Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) (5 page)

“The British would do everything
in their power to prevent that. What should we do about them, Manstein? Should
I take Crete as OKW suggests?”

“Those are defensive measures
more than anything else. Quite frankly, I believe the British will move against
the Vichy French in Syria as soon as they can—that, and the issue of Iraq, will
soon be uppermost in their minds. If I were the British commander, I would use
Cyrenaica as a defensive buffer, and move as many troops against Syria as
possible. Once I eliminate the French there, I secure my right flank, effect a
conjunction with Turkey, protect the oil in Iraq and Iran, and open all those
lines of communication even into Persia. Where is the largest oil field in the
world? Right there in Iraq at Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk. That is what the British
wish to hold, or at the  very least deny us access. Where else can Britain
operate? They certainly won’t invade Portugal any time soon, or attempt any
campaign against French West Africa. Your buildup in Libya will prevent them
from entering Tripolitania. So they will have no choice but to operate as I
describe, and seize Syria and Iraq before the notion to do so enters our minds.”

“You propose I send German troops
to stop them? How would I get them there?”

“There are only two ways,” said
Manstein. “You can either wait for Rommel to build up enough strength to move
again on land, or go there by air and sea. The former will take months, the
latter is complicated by the fact that we cannot fly troops from airfields in
Greece, because Tripoli in Lebanon is beyond the range of our Ju-52 transports.
This means we must seize a new outpost first, to become a staging zone within
range of Palestine and Syria.”

“This is why OKW suggests this
plan against Crete.”

“Well enough, but it will take
time, and will most likely hand the British Syria, Lebanon and Iraq—possibly
even Iran. If OKW is really serious about this axis of attack on Egypt, then
they should see the bird they already have in hand! We already have Rhodes, or
at least the Italians occupy that place. That is well within the range of our
JU-52s from bases around Athens. Move Student’s troops there, and use that as
your springboard to land anywhere you choose—Crete, Cyprus, even Lebanon or
Syria. Yes, it is over 700 kilometers to the Levant from Rhodes, but remember,
the planes do not have to return. They can land at Vichy held air bases, all
within range of our Ju-52s.”

“Yet only Student’s troops?”

“They might do in the short run
to bolster the French, particularly if Rommel builds up and rattles his sword
in Libya to keep the British preoccupied there. Another infantry division might
be added. Yet two or three divisions isn’t much, no matter how good the troops
are. Don’t expect the Fallschirmjagers to march on Alexandria. And moving
anything more substantial through the Eastern Med by sea is risky, even if we
could find the ships to do so. The Royal Navy demonstrated that in these recent
engagements, and Raeder has not been able to guarantee naval supremacy yet.
That may change, these rocket weapons the British have aside, but then again it
may not come to pass. This means anything you send to Syria will have to be
supplied by the French. Don’t you see, my Führer? The problem of attacking the
British in Egypt is simply a matter of logistics. Neither axis of attack is
promising in that regard. We cannot adequately supply and sustain the forces
necessary to defeat the British there, as they will make it their major war
effort, and send everything they have to the Middle East—unless…”

Hitler’s dark eyes were on him
now, waiting, the question obvious on his face.

“Unless you tackle the question
of Turkey, my Führer. Barbarossa will join hands with Ivan Volkov. Or will it?
If Halder gets his way we will be off chasing the Russians through the streets
of Moscow. But if we pursue the southern strategy, with the principle aim of
securing the oil in the Caucasus, then only Old Man Turkey stands between the
Wehrmacht and the British position in the Middle East.”

“You advise I attack Turkey?”

“That may be a difficult
campaign. The terrain is very rugged, the road network impossible, but so was
Greece and the Balkans, and you have seen what we accomplished there in little
time. So I lay my baton upon Istanbul because if you ever really want to drive
the British from the Middle East, you will need secure lines of communications
to do so, by land, and not simply air or sea. A move as I have suggested here
would see German and Axis allied forces encircling Turkey on every border. We
may not have to lift another finger there. This alone could compel the Turks to
submit, or at the very least sign a treaty of non-aggression with us. Careful
negotiations could even secure passage for German troops and supplies through
that country. That said, the Turkish rail system is not modernized. It may, at
best, support no more than one or two Korps, perhaps five or six divisions, but
the right divisions might just do the job. Don’t forget Baba Gurgur! If you
continue to pursue your Mediterranean strategy without Turkey, the only other way
to get at the British in Egypt is through the Western Desert. But that will
take time we do not have, unless Barbarossa is delayed.”

