Chapter Sixteen
'Approved' (Ministry of Defence Memorandum)
'The Minister hereby approves the use of the RAF Historical Aircraft Squadron by United Artists Film Corporation[1] for their upcoming project.[2] The Ministry of Defence hereby takes on half of the insurance cost and...
'Riots in Saudi-Arabia' (The Times)
'For the last two weeks massive rioting has taken place all over Saudi-Arabia where 'Embassy Row', the location of most western Embassies in the capital is under siege by protesting masses deriding Westerners for their support of the corrupt Monarchy and....'
'On the interconnectivity of Computers' (Speech by Alan Turing[3] for the Government Computation and Calculation Labs)
'Gentlemen, imagine a world were the transfer of information between two points is no longer bound by paper and is carried out by Computer..A network of such computers, connected to one another by wide-band communication lines the functions of present-day libraries together with anticipated advances in information storage and retrieval and other symbiotic functions. Imagine this world Gentlemen....'
'20th Coronation Jubilee on schedule' (Vancouver Times)
'All across the Empire and the Commonwealth the preparations for the Coroantio Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen continue and..
'No.1 Squadron, Irish Air Force declared Operational' (The Irish Times)
'The aircraft delivered as part of the 1955 Anglo-Irish Defence Treaty are now stationed at IAF Dublin and form an integral part of the EADCOM[4]and will be part of the next Spring Curtain exercise this year..
[5]
~**---**~
“All training operations have been suspended, I repeat, all training operations have been suspended...”
“What's going on?” Marseille yelled at the RAF mechanic that ran past him. As he was still wearing his flight suit and the flag showing is nationality was out of view the reply merely was: “The Saudis went titsup!”
It took the German contingent no less that two more hours after this incident to get reliable information and by that time every British aircraft was being prepped for flight or already in the air. As one of the ring of airbases around Arabia (a legacy of Britain's colonial past and two World Wars) the base was going to see more new arrivals soon if Marseille's instincts were still working properly. He had originally intended to request communications with Germany but what he heard made him instead try and fade in the background to listen, and he went even so far to remove his Luftwaffe Officer's cap.
“Oberst?”
It was the station commander, a Wing Commander who seemed to be wearing the Finnland Campaign ribbon and was not the smartest cookie in the Jar but a dependable enough and a good organizer despite.
“Wing Commander Stapleton...Anything I can do to help?”
Stapleton shook his head.
“No, afraid not. Someone in Whitehall pressed the panic button and we've been ordered to put up fighter patrols in case our lords and masters go in.”
“And the Embassy?” Marseille asked.
“Yours and ours are still under siege last thing I heard.”
That was news to Marseille.
“Why ours for gods sake? We only moved in four months ago!” he said and instantly cursed himself for almost loosing his temper.
“Maybe because it's next door to ours.” Stapleton replied.
“Damn, that can go ugly quick.”
He waited as a pair of Lightnings with afterburners engaged took off at almost 45° and then said:
“In any case, I must formally request the use of a Wireless set to talk to my Government. Either way they will have orders for me.”
Marseille knew that these orders would either call them back immediately or tell them to sit tight, even proponents of National Defence wouldn't want to get involved if they valued their careers.
Again there was a pause, this time caused by an RAF Britannia.
“Wing Commander, in the unlikely case we get orders to that effect my men are of course at your disposal.”
Stapleton glanced at Marseille as if to say 'in the unlikely case' and Marseille shrugged.
“Well, you wanted a violently pacifist Germany, and that's what you got.”
He was given access to the comms room. As he walked through the door he thought that whatever was going on over there would be interesting indeed.
~**---**~
The emergency meeting of the German cabinet[6] was being held in secrecy and the Chancellor was well happy with it. His administration had to deal with enough problems as was, and the crisis in Saudi-Arabia was hardly something to be gloated about.
“How come we have an embassy there in the first place?” the Minister for Education and Science asked. As someone with a background in the performing arts Hans Lenz was sometimes somewhat puzzled when confronted with stark power politics, but this was a good question.
The Chancellor answered it after lighting a cigar.
“Not only are they sitting atop a massive oil deposit, but we also need to expand our diplomatic position in our neighbourhood. The Sov...Russians are showing us how it's done.”
Chancellor Erhard came from the Ministry for Economic Affairs and was credited with Germany's post-war economic miracle that had kick-started the current boom of the economy, in fact he had rode on the wave of success right into his current office. He was less successful in the top job but considering the controversy he had started with continuing with re-armament hardly made that surprising.
“True enough.” the Foreign Minister replied. As head of the Auswärtiges Amt[7] he was behind the current policy. He had argued that it couldn't hurt the country if Germany started to spread her wings again even if it was in a very low-key, easy-does-it way.
“Either way, our embassy is right next to the Tommies and thus under siege just as much as theirs, and they have enough Armed personnel there to defend it for quite some while, whereas we do not. The Ambassador is very, VERY worried.”
“So what do we do?” Finance asked.
“We wait and see.” the Chancellor said, “and if the worst thing happens then we can put that in front of the public, and that gives us a wide scope for action.”
“Again, we can do nothing anyway.” Lenz snorted.
“That isn't strictly true. We do have a slight presence down there as you know.”
The room was suddenly dead still. They all knew what the Chancellor was talking about but they also knew that it would be political suicide, whatever happened.
“Surely you aren't serious!” Finance exclaimed and started off a wild rumble of voices. The Chancellor slammed his fist down on the table and made the dishes and cups clatter loudly.
Once everything was silent again he said:
“I am perfectly serious! Damned if we do and damned if we don't, but by god I swore to defend the Germans and I will damn well do it, be it a man with a case full of money or military force! So, you,” he said and pointed at the minister for Employment and Social Issues, “can refrain from suggesting pulling our people out of the Sudan. The fighters stay there as long as our Embassy is under threat.”
That was that. But they also knew that all of them would be looking for employment within ten minutes if this leaked out before they were ready. It all depended on what happened in Arabia.
[1] Chaplin and most of the other then-members of the Company legged it back to Britain the moment they realized what the Reds were all about. United Artists is by far the biggest surviving Hollywood Studio. Most of the others are tiny compared or British. Yes. The Great Dictator was made, albeit with a different plot.
[2] One guess what that's about and who's making the music. There is a reason why Churchill is still alive you know. And the film is also partially the reason why this side story is set in the mid 60s. Anyhoo, the Squadron is rather large as it also contains a few early jets and a Lincoln.
[3] Due to his work during the war his sexual orientation was delicately overlooked as long as he kept it behind closed doors. He was showered with rewards and is the Scientific Head of the Lab. Yey! Computers! Internet! (Although they'll call it the Interlink instead.) The second line of this snippet is shamelessly nicked from an actual 1960 paper written by J. C. R. Licklider. If he hadn't died in 1990 we'd blame him for the top heavy composition of various African Armies.
[4] European Air Defence Command
[5] They are bought at a very favourable (IR£ 1000 a piece) rate by the Irish. The Americans are trying to stir up trouble between Ireland and Britain so when the Irish Air Force (since 1950) asked London for help with their Air Defences the Lightning deal was quickly approved by the Cabinet. The Irish were mighty glad to finally be able to replace their old Sea Hawks... Picture courtesy of Clavework Graphics.
[6] We are getting close to the cut-off for OTL persons, but the people seen in this side story are still all very real. The cabinet is mostly OTL.
[7] Literally Foreign Office
