John Schettler - Grand Alliance

“That’s a large force,” Kinlan agreed. “At least a regiment. Can we swing over for a better look?”

They maneuvered discretely, and Kinlan was treated to a good look at the troops on the march, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Looks to be an infantry unit,” said Kinlan. “Not much transport, but that’s a good support column behind them.”

“Agreed,” said O’Connor. “Most likely supplies to relieve the garrison at Giarabub.”

When Popski translated Fedorov passed another moment of anxiety. This was not supposed to happen, but the facts on the ground were now making the strongest possible argument to the contrary. The history had changed again, another small eddy in the stream here.

When he was cut off by O’Connor’s attack, Major Castagna knew he was isolated and could only receive meager supplies by air at the small airfield serving the oasis, but he stubbornly determined to hold out, encouraged when he received a personal message from Rommel promising reinforcements and supplies. With six machinegun companies and a number of light guns, Castagna set about fortifying Giarabub, digging trench lines, laying barbed wire and mines, and building small gun positions to resist any attempt to take the place by storm. In the heart of the oasis, there was also an old fort, which he strongly reinforced, determined to hold out indefinitely. He put his troops on rations, knowing lack of food would be his greatest liability in time, but he did not have long to wait.

Rommel would keep his promise.

This had never happened in the history, and Fedorov now knew that the small battle that was fought here by the Australian Divisional Cavalry and other units might soon take a frightening new form.

“They will take Siwa if they come in strength,” he said through Popski.

“That’s no bloody good,” said O’Connor. “We need the place as a staging zone for our long range desert patrols. But Fergusson won’t be able to hold on here. He’s only a single battalion, and he’ll soon be bottled up or simply sent packing east, and it’s a long way to the Nile.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Kinlan with a grim smile.

“That’s the stiff upper lip,” said O’Connor, “but unless you’ve at least a full brigade with you, you may find the going rough, General. We’ll have to warn Fergusson, and then inform Wavell.”

Fedorov thought on this for a moment when he got the essence of O’Connor’s reaction from Popski. Then he ventured something. “You managed to capture or destroy an entire Italian Army with a much smaller force. Perhaps we can do more here with what we have in hand than you may realize at the moment.”

“I’m all for it,” said O’Connor. “At the very least we must give them a good punch in the nose if they come east for Siwa. Discourage them.”

“Why General,” said Kinlan. “That was exactly what I was thinking. I’ve a battalion of good Gurkha light infantry that can strengthen that garrison.”

“Gurkhas? Bloody good troops. I wasn’t aware they were here.”

They moved off, not wanting to draw anti-aircraft fire, and scouted the way north as well. Fedorov knew the real battle was there, and that much would hinge on the fate of Tobruk at this stage in the fighting. If the Germans could take the place, then their lines of communication back to Benghazi and Tripoli would be cleared, and they could move east. But he did not know that Rommel had already made that decision, and was even now about to engage the thin defensive line Wavell had established south of Sidi Barani with the 2nd New Zealand Infantry Division and what was left of his armor. News of that battle would come to them soon after they landed, and it would pose another thorny question for both O’Connor and Kinlan.

O’Connor had a good look at what was on the ground now, amazed at the size of the force Kinlan had at his disposal.

“You’ve a good deal more than a battalion of Gurkhas! A full brigade? Here? Whatever for? Siwa is useful, I’ll grant you that, but the real fighting is north on the coast. That’s where this force should be, and as soon as possible. Whatever possessed Wavell to send you here? I must speak with him directly.”

He had not yet seen the tanks close up yet, as the helo deliberately landed several miles from the main column where Major Isaac was waiting with a Sultan Command Vehicle and two Dragon 8-wheeled scout cars. Fedorov knew that each passing hour was going to raise more and more questions in O’Connor’s quick mind, and he wondered what to do about it. He pulled Popski aside to confer with Kinlan one last time.

“General,” he said. “I think it is fair to say you are now convinced of what I have told you?”

“As loony as that sounds, the evidence is hard to deny. Yet my men know nothing of this, and I’ve a long road to walk with them.”

“You mean to go north?”

“Where else? We can’t sit out here indefinitely.”

“You’ll be needed there. My guess is that Wavell has his hands full. One good battle there could smash Rommel’s Afrika Korps, and buy the British the one thing they desperately need now-time.”

Kinlan nodded. “Ironic,” he said. “Time…”

Fedorov gave him a knowing look. “Then am I to assume I can collect my Marines and operate as I please?”

Kinlan hesitated, wondering whether he should let this fish off the hook just yet. Something still rankled at him about this whole situation, and the presence of this Russian team at the very moment his force was attacked by that ICBM. In spite of the man’s apparent sincerity, there had been long years of growing enmity with the Russians, ever since Putin started trying to patch the old Soviet Union back together again when he annexed the Crimea and meddled in Ukraine back in 2014… Back in 2014? If any of this were true, that time was now decades away, in the future. He still struggled with it, in spite of the obvious evidence.

“What do you propose to do?” he asked Fedorov.

There it was… The question Fedorov had been struggling to answer himself. He was in a real quandary over how to handle the issue of O’Connor. The evidence he had presented to Kinlan had been enough to establish that all important factor of great doubt in the man. He knew from his experience aboard Kirov that he had to find some key evidence that was wholly inexplicable by any other means, and this would leave time displacement as the only possible solution that could resolve that issue, and also account for all the other evidence.

The presence of Popski, the men from the LRDG, and O’Connor with his downed Blenheim were strong local evidence as to their position in time, but they could be easily dismissed, just as Karpov had tried to dismiss the Fulmar fighter that first overflew the ship, and even the radio intercepts of local era news broadcasts, thinking it was all an elaborate hoax staged by NATO as a deception. He knew Brigadier Kinlan was likely to come to the same conclusion, unless he could present the man with incontrovertible evidence that could not be easily dismissed or explained away. When they had first displaced in time, so long ago it seemed now, that evidence had been obtained by reconnoitering Jan Mayen Island for the weather station that was located there. When that facility was not found, along with the modern airstrip that should have been there, it strongly argued that they were not where they belonged.

Sultan Apache had been that same inexplicable dilemma for Kinlan. The only possible solution had been the impossible notion of time displacement. It was the only thing that explained what could have happened, and also account for Popski, O’Connor and all the local era evidence.

Yet now he had another challenge-how to bring General O’Connor to the same place in his understanding? Kinlan had been correct in pointing out that the man would have no foundation to admit the possibility of time displacement as an odd aftereffect of nuclear detonation. He would have no knowledge of nuclear weapons at all, as the physics involved was still theoretical and would not be tested for another five years. Convincing O’Connor of what had happened would present a whole new set of problems.