Hitler’s eyes were a well of
thought now, with a light slowly kindling there as these thoughts fed the fires
of his determination. Manstein smiled, tucking his baton beneath his arm, the
lesson in strategy now over. He left the Führer with one last note of caution.

“This is a bold and imaginative
plan,” he said. “It would augment the southern emphasis for Barbarossa very
well. Yet would even this knock Great Britain out of the war? I do not believe
so. It may knock them out of the Middle East, but they will continue to fight
on. The British Empire would still have strong outposts in India and the far
east. Taking Egypt would be a severe setback, but they will fight on no matter
what, and wait for the Americans to get involved. Then we will be moving troops
west again, because instead of us planning to invade England as we should have
last year, they will be planning to invade French colonies in West Africa, or
even France itself. You see, my Führer, Ivan Volkov is not the only man who can
make predictions.”

Chapter 5

They
were some time
discussing all the ramifications of what Fedorov had told them—that Ivan Volkov
was not a man of their own world, but a dark angel from another. What he had
whispered in Hitler’s ear, no man knew, but Fedorov stressed that, at key
junctures in the war thus far, the Germans had taken decisions that they never
made in the old history, and that they were slowly but surely leading them to
victory. It was clear to all present that Volkov was now acting as a source of
intelligence for Hitler and his regime, using his knowledge of future events to
shape the present as best he could. It was therefore necessary for Fedorov to
stand in opposition to Volkov, and be light where the other man cast his
shadow.

He had discussed all this with
Admiral Volsky and Kamenski before he was sent to this meeting, and they had
expressed their confidence in his judgment.

“I can think of no other man with
more respect for the history, Mister Fedorov, or so dedicated to preserving its
integrity,” the Admiral had told him. “But realize that anything you reveal to
the men of this era may have unforeseen consequences, no matter how well
meaning your advice may be. You might warn them of operations doomed to
failure, for example, like the ill fated landing at Dieppe by the Canadians.
Yet that defeat taught the Allies valuable lessons that they put to good use at
Normandy, and remember, we cannot foresee every possible outcome of these
events, or of the changes we may cause here. That said, you must use your best judgment.”

So Fedorov was here, standing in
this discussion with Generals and Admirals and heads of state that were glowing
figures in the history he so loved, at once in awe of them, and amazed that he
should have the temerity to speak as an equal.

Yes, he
could not predict what might come of the decisions they would now make, but he
had to try. Things had gone too far, and he and his ship were now too deeply
enmeshed in the weave of this terrible tapestry of war. Now, with the arrival
of Kinlan’s brigade, the necessity to act in a way that could guide the power
they possessed was more essential than ever before. And so he made the
difficult decision to use the knowledge he had, the store of all the many hours
he had spent with his nose in the history books, come what may. He knew the
campaigns that were now on the near horizon, and spent long hours reading from
his library before he departed for this conference.

So they
talked for many hours, deciding what must now be done to further their
interests in this war. They spoke of Crete and Iraq and Syria, and the
prospects ahead for them in the Western Desert. Where might Kinlan’s force be
best employed? Should it remain together as one unit, or might it be better to
saturate other British forces with a hard core of these resolute and terrible
new warriors from the future. In the end, the need for secrecy guided their
thinking as much as anything else, and for the moment it was decided that the
Desert Rats would stay where they were, in the southern desert, the deadly foil
on Rommel’s flank.

Yet the
impending demands of those other battlefronts would delay any real British
offensive against Rommel. The British needed time, and they had been given a
brief measure of that in the victory lately won. Now they had to use that time
to their best advantage. After the meeting it was Churchill who caught
Fedorov’s elbow, asking if he might join Wavell for a quiet chat later that
evening.

The
darkness came, with stars crowding bright in the sky, and a crisp chill on the
air. Fedorov was outside the mud walled meeting room, smelling the smoke from a
wood fire and listening to the distant calls of wild things in the desert. The
night seemed to weigh on him, a leaden feeling that darkened his mood with a
sense of foreboding. The weight of all he had studied, and all he knew about
what might happen next, was also heavy on his mind. And over it all hung the
enormous girth of the war itself, a world war that was still in its adolescence
in early 1941. It would go on for years, and so many would die before it ended.

