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A German Anglophile with an interest in the Orient? My, the wonders of globalization... ;);)

For the Free Chinese Army, I suggest General Sun Li-jen (GOC of New 1st Army IOTL) or the Yong Marshal (chief instigator of the Xian Incident). Or, how about - damn I can't believe I'm suggesting this - Zhu De (CINC of the Chinese Red Army IOTL) or Peng Dehuai (GOC of Chinese force in Korea, 1950-53). Personally I'd use Sun, since he actually fought under Slim IOTL. But then again, using Zhu De would be purely ironic. :D

Oh, and there's an exhibition about the IOTL escape from Hong Kong of some 60 RN sailors under Admiral Andrew Chan Chak in the Museum of Coastal Defence. I intend to check it out in a few days. Will let you know of any interesting findings. :p

Marc A

Sun looks like a good choice, provided he managed to get out of dodge before the Japanese got around to executing the ROC commanders.
 
MarcusAurelius1 Being sick during the summer holidays one year and liking to read with no access to a Computer, let alone Internet does a lot to you. :D

I think I'll go with Sun. I have something against using PRC commanders and Sun seems to have had some rapport with the British IOTL.

Looking forward to your report.

ViperhawkZ Well, authorial fiat says he likely did. This hasn't been confirmed yet as I have to think this through properly though.

Agent Larkin So he's a good tactician who has little grasp of logistics, is loved by his men but hated by his peers? :p
 
Agent Larkin So he's a good tactician who has little grasp of logistics, is loved by his men but hated by his peers? :p

His wartime command gained the name "First (Best) Army Under the Heaven", so I guess that counts for something. ;) As for his actual wartime record? I'll have to look it up. Damn this is shaping up to be a busy Christmas... lol. :p

Marc A
 
Agent Larkin So he's a good tactician who has little grasp of logistics, is loved by his men but hated by his peers? :p

Yup. But hey Germans and logistics have never gone well in warfare since Bismark kicked the bucket. :p Point in case WW1 army too large for logistics to support outside of trench warfare and well y'know the whole "Invading the Soviet Union" thing.
 
Yup. But hey Germans and logistics have never gone well in warfare since Bismark kicked the bucket. :p Point in case WW1 army too large for logistics to support outside of trench warfare and well y'know the whole "Invading the Soviet Union" thing.

Traditionally there's three things we suck at: Foreign Intelligence, Surface Warships and logistics. :D

EDIT: To reinforce: The Lütjens Class Destroyers were not only badly named in both their Class name and individual Vessels but they were also suffering from chronic defects plaguing German Warships since Jutland. They were shortranged and top heavy. And that with a design that was little more than a beefed up Charles F. Adams Class Missile Destroyer, thus a design developed by the country that has owned the seas since WW2.

To quote and also not to go too OT:

Yes I know it's Wikipedia said:
Note: Speeds over 30 kn could only sustained for a limited time due to the enormous fuel consumption. With two active boilers the ship could achieve speeds up to 27 kn. Three boilers made 30 kn achievable. For any speed beyond 30 kn all four boilers were needed.

And even by guesstimating from Photographs the Lütjens were nearly twice as high as the base design.
 
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Chapter 338


In the Germany of the year nineteen-hundred-forty-three bells ringing at four in the morning usually meant trouble and when the agent named only Broadsword in the most secret files at Century House was woken by insistent ringing at the front door of the old farmhouse near the edge of wide, expansive cabbage fields that he lived in with his daughter and only child he hobbled to the front door on his one foot and feeling trepidation.

The bell rang again and with even more force now. He stood in front of the door and tried to control his breathing. The last time he had been activated had been three years ago and all he did these days was bring in the occasional report on morale and Bomb Damage on the Daimler Benz works and other industrial facilities in the area from his trips into town and send them to the British once a month on a coded frequency.

His daughter knew nothing about this, in fact her work at the factory assembling aeroplane engines had once been a convenient excuse when he had been picked up near the recently bombed factory.

He opened the door and his heart stopped. Outside stood two men in the very much unofficial but still very much recognized uniform of the Gestapo. Brown trenchcoats, black hats and stern expressions.

The older one showed the feared metal ID.

DSC_3161.jpg

But something was on. For one he wasn't instantly arrested, they didn't seem to have a car nearby and one of them was favouring his left arm. But secondly, and most importantly, what the older man said.

He hadn't heard the activation code-phrase since 1940, nor did he expect it from this sort of men, along with all the correct signs and countersigns.

Obviously it was a trap.

But maybe it wasn't. Because even as they stepped through the door blood began to seep through the hands of the younger man and it was clear that he was in pain, so for the moment he as an old Army Doctor who had treated innumerable bullet wounds in Italy during the last war, having served in a certain Officer's command there, went back to what he had been taught many years ago and motioned for them to sit down.

“Here, take this.” the younger man said through clenched teeth and handed Broadsword his weapon, grip first.

It was a model unknown to him, but on the slide he could clearly see the crown insignia and other inscriptions from Royal Ordnance Factory Maltby.

Through his pain Felix merely grinned and said: “I am no more German than you are an Arab.”

Switching back from English to German he began to ask a few questions while Ian went back outside to retrieve their bags from the car.

Inside of the house Broadsword, known as Karl-Heinz Fundel inspected the wound.

“That's not from a bullet!” he exclaimed. Felix grimaced and then looked at Fundel.

“You sound almost disappointed.”

“Well, your arm has been opened almost from your shoulder to your elbow, and by the looks of it this isn't your first wound.”

“We....” Felix hesitated. As much as the man radiated instant likeability, he was still a German and thus the enemy, even if he was working. With his unwounded hand he fingered Ian's PPK which he had been given as a backup piece. No sense in getting overly trusting.

