Second Chance

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Holy Cities

SS Rottenstall

Mediterranean Sea

1^st September 1940

Darkness cloaked the small convoy as it slipped through the inland sea, hidden from prowling German aircraft and Italian submarines. In theory, the two frigates escorting the force would be able to fend off any attack directed at the small fleet, but in practice – if the Germans continued to swarm the modern ships – they would be quickly sunk and lost.

“I imagine that you’re excited,” Father O’Reilly remarked, as Shahan McLachlan paced the deck. The freighter hadn’t been designed for passenger travel; many of the troops were travelling in unpleasant conditions. For the Catholic Priest, travelling to meet Pope Pius in Rome, the trip was proving fascinating.

“You have no idea,” Shahan said, examining the map. The Germans had established bases in Italy and were working on establishing them in Greece. The convoy had to reach Egypt in a day, before the Germans noticed them and tried to sink them. The remains of the Italian Navy had refused to fight for the Germans, but the German Air Force was proving a bitter foe.

“All my life, I’ve dreamed of an opportunity to snuff out Wahhabism in its lair before it could ever arise,” he continued, smiling. “Now I have it; the chance to establish a modern Muslim democracy in the Middle East and change the course of history.” He grinned. “What about you?”

“The Holy Father has not replied to our messages, or to messages from the Irish clergy,” Father O’Reilly replied grimly. “You know how some religions are taking the news of the future; not even De Valera could hide the truth about all the trials Catholicism will face in the future. The Holy Father could change all of them, if he bothered to see us.”

“I suppose being told that your power is on the verge of extinction is not good for anyone,” Shahan said. “You do realise that they might just burn you at the stake?”

“It’s been a while since that happened,” Father O’Reilly said, with a confidence that Shahan suspected he didn’t feel. “You know; in the original time line the Church refused to condemn the Holocaust, and I always felt that all the troubles we had stemmed from God as God’s punishment to us. So many people condemned the Church that we lost so much; in the 1960’s thousands of Americans used contraceptives without a care for the Vatican ruling in 1968. Your own growth might be because we had surrendered our moral authority and…”

“Without that ruling, you might have saved millions of lives in Africa,” Shahan said, without condemnation. “Has your council worked out what the Transition means for you yet?”

Father O’Reilly grinned. “No more than the Muslim Council of Britain has,” he said wryly. “Apart from you, of course; they were scared to oppose you. Finally, a cause that’s popular with the young, the converts and the government… and the only cost is the loss of some of their power.

“We’re still arguing,” he said. “I wish that the troublesome woman priest hadn’t given the Irish a list of known paedophiles among the Irish clergy. The revelations about the nunneries were bad enough; once the news spread, people started pulling their daughters out of them and what did that do for their faith?”

“I suppose they wanted to keep them safe,” Shahan said. “Are they the same people?”

“I wish I knew,” Father O’Reilly admitted. “The law has ruled that a Contemporary person is not the same as a 2015 person, at least when it comes to crimes they haven’t committed, yet. And, at the same time, are they in positions we would want them to be in, knowing what they might do?”

He shook his head. “Which leads to a second point; are souls being twinned? Did God create two separate versions of… that girl in America, whose closest relation is her own older self? Or are they the same soul, but different versions of it? If so, will one of them go to hell for the crimes of the other?”

“Allah knows and you do not,” Shahan quoted. “I don’t believe that they’re the same soul,” he said. “A soul is unique; they have to be different people who just happen to bear the same name, same DNA and same experiences until 1940. I can’t see a merciful God sending a small girl to hell, simply because her older self committed a crime.”

“And yet, it makes a mockery of predestination,” Father O’Reilly said calmly. “To be granted knowledge of the future is to change it, for you didn’t have that knowledge in the past. If you knew you would commit a grave sin, would you still do it?”

“I tend to assume that Allah knows what he’s doing,” Shahan said, after a moment’s thought. “It could be that we’ve been granted the chance to shape the world anew; me in Saudi Arabia, you with the Pope. Of course, the bastard hasn’t condemned the extermination of the Poles, has he?”

Father O’Reilly shook his head mournfully. “He has condemned the Soviet treatment,” he said. The USSR had seen no reason to keep them alive as slaves. “For Hitler, however, he has remained silent.”

“Father O’Reilly, it’s time to board the boat to Malta,” the Captain said.

Shahan embraced him once. “May Allah go with you,” he said, and waved the small boat off into the darkness.

The Germans caught up with them near Suez, but, operating at the limits of their range, failed to do more than scare some of the troops, only a handful of which had seen fighting before. Some of them tried to close in to sink the freighters, but the radar-guided guns on the freighters swept them out of the sky.

