Christopher Nuttall: Second Chance

Howard nodded. The officer unfurled a small sheet of paper. “July 6 th1940,” he read. “The carrier Ark Royal , attached to Force H, under Vice-Admiral Somerville, will be attacking the damaged French battlecruiser Dunkerque at Oran. Tomorrow, the Italians will attack the bases in Malta and Egypt; in three days there will be a short battle between Force H and an Italian battle fleet.” He took a breath. “In ten days, Hitler will outline the plan to invade England; Operation Sealion.”

There was dead silence. “Well, dash it all,” John McLachlan, the Foreign Secretary, said. “We know that he never came over the channel, don’t we?”

“Unfortunately, we cannot rely on that,” Hanover said smoothly. His perfectly-modulated tones drifted over the table. “With all due respect, Prime Minister, we must prepare at once for a possible invasion.” There was a flurry of comment; Hanover held up a hand and it died down. Smith felt a flicker of pure envy. “ We are not the Britain of 1940; compared to them we are very unprepared for an invasion. Tell me, General Chapman, do we have the ability to sustain a long war with the Nazis?”

The RAF Chief of the Air Staff coughed nervously. “We can detect and respond to any incoming attack almost as soon as it is launched,” he said. “One on one, a Eurofighter, a Tornado or a Hawk is more than a match for any German aircraft of this era. The problem, however, is a very different quantitative difference; quite frankly, with the tempo of full-scale war, we will run through our stocks of modern missiles and precision weapons quite quickly, which will leave us with cannons alone – and cut our advantages in half.”

“On the ground, the situation is not much better,” Cunningham said. “At your command, I’ve already issued orders for troops to move towards the most likely invasion sites, should there be an invasion in this timeline.”

“There will be,” Hanover said confidently. “Gentlemen, this nation represents an awesome amount of power to someone like Hitler. If the Germans have any idea what’s happened, then they will come for us before we can build an army and take the war to them. Individually, our troops will be far better equipped and trained than even the Waffen-SS , but once we run out of modern equipment…”

Cunningham scowled. “Some of the units were in Iraq,” he said. “Fortunately, we did a draw-down in 2011 and we have most of the army in Britain, but we will require time to prepare to repel an invasion, let alone continue the war.”

“Why should we continue the war?” Margaret Darter, Minister without Portfolio, asked. “We are not at war with Hitler?”

“There have already been clashes between our fighters and German… Messa-whatever ,” Chapman said. “They will have seen SAR helicopters; they will have seen the Eurofighters. They know we’re here.”

Smith felt an icy hand clutch at his heart. “Do you think that they might have gotten some of our technology as well?”

“It’s not impossible,” Hanover said. “You… army officer, can you offer us a guarantee?”

Smith felt a flicker of admiration at the still look on the officer’s face. “I’m afraid not, Prime Minister,” he said, addressing Smith directly. “As far as we can tell, the entire event, whatever it was, swept up everything from around five miles from the coast, and some other things. The oil rigs seem to have arrived with us, as did most of the navy, but the American carrier group that was due here in four days doesn’t seem to have come with us. Some aircraft seem to have appeared at the edge of the… event, but this wasn’t understood until after they had all gone.”

“So they will consider us a resource,” Hanover said, addressing Darter. “Quite apart from that, do we not have treaties with France and the other European counties?”

Smith smiled; Hanover was one of the more vocal Eurosceptics. “You would propose a second war to liberate them?”

“Prime Minister, if we do not fight them now, then they will come for us,” Hanover said. “These are the bogeymen of Europe; we have a moral duty to fight them.” He scowled. “However, there are other problems.

“We have to start building a stronger army,” he said grimly. “We also have to begin rationing fuel; all the fuel we have will be needed for the army, then…”

“We have to ration food,” Smith said. “How much do we get from other countries?”

“My department is working on a study,” Hanover said. “However, it is vital to get the Defence of the Realm powers into action. We have to prevent panic, and we have to ensure that everyone has enough food to eat, or there will be riots.”

“There already have been riots,” Smith said. He felt bone-weary. “What do we tell the people?”

“The truth,” Darter said. “Let them decide on what to do.”

Flower child , Smith thought, wryly aware that this was one place that Hanover and himself would be in perfect agreement. Darter’s ‘peace and love’ credentials were perfect; her position an attempt to dilute Hanover’s.

“Sir, we could use our nukes to end the war in an afternoon,” Cunningham said. “Sir…”

Smith rounded on him. “I will not use nukes for anything ,” he snapped, feeling a deep revulsion spreading through his body. “Is there any other business?”

His tone would suffer no opposition. Even Hanover remained quiet; a minor miracle. The army officer coughed once. “Sir, we should be trying to make contact with the British forces in this time; Force H, the force in Egypt, Gibraltar, and India.”

Smith blinked. “We don’t have bases in India,” he said.

“We do here, sir,” Cunningham said, recovering his poise. Smith felt a certain guilty pleasure. “Sir, we’re going to need their support – and they could use ours.”

“Have that young man of yours do the research,” Smith ordered. “Then we’ll see about putting ourselves in communication with our… ancestors.”

“Captain Stirling, sir,” Cunningham said. “Prime Minister, we have to fight a world war, without the forces that won the war before.”

“We’ll see,” Smith said. “Meeting adjourned. We will reconvene in five hours.”

He left the meeting room, exchanging comments with some of the staff, and headed to his office. It wasn’t until he reached his office that he began to shake; I can’t handle this ! The scale of the disaster was vaster than anything else he’d ever had to face; than Britain had had to face. It was a situation that demanded a great man – and Smith knew that he was nothing of the sort.

Grimly, he looked up at the drinks cabinet, shook his head, and picked up the telephone. The secured link wasn’t working well – the loss of the satellites that had carried the first signals had removed the untappable laser link – but there were still the landlines. He dialled a number from memory, waiting for it to answer. There was hardly any delay.

“Madam Speaker?” He asked, just to confirm that it was indeed the Speaker of the House of Commons. “Please would you see to it that Parliament is reconvened for an urgent debate tomorrow,” he said. He listened. “No, we’ve not had a nuclear war, or an alien invasion; it’s something else.”

For some reason, Sir Charles Hanover and John McLachlan were the last people to remain in the meeting room. Silently, they stared at each other like cats, waiting for one of them to speak aloud. Tension rose and fell on the air – and they waited.

Hanover weakened first. “This is an opportunity,” he said calmly, and waited for McLachlan’s response. “Possibly the most… exciting opportunity in the history of Britain.”