he’d care to admit, he slumped down into an empty seat beside Gold and opposite the other two.

  “Wondered when you’d surface.” Lloyd grinned weakly, looking no less tired than Thorne felt. “How’s Eileen doin’?”

  “She’ll be fine,” he responded with a nod, picking up a fork and prodding at a bowl of something he suspected to be baked beans. “Good rest will sort her out.”

  “You look like you could do with a bit o’ rest yourself,” Lloyd observed with a grin, winking surreptitiously at Gold. “Why not get Rupert here to give you a bit of a massage as well; I hear he’s got a great pair of hands…”

  “Indeed, Max,” Gold nodded with mockingly excessive enthusiasm, happily joining in on an old joke. “A bit of shoulder work and a nice rub-down would work wonders!”

  “Sounds nice, but maybe later,” Thorne replied with a dry smile, too tired to rise to the bait, although he did catch the fleeting sneer of distaste that flashed momentarily across Trumbull’s face before he managed to bring it under control. “How about you, Alec…?” He added, as usual unable to resist stirring up a friend regardless of his own levels of exhaustion. “Rupert here can do things with his fingers you wouldn’t believe…!”

  “Thank you, but no,” Trumbull demurred with all the forced graciousness he could muster. “I think I shall be just fine…”

  “Come on, Alec,” Lloyd grinned broadly, barely suppressing an outright laugh at the reaction. “It’s not queer unless you make eye contact…!”

  Thorne almost sprayed a mouthful of beer across the table over that remark as Trumbull’s face turned a bright shade of crimson and Gold, in this case the most considerate of the lot of them, turned his head respectfully off to one side and stared woodenly at a light fitting as he desperately fought his own urge to burst into laughter.

  “It appears that Captain Davids is going to be all right,” Trumbull began stiffly, refusing to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing him lose his cool – which was, of course, the ultimate aim of the whole thing as usual. The change of subject also had the effect – completely intentional – of defusing the situation and bringing some seriousness back into the conversation.

  “I heard,” Thorne nodded again, grimacing own and well aware that it wasn’t going to be quite so simple as that. “Wouldn’t wanna be the doctor that has to have that conversation with him when he wakes up, though,” he added as both he and Lloyd suddenly recalled the story Davids had told them of the Slough Breakout, the night before.

  “‘I’ll never put on a life jacket again…’…” They both muttered in unison, both thinking again of Quint’s riveting monologue from Jaws and how similar had been the sentiment with which Davids had described his horror of friends and colleagues left mutilated and burned on that fateful day of the Breakout. Neither wanted to think about how badly the revelation that he’d lost both legs was likely to affect the man, particularly in his already weakened state.

  “Too many buggers lost or hurt because of us…” Thorne sighed darkly. His shoulders sagged as he lowered his head, momentarily unable to meet their gaze. “Too many poor bastards like Knowles, Toms or Ingalls… or Arthur Morris… who’ll never see their families again… and for what…?”

  “‘Morris’…?” Trumbull broke in at that moment, the name registering in his memory. “‘Arthur Morris’, you say…?”

  “Arthur Morris,” Thorne answered automatically in a hollow voice. “Sergeant with the 2/28th Battalion… died this morning… saving my life…”

  “‘Arthur Morris’… Trumbull repeated again, this time gaining more of Thorne’s attention as the Australian realised there must be something significant behind the words. “Surely not the same Arthur Morris whose wife and daughter live in Tocumwal…?”

  Oh no… oh no… oh no…! The desperate words flared in Thorne’s mind as a cold ball of fathomless fear formed within the pit of his stomach. Inexplicably, Alec Trumbull knew something of the Morris family �
� that much was instantly clear – and he was suddenly very afraid that any information the man was about to pass on was not going to be good news.

  “Yeah…” Thorne began, swallowing thickly and wishing he’d picked up some water while he was at the servery. “Arthur Morris, who owns the local pub with his brother… married an Indigenous – ah – Aboriginal woman with a kid… a daughter…”

  “Ahh, Max…” Alec began, unsure what Arthur Morris had meant to the man and reluctant to continue as a result. “The Junction Hotel burned to the ground last week…” He too swallowed as Thorne’s expression hardened into a defensive mask he recognised all too well. “I believe Sergeant Morris’ wife… died in the blaze. The base fire units were called in to help, the fire was so intense. It was only good fortune and quick thinking from that Private Leonski that prevented it from spreading to neighbouring homes...”

  “Oh, Jesus… oh, Jesus Christ…” Thorne breathed, not sure he was capable of enduring any more bad news at that moment. Head in his hands, fought a sudden urge to simply burst into tears. At the same time, he completely ignored frantic calls from his subconscious to take note of a small but vitally important detail Trumbull had just mentioned that had slipped past him unnoticed.

  “Morris died in his arms,” Lloyd explained solemnly to the others. “Max promised him he’d take care of his family when we got back to Oz…”

  “Oh, my Lord,” Trumbull exclaimed softly, instantly recognising the solemnity of such an oath and feeling for his friend. “Max, I’m so sorry, Old Chap… she was found in the cellar… the building collapsed… there was nothing anyone could do…”

  “She… they had a daughter…” Thorne croaked, not even registering as Rupert laid a gentle, comforting hand on the man’s arm (much to the silent surprise and unease of Trumbull and, to a lesser extent admittedly, Lloyd also.