Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

"Then what will happen?"

"Then you did not ask to be spared."

"My daughter's wedding is at eleven o'clock."

Met the Pilot Officer's silent stare. Not a surprised stare. Rather disparaging.

"I can't!" Dowding blurted.

"Then don't." The Pilot Officer stalked out of the church.

Dowding ran out to the street after him, but of course he was not there.

When Dick Trafford had his report ready for delivery, the Reichsmarschall was to be found at a hunt club.

The German airman who admitted the British air attache to the hall found his name amusing-Dick. Dick was German for fat . Dick Trafford, a slight man, was not dick .

"Our Hermann is dick !" The German laughed, ushered Dick to the Presence.

The girth and breadth of Hermann Goering were encased in a foxhunter's bright red habit, complete with black helmet and riding crop. A pack of cheerfully subservient English foxhounds fawned about his black boots.

Surely he did not mean to inflict that bulk upon some unhappy steed!

But no. The Reichsmarschall stood regally still, posing for an artist with two full tubes of red oils in his arsenal. In the adjoining chamber, exuberant young Luftwaffe pilots drank liberated brandy and talked with their hands under a cloud of aromatic cigar smoke.

Without breaking pose, Hermann's little eyes slid Dick's way. "So, Fat Trafford. Tell me about Herr Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding. Would anyone take his stupid book seriously? You are hesitating. That means yes."

"Not precisely," Trafford found his tongue. "No one with any knowledge of the facts would. But to a layman- Who knows? He bandies about technical terms and numbers with such authority, someone might take him at his word. What with his rank."

"He does not admit that you lost to German superiority?"

"No one ever questioned the superiority of German strength and numbers."

"So his plot to defeat my Luftwaffe was to… do what?"

"Rather a lot of nothing, from what I gather. He would avoid fighting. Reserves everything he can."

"And that was going to stop the Stukas!"

"The Spitfires and Hurricanes he reserved could have neutralized the Stukas. He says. Truthfully, Mr. Goering, Stukas are slow."

"Not in a dive." Goering's wide chest expanded in pride.

"Mr. Goering, you would be quick in a dive."

Silence gripped the club. The pilots' boasting from the next room, the clinking of glasses, even breathing stopped.

The thump of tails wagging became very loud.

Until Goering's lusty laughter sounded the all clear, scattered the dogs, and upset the painter.

Goering dropped his pose, shooed the painter away, and called for a drink.

Told Dick Trafford that the RAF must silence Hugh Dowding. "He is yours. You take care of him."

And he was off to join his lads with a snap of his riding crop. "Tally ho!"

Clarice turned over in the bed, shook her husband's shoulder. " Mis ter Dowding! You are thrashing and you've got all the covers!"

To his mumbled apologies she offered to heat some milk. He told her that would be very nice, and the two shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen.

In the mundanity of this place-of the motions of this beloved woman, no longer young, heating milk, of his own slippers on his blue-veined feet-the demons with which he wrestled lost their reality.

He had been agonizing: Did I do this? Did I sell England for my happiness?

And if I sell my happiness back for England, what of my Clarice? My Sarah? My John? Their children?

Did I really ask for the burden of command during England's darkest hour to lift from my shoulders? And it did ?

Here, now, the idea that he should yet hold the balance upon which the fate of the world hung seemed weird, impossible.

Well, there it is. I have gone completely starkers.

Caught between hideous alternatives, to live in guilt or to live in sorrow, he had discovered the obvious third-that there was no choice. He was a deluded old man who could only embarrass his daughter on her wedding day by chasing angels.

He was free to let it all go as God's will. He could live with his loving wife and dote on his coming grandchildren with a clear conscience.

There was nothing he could do.

A package arrived from Germany for the bride. The father of the bride saw fit to take a look before passing it on to his daughter.

A framed portrait of Adolph Hitler.

"It's odious!" Clarice cried. "Who could have done this!"

"The German Air Ministry." Dowding read the card congratulating Sarah on her wedding and wishing her many healthy Aryan children.

"What can we do!" Clarice shrieked in a whisper. "We can't give it to Sarah!"

"Certainly not," said Dowding.

"But someone is sure to call on her! What can she say when they ask what she did with it!"

"She shall tell them it hangs in her father's study. And so it shall." He whisked it away, out of sight of tender eyes.

Dowding was tapping a nail into the wall when the callers entered his study like storm troopers in RAF blue.

One wore an Air Marshal's insignia, apparently only here to lend authority, for one of the other men actually led this sortie. That one shook a fat pile of papers at Dowding, demanding, "Have you any other copies of this?" While the other men ransacked the room.

"This" was Twelve Legions of Angels.

Dowding advised his visitors that their lack of civility was uncalled for. They need not conduct affairs like hooligans.

The ringleader grew purple in the face. "Don't get the rest of us shot because you can't face reality! Exactly what did you expect to gain from this-this appalling treatise? The love of a nation?" High incredulity in that question. "It is over! It is done . It cannot be undone! You have nothing to gain except a bullet for rehashing it! And may I say, sir, you should be ashamed of this! What makes you think you could have done better than better men than you! We gave all we had! »

Dowding, politely, "What I proposed was that a more careful, less glamorous man might have spent all we had more efficiently."

By then the henchmen had found the carbon. Crammed all the pages of both manuscripts into the hearth and set a match to them.

"Open the flue if you don't mind awfully," said Dowding.

The callers stayed to see the manuscripts well and truly burned.

The Air Marshal, stone white in mortal embarrassment, offered a private aside, weakly, "You are taking this rather well, Dowding."

"I shall rewrite it," Dowding said without excitement.

The Air Marshal found the courage to look the man in the eyes. "Don't. Dowding, you embarrass yourself. You have a charmed life. You got through this war unscathed. You have a lovely family. Don't ruin it for yourself. Get out of London. Go back to Moffat. Stay out of public life. For heaven's sake, write a different book ."

"Write nothing!" the other shouted. "You lost France for us! The world does not need a tract from you on how wars are to be waged!" Looked to the guttering fire. "We can go now."

Dowding returned to hanging his picture. "When you see your masters, thank them for this gift."

They found their own way out.

The day arrived on which Dowding was to give his daughter away. He was rooting through the desk in his study after his best cuff links, when he glanced up to lock gazes with Adolph Hitler. The image caught the melting madness in the eyes.

That picture did not belong there. Not right. Not right. This should not be.

The indecision returned. Adolph and the clock ticking closer to eleven. The hour of decision.

What if he had actually talked to an angel? Could he afford to toss away the chance-the most remote, feeble and pitiful of chances-that it was true?