“I’ll be a lot happier when we have those guns mounted everywhere, or the new Metalstorm systems deployed,” Major Bloodnok remarked. The 3^rd Infantry was accompanying the force, apparently to reinforce Egypt in the wake of the new agreement over Egypt. The Egyptian Government, almost completely anti-British, had been astonished to learn that all the new British wanted was the canal – and they were more than willing to invest in airports and transportation systems. Indeed, once Egypt had gone through the same period of bloody purging that Russia and Germany had gone through, they were becoming a lot happier with their lot. Of course, the democracy was fragile – and there would be no excuse for intervening as had been done in Algeria – but they were on the right track.

“I suppose,” Shahan said absently. He stared up as the freighters began to enter the Suez Canal. Contemporary aircraft, old craft from the Ark Royal I, flew low to investigate, carrying 2015 torpedoes under their wings. “I’m just nervous.”

“So you should be,” Bloodnok said. “The man who does not feel fear when entering a combat zone is a fool.”

“So how do you do it?” Shahan asked. “You don’t seem bothered at all.”

Bloodnok laughed harshly. “According to the files you dug up, we’re facing several thousand horsemen with rifles, and we’re armed with machine guns, armoured cars, and body armour. If we lose the first fight, we’ll deserve to be court-maritaled and shot.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Shahan said. The sun was beating down on them as the entered the Red Sea, passing Dhows and junks – and even a massive Contemporary liner – as they headed into Sudan. The better part of an Italian Army Group was trapped in Ethiopia and the surrounding counties, nations that would have been liberated by now in the original history.

“We don’t want to risk attack by the Italians,” Bloodnok said. “Their leadership is pretty bad, and their morale non-existent, but if they have good NCOs, that doesn’t matter so much.”

“Nuts,” Shahan said. The freighters were passing Saudi Arabia now, heading along the coastline down to Mecca. Securing the Holy Cities would lure Ibn Saud up for a fight, or they would chase him down to Riyadh. Absently, he wondered if the warlord would come to fight himself, or if he would flee back to his homeland.

“We attack at dawn?” Bloodnok asked. It was unnecessary; Shahan had been delighted to discuss the attack plan with an experienced officer. “Suppose we’d better tell everyone to get some sleep.”

“Thank you,” Shahan said. “Thank you for everything.”

Near Mecca

Saudi Arabia

2^nd September 1940

Shahan had planned to give a speech as the five freighters, carrying nearly ten thousand men, landed on the shore. More accurately, the craft had been grounded; except for the army transport, which was using LSTs to deliver the British regiment to the shore. Shahan watched the confusion and was silently relived that the enemy did not materialise; if the regiment hadn’t been there, he was certain that they would have been overwhelmed.

Finally, the trained NCOs, and the loaned officers, managed to get some order into the chaos. The armoured cars would probe ahead, towards the city, while the army would march behind. As he should have expected, the disciplined marching order fell apart within ten minutes of the beginning; men were suffering from the heat, or was simply un-used to the marching on the desert. Still, they were armed and reasonably well-trained, and the lure of the holy city was ahead of them.

“Commander, we have a patrol of mounted men ahead of us,” the armoured car signalled. “They seem to want to parley. Their leader swears on the holy book that he will talk to us under flag of truce.”

“Understood,” Shahan said. He thought quickly for a moment. “Have him brought to me,” he said. “Company… halt!”

As the army stopped its march, Shahan and his personal bodyguard moved forward, spying the lead armoured car and a mounted rider. Shahan shivered; the rider reminded him of nothing more than a figure out of legend, a rider sweeping across the desert coming to loot, rape and burn wherever he pleased.

“This is Ahmed,” the driver said. Shahan noted that his hand never left his sidearm. “He wants to talk to our commander, you.”

“Salaam Alyikum,” Shahan said, in careful Arabic. It was supposed to be a linga Franca in the Middle East. The man – Ahmed – blinked at him, and then began a long and complicated speech.

“And so, the Holy Cities are in the palm of the hands of my master,” he concluded. “If you take one step nearer, you will be wiped out and even Allah will forget you exist.”

It was the blasphemy that annoyed the army; several hundred AK-47s were suddenly pointed at Ahmed. The Arab flinched back, but rallied himself with considerable courage. “You will leave, or we will kill you all and take your women as our prizes.”

Shahan smiled. It was a toothy smile; inviting nothing, but death. “You have taken what rightfully belongs to the entire Muslim world and made it your own,” he said. “If you surrender now, we will permit you to live and teach you to follow Islam as it should be taught.”

A scornful laugh was his only reply. Shahan made his decision. “In that case, I invite you to embrace Allah and his faith, Islam as revealed by the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, and submit yourself to his judgement.”

He’d underestimated Ahmed. The moment the rider realised what he’d said – the traditional offer of Islam to a non-Muslim who was about to die facing Muslims – the man grabbed his pistol and lifted it. Shahan froze, watching the motion with a strange fascination, until a shot rang out.

“Well done for not flinching,” Major Bloodnok said calmly, blowing the smoke off his pistol. Shahan wanted to fall to the ground in prayer, but resisted the temptation; there was too much to do. “I’d recommend deploying the army now.”

