Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) by John Schettler Read Free Book Online Page A

judgment.
    “I can think of no other man with
more respect for the history, Mister Fedorov, or so dedicated to preserving its
integrity,” the Admiral had told him. “But realize that anything you reveal to
the men of this era may have unforeseen consequences, no matter how well
meaning your advice may be. You might warn them of operations doomed to
failure, for example, like the ill fated landing at Dieppe by the Canadians.
Yet that defeat taught the Allies valuable lessons that they put to good use at
Normandy, and remember, we cannot foresee every possible outcome of these
events, or of the changes we may cause here. That said, you must use your best judgment.”
    So Fedorov was here, standing in
this discussion with Generals and Admirals and heads of state that were glowing
figures in the history he so loved, at once in awe of them, and amazed that he
should have the temerity to speak as an equal.
    Yes, he
could not predict what might come of the decisions they would now make, but he
had to try. Things had gone too far, and he and his ship were now too deeply
enmeshed in the weave of this terrible tapestry of war. Now, with the arrival
of Kinlan’s brigade, the necessity to act in a way that could guide the power
they possessed was more essential than ever before. And so he made the
difficult decision to use the knowledge he had, the store of all the many hours
he had spent with his nose in the history books, come what may. He knew the
campaigns that were now on the near horizon, and spent long hours reading from
his library before he departed for this conference.
    So they
talked for many hours, deciding what must now be done to further their
interests in this war. They spoke of Crete and Iraq and Syria, and the
prospects ahead for them in the Western Desert. Where might Kinlan’s force be
best employed? Should it remain together as one unit, or might it be better to
saturate other British forces with a hard core of these resolute and terrible
new warriors from the future. In the end, the need for secrecy guided their
thinking as much as anything else, and for the moment it was decided that the
Desert Rats would stay where they were, in the southern desert, the deadly foil
on Rommel’s flank.
    Yet the
impending demands of those other battlefronts would delay any real British
offensive against Rommel. The British needed time, and they had been given a
brief measure of that in the victory lately won. Now they had to use that time
to their best advantage. After the meeting it was Churchill who caught
Fedorov’s elbow, asking if he might join Wavell for a quiet chat later that
evening.
    The
darkness came, with stars crowding bright in the sky, and a crisp chill on the
air. Fedorov was outside the mud walled meeting room, smelling the smoke from a
wood fire and listening to the distant calls of wild things in the desert. The
night seemed to weigh on him, a leaden feeling that darkened his mood with a
sense of foreboding. The weight of all he had studied, and all he knew about
what might happen next, was also heavy on his mind. And over it all hung the
enormous girth of the war itself, a world war that was still in its adolescence
in early 1941. It would go on for years, and so many would die before it ended.
    He had
read about them, from generals and statesmen, down to corporals in sergeants in
small unit actions that were now lost in the stream of events. Yet for the men
who fought them, they were the hard edge of life and death itself, moments of
supreme personal effort, heroism and courage, cowering and fear, and all soiled
with the soot of battle and blood. In those little lost actions of the war,
groups of men, comrades all, struggled and fought for places that seemed
insignificant in the general scheme of things—a bridge, a hill, an enemy
redoubt that had to be taken by storm. They saw their friends die, lost brave
officers, rose to the hour and did things they never thought they could, and
all that remained of