He had
read about them, from generals and statesmen, down to corporals in sergeants in
small unit actions that were now lost in the stream of events. Yet for the men
who fought them, they were the hard edge of life and death itself, moments of
supreme personal effort, heroism and courage, cowering and fear, and all soiled
with the soot of battle and blood. In those little lost actions of the war,
groups of men, comrades all, struggled and fought for places that seemed
insignificant in the general scheme of things—a bridge, a hill, an enemy
redoubt that had to be taken by storm. They saw their friends die, lost brave
officers, rose to the hour and did things they never thought they could, and
all that remained of those desperate hours they fought was now but a few lines
in an old history book. Yet here he was now, walking along those lines, seeing
it all in the finest detail, smelling it, breathing it in…

That
thought mated with the distinctive scent of tobacco, and he knew that someone
had lit up a cigar. There was a movement behind him, and General Wavell came
out from the sitting room to find him. He turned to see the tall, stalwart
figure, weathered by the long years in Egypt, but still strong, his cap on,
eyes catching the light of the stars.

“Captain
Fedorov, would you care to join us now?” Wavell said in perfect Russian.

 “Certainly,
“ said Fedorov, and he followed the General past the two standing guards and
into the shadowed room beyond. There he was thrilled to see one of the great
pillars of the war years, one of the truly great men the century had given
birth to, Churchill himself, sitting quietly in an chair by the fireplace with
a brandy in one hand and a cigar in the other. Fedorov soon found himself under
the heavy gaze of the Prime Minister, and he had an inner sense of dread as to
what he might now be asked.

“You
are a remarkable young man, Captain,” Churchill began, as Wavell translated. “I
listened to you very closely in the general meeting, and I can see that your
grasp of the situation here is secure.”

“It may
seem that way,” said Fedorov, “but nothing is ever certain, Mister Prime
Minister.”

“Very
true, but yet you have had a peek around the corner of tomorrow, young man, and
that is something that few, if any, can claim with any hope to be taken as a
sane man. That, plus the fact that you seem intimately acquainted with the
events now unfolding, make you a most remarkable asset. I hope you do understand
that. And here you have come to us like a guardian angel, and I am told that in
your day, our two nations were adversaries. To see you here now, and realize
you have taken it upon yourself to try and reverse that outcome, is most
commendable. With the knowledge you have of days to come, we can stand advised
of every crooked jab of the enemy’s lance, and know when we must thrust and
where to parry.”

“Possibly,”
said Fedorov, a note of caution in his tone. “I do know what happened once, but
that is as much a burden as it is an advantage. And I cannot predict what may
or may not result from the decisions you might make. I can only advise you in
the light of what I already know.”

“Because
you’ve walked the long path ahead. You’ve climbed that hill I put into my
speeches to bolster up the people back home.”

“No
sir, I haven’t walked it, and I’ve done no climbing at all. That has been, and
will be, your privilege and task. I have only read about it, though being here
like this makes me feel very odd—as if I were inside one of my books, if you
can understand that.”

“Yes… I
do understand. I do quite a bit of reading myself,” Churchill said with a
smile. “And seeing you here leads me to feel that you have walked right out of
some very good tales where I’ve lost myself for many a long hour. Our H.G.
Wells, for example, always seemed to me to be a man who saw tomorrow. Now that
I know there are really such men alive on this earth, and charting the course
of events here, it is somewhat chilling. So here you are in my book, and here I
am in yours. That’s the way this life is, my good young man. Everyone you meet
is walking out of the story of their own lives, coming to you after a journey
of many thousand steps. Some stay with you but a while, a brief chapter or two,
but others are at your side for many long volumes, even to the end of your
story. I am only glad we have met, and shaken hands here, but tell me, Mister
Fedorov, what compelled you to stand with us?”

The
question pricked at that deep seed of guilt in Fedorov, for he still believed
that it was his meddling, that impulsive whisper in Sergei Kirov’s ear, that
had caused the breakup of his homeland and shattered the history of WWII. But
he did not want to get into all of that with the Prime Minister, so he gave an answer
that seemed fair enough in his mind.