Stepping around the corpse that had once been a rider of the Saudi forces, Shahan began to issue orders; slowly the army advanced towards Mecca.

“Here they come,” he muttered, as the gates of the city opened. Other riders flowed in from tents, but most of them seemed to be living in the city. Despite their primitiveness, he reminded himself that one of their carbines – Bloodnok had openly wondered if they dated from Victorian times – could kill as well as one of the AK-47s the army possessed.

For a wonder, every man in the army was falling into a skirmish line, standing out of range of the riders. The riders made a fearsome sight; skulls and human hair streaming away from their saddles. Unlike the even more barbaric Taliban, they advanced without order, firing without discipline, and bellowing loudly.

“Allah Ackbar,” they screamed, the evidence of how far they’d fallen all around them. How can anyone mistake them for Muslims? Shahan wondered, wondering also why he was so calm. He watched dispassionately as the riders swooped forward – was that the feared cousin of Ibn Saud leading them? – And waited for the right moment.

“Allah Ackbar,” the riders howled, and Shahan smiled suddenly.

“Fire,” he shouted, and fired the first shot himself. A torrent of flame poured out of the skirmish line, blasting through horses and men alike, tearing their bodies apart as they impaled themselves upon his guns. They died by the hundreds as they came on, bravely wading into the storm of fire.

And then it was all over. The armoured cars advanced forward, machine guns spitting as the infantry reloaded their weapons with new clips, but there was no need. The handful of observing horsemen were already running, but it was too late; sniper fire from the British troops brought them down in seconds. For all intents and purposes, the army that had crushed the Hashimites had been destroyed.

“This won’t be the last battle,” Bloodnok said. “The problem with tribes like this is that when the controlling tribe is gone, the others will take it as an incitement to riot.”

“You seem to know a lot about this,” Shahan observed. “How did I do?”

“I’d say… not too badly,” Bloodnok said. “Of course, if you were facing my people, the tactic you used would have been suicidal. We would have shot you down from outside your own range, which is what you did to them, or driven forward with tanks.”

“I know,” Shahan said, “Still, how did you know all about this?”

“I served in Nigeria during the peacekeeping operation,” Bloodnok said. “Bloody silly fucked-up thing. We have French on the left of us, Italians on the right of us, and a know-it-all American commander who seemed to think that if they would all get along, there would be no need for fighting. And then we had Pakistani and Russian troops deployed before us, and they abused the locals terribly, and so we were targets for their snipers as well.”

He scowled. “Bastards committed more rapes and murders than half the people we were meant to be keeping apart.” He glared in the direction of the city. “That’s how those things happen; some egghead at the United Nation decides that we have to keep the peace, but seeing no major country can be arsed to do it, they have to summon little counties with piss-ant armies and a serious discipline problem. They, of course, saw the entire mission as a chance for looting, and to rape, and to do things that they would never be allowed to do in their own countries. So children and women and young girls are suddenly fair game – and these are the people who are supposed to be protecting them!

“And then some rat-bastard from a terror group comes along and distributes weapons to all of the people who now hate the west – with good reason – and the whole sorry cycle starts all over again, and again, and again.”

“Not this time,” Shahan said. “I won’t let it happen. This place will become the garden of Eden instead of the horror zone it was before the war.”

“You didn’t do badly,” Bloodnok said. “I’ve served under worse. Look, a delegation from the city is coming out; they want to meet the new masters.”

In the end, it hadn’t been anything like as bad as Shahan had feared. The city leaders, men who’d remained underground for nearly ten years, had emerged. A quick revolution – half of the remaining Saudis had been killed by their sex-slaves – and the city was ready to welcome its new masters.

Explaining what was happening proved harder. The Royal Family, the one that had nearly been crushed by Ibn Saud, had been expecting to become the new rulers again. To be told that they would not be rulers, but equal partners had shocked them, the more so because of the new civil code that Shahan had instituted at once. The new army didn’t loot or rape, something that the rulers were grateful for, but their insistence on personal liberty was almost as shocking.

Still, the remains of the Saudis regrouped at Riyadh. Shahan had secured his rear area by distributing land and property to the new city council, and sent his mobile force on ahead. It failed to catch Ibn Saud; the master of the desert had blended back into the desert, perhaps heading back to his homeland. Patrols were a waste of time, he discovered; Ibn Saud was a master at hiding from hostile patrols. Discovering his harem, with all the women raped and murdered, had shocked the Muslims to the core; several of the new Imams were all for pronouncing a Jihad there and then.

“I suspect that you will have to guard the new buildings for some time,” Bloodnok observed, as the newcomers began to work. The water-cleansing factory was a wonder to the Arabs; they watched it at work with glee. Indoor plumbing, teaching, and basic science – and the death penalty for selling daughters – was slowly changing them. As time passed, the new system became larger and larger; newcomers from Britain were changing the shape of the nation.

“I think that we might have made a difference,” Shahan observed, as another evening drew to a close. There was fighting all over the world, in many different places, but, for once, there was peace in the holy land.