Christopher Nuttall: Second Chance

“It’s 1940,” he said. “July 1940.”

“Dear God,” the Captain said. Roth saw the agony behind his eyes; the time traveller – for he was now convinced that that was what he was dealing with – seemed terrified of him. “I…”

Slowly, far too slowly to be a genuine combat trooper – even an Italian one – the Captain grabbed for a weapon at his belt. Before he could even begin to draw it, Schmidt pistol-whipped him, knocking him to the ground. As the crowd of… passengers began to protest, the SS men levelled their rifles at them. Silence fell, broken only by children weeping silently.

Scum , Roth thought disdainfully. “ Quiet ,” he thundered. He concentrated, wishing that he spoke better English. Did any of the technical experts speak English? He couldn’t remember. He wanted to speak gently, but he knew that his English wasn’t good enough for the task.

“You are all my prisoners,” he said carefully. “A state of war exists between your country and mine. If you cooperate, answer our questions and be helpful, you will be traded or returned to your homelands.” Several of the men looked as if they wanted to protest; had they grasped that they had travelled in time? “If you do not cooperate, I cannot swear to how you will be treated.”

He motioned to two separate corners of the field. “All the men are to go to this corner,” he said carefully, enunciating each word. “All the females are to go to that corner. Children are to go with their mothers.”

“No,” a man said. Roth looked at him; he was long-bearded and wore a strange white robe with a matching skullcap. His ill-trimmed beard imposed no discipline at all; Roth kept his face impassive by force of will. “I will not be separated from my woman.”

He waved a hand at a woman whose face was covered behind a black shawl. Roth shrugged and nodded to Schmidt, who lifted his rifle and shot the man neatly between the eyes. His body collapsed onto the ground, a neat hole drilled through his head.

“You will separate,” Roth ordered. Shaken, the sexes separated themselves. The children protested – and the suddenly widowed woman screamed – but they complied. One by one, starting with the men, the SS soldiers secured their hands behind their backs, leaving only the young children unbound.

“Go back to get the experts,” Roth said, as some of the SS worked to empty the pockets of their captives. Some was familiar; money, even with an unfamiliar face most of the time. A banknote with Winston Churchill’s face on provoked a rare grin. Other items made no sense at all; strange silver discs in machines that were attached to headphones.

“ Jawohl , Herr Standartenfuhrer ,” Schmidt said. Roth knew that it was dangerous, but he couldn’t resist; he climbed up the strange ladder into the massive aircraft, shaking his head in awe. In a daze, he wandered through the aircraft, staring at the evidence of riches beyond comprehension, until his foot kicked a book on the floor. Curiously, he picked it up.

“ The Iraq War , by Murray and Scales,” he read. He opened the book and flipped through a handful of pages; the war the book talked about made no sense at all. Who was Saddam? Why had he been allowed to torment the great powers of his era for so long? Where were the Nazi victories he was certain would happen? The British seemed to be almost… lapdogs to the United States of America – where had that come from? The book spoke in cold clinical terms about a war that had smashed a medium-sized country in less than three weeks; the sheer power of the weapons described was horrifying, in a general way. He flipped through the pages faster and faster; the book mentioned Hitler only in passing, to say only that he had ‘influenced’ some nonsense called ‘Arab Nationalism.’

We lose the war ; he realised, and then shook his head. Closing the book, he headed back out of the aircraft and ordered that it be searched from top to bottom for more books, for more weapons, for anything that might be useful. Lose the war? He thought coldly, with a passion he’d never known before. Lose the war, when the alternative was godless Soviet communism or American capitalism? Not on my watch!

Downing Street

London, UK

6 thJuly 1940

When he thought about it, which, to give him credit, wasn’t that often, Prime Minister Howard Smith knew that he would never be cut out to be a great Prime Minister. Great Prime Ministers had character, and force of personality, and a party behind them. As Margaret Thatcher had proven, force of personality could only get one so far, and as Tony Blair had proven, a party could only push one so far. Smith, very much aware of his position as a compromise candidate in the elections of 2014, knew that he would never archive the degree of fame and notoriety that those two had earned.

They would have made use of the opportunity that seemed to have been presented to him; he was simply terrified. He’d grown up in a world where all evil seemed to have been defeated, even the War on Terror had been growing to an end with the death of many of the evil masterminds. To know that he was very close to Hitler , or Stalin , or even Roosevelt ; great men who’d shaped the world around them, chilled him.

Behind him, the men and women of the Cabinet took their places; a handful of military men at the rear of the room. The CJO, General Cunningham, had a place at the table, along with his civilian supervisor, the Secretary of State for Defence. Smith didn’t turn; staring out of the window at the empty sky. So far, the Press hadn’t been willing to run the risk of being laughed at by being the first to break the news, but he knew that the Internet had some very accurate speculation.

Someone must be leaking , he thought, and then the door was closed with more force than strictly necessary; the squad of armed guards taking their positions outside the room. The Home Secretary, the man he liked and hated in equal measure – and one of the people forced upon him by the Great Compromise after the 2014 elections – had insisted on securing the building, and preparing for war.

There was a cough behind him. He knew that it had come from Sir Charles Hanover’s throat; the Home Secretary had made no secret of his contempt for the Prime Minister. A little less displayed radicalism, a little more acceptability to the backbenchers, and he might well have become Prime Minister. Sighing, Prime Minister Howard Smith turned around and took his seat at the end of the table, chairing the meeting.

“Good morning,” he said, knowing how pitifully inadequate it sounded. “If the reports are correct” – he noticed that a young army officer seemed… annoyed by the comment – “we face a crisis of unparalleled proportions. It is safe to say, I think, that whatever we decide here and now will have very far-reaching consequences.”

“The reports are correct,” General Cunningham said. “I can buy an aircraft crewed by men who have somehow slipped though the immunisation programs, but not the changes in the stars, France and Germany.”

He sounded like a man who needed a stiff drink. Howard understood the feeling; he shared it. “So… when are we?”

Cunningham looked up at the young army officer, who saluted smartly. “The details – interception of German radio, the stars and the passbooks that the dead flyers carried – suggest very strongly that we have travelled back exactly seventy-five years; 2015 to 1940. I have taken the liberty of asking Professor Sir Torrance to compile a short briefing note on events on that day and the coming few days.”