John Schettler - Men of War

“What was wrong with St. Helena?”

“Good point, Turing. Taking this line it would seem to me that the ship is not here deliberately as I first feared. Could this whole thing be an accident, and not intended at all?”

“Yes, sir, it could indeed be here by accident. After all, if it does come from some future time, and its appearance was planned, then why haven’t we seen any other interventions of a similar nature… other visitors? There’s only been this one ship, which is odd if I dare say. Why come in a warship?”

“In some ways it makes a good deal of sense, my good man. You’ve never been on the bridge of a battleship, but to feel it riding the swells of the deep ocean, and at your command, is a rather heady experience. It’s a fortress on the sea, fast, mobile, well protected, and as this ship has clearly demonstrated, it can defend itself rather handily, and go wherever it pleases. My God, this ship has sailed more than half way round this earth!”

“Yet now it may be in some distress, sir, considering all the combat it’s been involved in. If the Russians of the future knew this, wouldn’t they do everything possible to rescue these men? We’ve seen no evidence of that. And if this was an accident, it would seem to me they might realize the severe consequences of their actions and be doing everything possible to remedy this business—assuming they knew about this time displacement.”

“Do you think they know about it?”

“Perhaps they don’t. They might not know anything about it at all, just as this Admiral claimed, which makes this incident seem a little less sinister in my mind. After all, if they did know how to move through time, sending a ship like this back would seem a bit much. All they would really have to do is send someone like me back to draw up plans on all these advanced weapons we’ve seen and give them to the Russians! Yet we’ haven’t seen a shred of evidence the Soviets have anything like this in development. Yes, they have their Katyushas, but that’s hardy on par with what we witnessed, particularly in the North Atlantic when the American Task force 16 went down. So I lean toward the conclusion that that future Soviet government may not know this even happened. That that, too, could change if this ship ever does get home again, as this Admiral desires. If something like this had happened to one our ships. If it ever did get home again there would be inquiries, questions, a lot of digging.”

“Yes,” Tovey rubbed his chin, thinking. “Look what the Americans did when those destroyers showed up at Halifax. Look how we’ve covered up the presence and activity of this Geronimo ourselves.”

“And we seem to be doing a good bit of digging as well.”

“Yes we are, so I take your point, Turing. I can imagine the Soviet government in the future is going to do the very same thing if this ship ever does reach a friendly port again. Forgive me for seeming a pessimist, but I can’t say I find that notion in any way comforting. The Russians are somewhat a reluctant ally at the moment. They’re with us now because they have Hitler and the German Army at their throats, but we’re strange bedfellows, Professor, no matter how well the Prime Minister may get on with Stalin in his dacha. This Russian Admiral also made a point of suggesting our cozy alliance may not last in days to come. Even if this were an accident, that future government might discover how it was displaced in time, and they may not always be our allies. Things change… That’s how he put it to me. Things change.”

“No argument there, sir.”

Tovey thought about that, nodding. “Well, Professor, you and I both know that they do not always change for the good. I’m a military man, and one sworn to protect the empire and the kingdom I serve. Perhaps I was foolish not to try and sink this ship when I had the whole of Home Fleet at my back. Now we must live with the situation as it stands. The point is this: whether deliberate or not, this ship may return one day, or others like it, and we really don’t know what its purpose is. Until we do know, and to a certainty, we must take every possible precaution. Whether friend or foe, if the Soviet government of that future time ever does learn what happened to their ship, then we’ve another problem as well, because they will realize that this impossible notion of returning to the past is within their grasp, and that’s enough to tempt any man alive, Turing. That is real power.”

“I agree, sir, but what exactly are you suggesting we do about it?”

“A watch,” Tovey folded his arms. “We need a group of men in the know on this, men who can be trusted absolutely, competent men, and we need them to set a watch on every hour of every second of every day that passes from this moment on.”

“Isee…” Turing raised an eyebrow, thinking through the implications of what Tovey was now suggesting. “And what are they to watch for , sir?”

“Intruders, Turing. Visitors from this future time. I know, it’s maddening to think they’re even out there. Even speaking of it in these terms makes it seem as though the future is a tangible place where this ship can drop anchor as it pleases. Yet one thing is clear: if they can return to our time, we’ve certainly seen that they can also muck about and cause a good deal of trouble here, and they have to be stopped.”

“Is the government to be directing this effort, Admiral?”

Tovey looked at the desk, rubbing an itch on his long thin nose, his eyes alight with inner concern. “The government? Can you imagine the likes of Admiral Pound in on this notion we’ve been discussing? Can you even consider that the Prime Minister would give it a fair hearing? Something tells me that the less the government knows or hears about this, the happier it will be. But there are institutions within government that are a bit more flexible in their views.”

“MI6?” Turing jumped to the obvious conclusion.

“Well think on it, Turing. You had that Enigma code in your head for some time before you came out with the solution and turned it over to the government. Do you see what I mean here?”

“I do, sir. We often receive, analyze and discuss information here that never really comes to light anywhere else. Some of it plays out to hard intelligence and becomes actionable. That’s the lot we send over to Whitehall—over to the government, if you will. But I assure you, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. For every cypher we decode and send through there are ten more we’re tussling with, and another ten in the trash bin. Yes, we’ve broken the enemy’s code, but it’s not like reading a book. We get bits and pieces of things, and then we try to put together the best possible picture of what may be in the enemy’s mind. We go to the government with it only when we think we have some certainty in hand.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Tovey. “Yet consider their view of things—these men from Geronimo. It is like reading a book for them, They know everything that has happened from our time to theirs. Well, what we need now, Professor, is a group of sound minded and imaginative men like yourself to go over the bits and pieces on this matter and put the puzzle together. What we need is to know what is in the enemy’s mind, the mind of these men from tomorrow who so brazenly call upon us in ships of war. Yet more than that, we need watchful eyes. You see, if this ship or any other like it, should return, we’ll want to know about it.”

“I think we might bring Peter Twinn in on this. He’s been in the thick of it with the German Naval Enigma code, and now that Dilly Knox has been taken ill he’s assuming more responsibility at the Abwehr Enigma section.”