“Add it up for me, Major. Sims and I have gone round and round with it for the last two hours. I spent four hours with this O’Connor and by god if he isn’t the real thing I’m a goat. Then Lieutenant Horton says the stars are all wrong. The moon was wrong last night, or did you happen to notice that? You explain it! Then, when you have it all figured out, you tell me how I’m going to explain it to the men…”
There was a long silence, and in that stillness Isaac realized this was Kinlan’s real burden now. Could he have this conversation with every man in the brigade? They had been out here for months, away from home, knowing now that the lives of all their loved ones were in dire jeopardy. If the missiles were flying here, they were damn well lighting up the skies over London as well.
Major Isaac sat down, a distant, vacant look in his eyes, his expression blank, and almost lifeless. The pallor of his cheeks betrayed the awful strain they had all been under, battle ready, the whole brigade wound tight like a watch spring, under ballistic missile attack, and buttoned up in their vehicles these last 48 hours, knowing the war to end all wars had finally begun in earnest. Every man among them had the image of someone back home in his head, wondering now whether any of them were still alive, wondering what lay ahead for them, or whether they would even make it to Mersa Matruh alive before another missile came at them and the Aster 3 system was not good enough to save them this time.
“No answers?” Kinlan left the question out there, but he could see the defeated look on the Major’s face, and relented. “I didn’t have any either, Bob, so don’t feel bad. You think I bought this story hook, line and sinker without smelling the fish first? There was only one explanation that accounts for all these anomalies and makes any sense-Sultan Apache, the stars all wrong, this fellow calling himself General O’Connor, not to mention Wavell on the bloody radio chewing my ear. We’ve no satellite links, nothing on any command level channel, but plenty on the AM and FM bands. And guess what, it’s all news of the war, the last big war, news of Rommel in the desert, and Wavell’s last stand at Sidi Barani. And then there’s that Italian infantry unit down south at Giarabub. I scouted the damn thing myself. There’s a stack of photos right there on the desk, and Sims and I spent the last hour with them. So call me crazy, and yes, this whole thing sounds completely insane, but there it is. You think I’d make a fool of myself like this? Here? Now? Not bloody likely.”
Sims scratched his head. “Look, General, there’s only one thing to do here. Reality has a way of rearing up like a stone fence, no matter what we think of it. I say we head north as planned. There will either be RoRo ships waiting for us at Mersa Matruh… Or we’ll run into Rommel and his Afrika Korps.”
“And the men? Am I going to have to go through this with the whole rank and file one by one? I thought the very same thing the Major did here-that the Russians were up to no good. But that didn’t explain away any of the hard evidence we uncovered.”
“You could say nothing of this,” said Sims. “If it’s all a fairy tale then the road north will hopefully be uneventful. But I’d suggest we keep the air defense units on full alert.”
“And if it’s not a fairy tale? What if the Russians were telling us the truth and it is 1941?”
“Then woe betide General Rommel,” Sims smiled. “That’s the wall I was talking about, sir. He’s either out there as we speak, or not. Time will tell. It’s as plain as that. As to the men… We do an all points signal and notify all units. You get on and lay it all out. Tell them there’s been an anomaly, some odd effect of that ICBM attack, and we’re looking at some unanswerable questions. Tell them what the Russians said about it, preposterous as that sounds. Yes, they’ll have a good laugh, and you can laugh right along with them. But then tell them we’re going north, and if, by any chance, we do run into the German Army… Well tell them they’ll know what to do about it. Yes sir. Let them find out as we do, by heading north and walking right up to that wall if it’s there. Things will sort themselves out after that, I can assure you.”
Kinlan nodded gravely, his eyes tormented, yet knowing that was the only course they could take. “Major?”
Isaac shrugged, shaking his head. “By all means,” he said half heartedly. “We go north as Sims says. At least that way we all become fools at the same time, and no one can point a finger at anyone else and call him a madman. We all just go stark raving mad together. Shall we?”
“Very well,” said Kinlan. “I’ll want to brief all battalion commanders here personally. Have they arrived yet?”
“They’re all here sir,” said his Chief of Staff, Sims, “waiting just up the line with the artillery.”