“It was an accident, a rather stupid and embarrassing one.” That much was true. It was bad enough that Ian was likely to be laughing for days once they got out of Germany. Someone cutting one's own arm open on an admittedly bullet damaged boot lid wasn't something that was supposed to happen to Officers that had served their Queen and Country all over the globe in all manner of life-threatening situations throughout the war.


“You should get some stitches. When I was with the Field Marshal in Italy this was a home wound.”

Felix suppressed a yelp of pain as Fundel disinfected the wound.

“Easy there...this sort of thing is hard to get these days.”

Ian returned and came straight to the point.

“What we need is your hospitality for two or three days. I know you have a daughter and because of this my associate and me have prepared a cover story for that purpose. We will not go outside, nor will we take anything without compensation.”

“In what?” Fundel asked with an unhealthy dose of sarcasm, “Pound Sterling?”

“Ration cards. And they are perfectly genuine.” Ian said, “Not that you would have had any choice anyway.”

'And what do I tell my daughter?' he thought and simply stared at his two 'guests'.


“Frankly, I don't care.” Ian said, having correctly guessed what the other was thinking about. “But for the moment let's say that we met in Berlin back in 1936 during the Olympics and that I ran into you and you invited me.”

Fundel was feeling odd. The choice of words and the voice came back to him.


“You ran me before my wife died.”

Ian stared at him and then everything clicked. Back then this contact had been run under a different codename and Ian had only spent a year and a half in Berlin before his career had taken such a turn but aside from Hans Oster this had been his most valuable source. They had never met face to face nor had Ian known that this was his new code name, the files on the old source were classified under a different codeword.[1]

“Only for eight months.”

They exchanged no more words. In Berlin Fundel had been working in an Office of the War Ministry that had done things that in his perception went against both his basic human decency and his Hippocratic oath.

“I won't ask you what brings you here. I strongly suspect that it will end up in the papers in some form sooner or later.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I have my reasons.”

Ian agreed, but said instead that it wouldn't do for an asset to know too much. After all, not even Felix knew everything about their mission, both what the plan had been and what it was now. He dearly hoped the both of them would forgive him one day. Felix most certainly would, they had through too much while working together and Felix was the most consummate professional he knew. Besides, he would would have so much fun that Ian was worried about that part even more.

But there was no point in worrying about that now. The old plan would have to be abandoned, the Germans were sure to increase security at all their secure sites, even a relatively low priority one like the target.

Well, the Germans saw it as low priority. No.10, the Palace, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and MI6 didn't, thus this highly risky endeavour. One could have just bombed the living daylights out of it and the surrounding area but Ian figured the reasoning there was that it would most certainly tell the Germans that the British both know what was going on there and were worried. That might give them the impetuous to push further and faster and that seemed to have kept Winston awake at night.


He had little more than the location and Canaris' old data on what had been going on there a year ago. By now the facility would likely be empty but at the very least looking at it might give the powers that be a better idea what the Germans were all about there and...


Ian was torn from sleep four hours later when the doorbell rang again. He looked up and Felix, with his arm in a sling, had already changed into civilian clothes and held his favourite 9mm in his undamaged hand.

Fundel came in through the door. “It is my daughter, so please, put the guns away.”

Said daughter turned out to be a woman of about the same age as Felix and about 5'50'' tall. A face, whilst not classically beautiful was expressive thanks to two piercing green eyes, all of it framed by flaming red hair that would have been about shoulder length had it not been crunched up under headscarf, a remnant of a shift at the factory.

“Father, who are these people?”

+-+-+-+-

Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?

Reinstalled Mass Effect 1 on Win7, as I plan to do another run over the holidays to ensure that my saves are ME3 compatible. Because of this it is highly likely that the next update will chronicle the adventures of Battlegroup Able-Two-Seven. :D

Also, I hope no one minds that I am starting to sow in references to localities. We will see this area again and even visit my hometown in great detail. Up next: When Ideologies clash – An Anglo-American meet on strategy.



[1] Let's say when Ian exposed the Cambridge Five by accident before the war MI5 and MI6 developed intense security paranoia, especially when the internal purge revealed a whole lot of other leaks. Some turned themselves in out of disappointment with the Soviets, some were caught in the net when they tried to transfer their loyalties to the Americans and some were caught after some old-fashioned police work.
 
I just fucking love this bloddy lovely turn of events. Right now the story thrills me as much as a Bond film would do.
 
Broadsword? Really? You just can't help yourself sometimes can you trek?

Still as Kurt said, I do like this turn of events and the last few updates have been similarly cool.
 
Kurt_Steiner Thankee.

MarcusAurelius1
Ayup. Though it seems that popular demand is for this story line.

El Pip He was supposed to be 'Nightingale' originally but when I was writing that piece I was listening to War Film tunes on Youtube and one thing led to another.... I am weak!

And I am always happy to oblige.
 
Popular demand is right. Lord knows if we don't keep an eye on you Felix will be "killed" again.

Although the Canucks at sea does interest me somewhat.

Canucks at sea always interest me!
 
Agent Larkin Spy action it is then.

ViperhawkZ Same for me.
 
Tigey Alas, no. That would take that overused reference too far.

Agent Larkin Saruman the White, a.k.a. Ian's Cousin? (Yes I am serious.)
 
Tigey Alas, no. That would take that overused reference too far.

Agent Larkin Saruman the White, a.k.a. Ian's Cousin? (Yes I am serious.)

Yes that one. They are in the same field of employment at this time as well. And Ian and Felix will need to be extracted somehow......
 
Problem is, if I do it now it would be too obvious. So not right now, but eventually for sure.