“The
war, sir. Not this war, but the next one that follows in our time. And I
suppose the long enmity that befell our two nations after this conflict
concluded.”

“I
cannot imagine it, for the war we have in front of us now demands my whole
being in attention. But tell me… We win it, do we not? The Grand Alliance
between Britain, the United States and Soviet Russia prevails?”

Fedorov
knew this question would be one of the first to be asked. Tovey had asked it,
and O’Connor, so it was no surprise that Churchill would want to know as well,
and keep the certainty of that outcome in his pocket.

“That
is true, sir, The allied forces prevailed.”

“Then
why did it fall apart?”

“I
suppose because winning the peace is sometimes the more difficult victory. In
that, I think we failed, on both sides.”

“A
pity.” Churchill relit his cigar, savoring another breath of the heavy tobacco,
exhaling slowly. “You know a very great deal for a man so young.”

“Too
much, I’m afraid.”

“Then I
hope you will unburden yourself with me here. I have always had a yearning to
get with our Mister Wells and his Time Machine and spring forward for a good
long look. Perhaps we can talk about that later, but for now, the world we’re
sitting in is more than enough to manage.”

“Very true,
sir.”

“Then
tell me, if you will, of the three campaigns that now seem imminent, which road
is the most promising? We spoke earlier of the defense of Crete. You seemed to
believe that was a lost cause, and yet you indicated the Germans also paid a
dear price for that island in the shattering of their airborne corps.”

“True,
sir. Whether that will happen again, I cannot say. So in spite of anything I
might tell you, the decision remains a gamble. I should point out that Crete
was defended by a much stronger force than you have there now. In our history,
General Wavell sent the bulk of the 2nd New Zealand Division to Crete, yet it
is now moving west into Libya. That leaves you only the 14th Brigade of the 6th
Infantry Division, and a few troops that evacuated from Greece, and this is a
much weaker defense. It could be that the Germans will not sustain the
casualties that your larger force inflicted in the history I know.”

“Everything
is a trade off,” said Wavell. “If I had sent the 2nd New Zealand to Crete, then
I would have nothing to watch Agedabia while the Australians have a go at
Benghazi.”

“Well,
what about this General Kinlan’s wonder brigade?” asked Churchill. “They sent
Rommel packing once already. Can’t they hold that line?”

“After
Giarabub is cleared, we’ll likely have a good number of prisoners to transport
back to the Nile,” said Wavell. “Then the 7th Brigade plans to move west to
overwatch the German buildup at Mersa Brega. But I still think it wise we leave
2nd New Zealand in Libya for the time being.”

“Which
brings us to Syria and Iraq,” said Churchill. “I’m still inclined to give Crete
the benefit of anything we can send there, but not at the expense of losing
Syria and Iraq! Securing them now before the Germans get the same idea and
begin to move troops is paramount. The Captain here says the loss of Crete is a
foregone conclusion. We must not allow that line concerning Syria and Iraq.”

“Agreed,”
said Wavell, “but all I can make available in either case might be the 7th
Australian Division, and I wouldn’t even have that if not for the victory at Bir
el Khamsa. They’ve been training up at Mersa Matruh and are now ready. That
division, and two brigades of the 6th British division in Palestine, are all that
we have in theater. I can add in the 5th Indian Brigade arriving from East
Africa now as well, but securing both Syria and Iraq is a tall order for those
forces.

“I know
you are hard pressed as it stands, General, but we must do something. I’ve
spoken to general Auchinleck in India, and he’s of a mind that we can quickly
move the 10th Indian division to Basra. In fact, I’ve ordered him to do exactly
that. The War cabinet has already agreed on a plan to deal with the Vichy
French in Syria, very secret. But perhaps I can persuade Captain Fedorov to
advise us on this?” Churchill gave Fedorov an expectant look.

“Yes,
this was a most dangerous period, with threats and operations on every side. In
our history Crete was lost, as I have said, but I can tell you that both Syria
and Iraq were cleared and held.”

“Splendid,”
said Churchill. “Then I think we can safely commit the 7th Australian Division
to the task, General Wavell. I’m told the Vichy French may not have much fight
in them. It may only be necessary to press them hard, and once they see the Aussies
come marching in on them, perhaps they’ll come to their senses and join us.”
Again, the sideward glance at Fedorov, the raised eyebrow carrying the
question.