Second Chance

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Strike South

HIMS Yamato

Japan

22^nd September 1940

The Yamato was not fit for sea, not yet. Despite a massive effort, costing more money and resources than Yamamoto wanted to think about, the Combined Fleet would go to war without the ships it had enjoyed in the first war, a year in an alternate future. All of the other uncompleted battleships, except Yamato, had been cancelled; they would be converted into carriers and support ships for the carrier groups. Still, as Yamamoto’s flagship, the battleship was still officially in the fleet, even if it would not leave the harbour of one of Japan’s most important naval bases.

Yamamoto scowled. The fleet that was moving into position, slowly, but steadily, was nowhere near as powerful as the one that had fought in the shadowy alternate future, but it faced a weaker enemy. Perhaps, Yamamoto reminded himself; the British had managed to establish an air-link across their empire, despite Soviet interference.

“I told them not to trust the Russians,” Yamamoto snapped, knowing that there was no one in his stateroom to hear. Openly expressed disagreement with the Emperor – as represented by the War Cabinet – was considered treason, and you never knew who might have been subverted by the militarists. The Russian attack had stalled while they brought up their supplies and rearmed. For the first time in years, Yamamoto approved of the Army’s belief in the minimalist approach; the Russians wanted too much equipment and supplies for their advance, as well as purging the northern region of Iran of possible enemies.

He shook his head. It was the most complex action in the history of the Japanese Navy, and Yamamoto knew how dangerous it was. It wasn’t as complex as the one that had been launched in the other future, but it was against an enemy who was a dangerous unknown. Even the Germans hadn’t been able to provide a nuclear shield… and Yamamoto knew where the new plagues in China had come from.

“No, I am loyal,” he said to himself, and scowled. The attacks would go in, and they would succeed, and Japan would be triumphant. Even with the new technology, the British Empire in the Far East was weak; India with internal troubles and Australia with limited forces. Australia could be driven out of the war; Yamamoto had insisted on offering them good terms, once the first round of the fighting came to a close.

Angrily, he stood up, ceremonial sword clattering at his hip, and marched into the next stateroom. The Ambassador from the future waited there; he’d given her the stateroom in hopes of tapping her future knowledge. She looked up as he entered; a beautiful face, wrapped around with dark brown hair… and worry in her eyes. She was attractive, Yamamoto knew, and strange. He didn’t think that anyone would ever marry her; too much intelligence in women was a dangerous thing.

“The attack is about to begin?” Yurina asked. Her voice, firm and resilient, was weaker than it had been; the shock of finding herself in the past had stunned her. “You are about to commit Japan on the path to destruction?”

Her voice infuriated him. He felt like slapping her, like drawing his sword and slicing her open, just to silence her. “This time, they won’t make the mistake of even letting us regain economic strength, let alone military power,” she snapped. “This war…”

“This war has been commanded by the Emperor,” Yamamoto said, and knew that it was a lie. “We will force them out of the Pacific, giving us time to develop new weapons.”

“Is that the lie the Germans have told you?” Yurina asked. “You don’t have time! It takes years to develop advanced technology; even with a complete list of instructions, which you don’t have.”

“Silence,” Yamamoto snapped. Her face was very close; her eyes glaring into his. “You have a duty to help us!”

Yurina, inanely, giggled. “Admiral, do what you will. Attack Australia. Attack China. Attack India. You will still lose! Do as you want in the fullest exercise of free will; you will lose! The odds are so highly stacked against you that no amount of martial glory will dispel them.”

“We are going to attack Singapore and the Dutch East Indies,” Yamamoto said. “They have had very little time to defend them, and then we will move on to Australia, should the government refuse to leave the war.”

Yurina smiled. “Why should they trust your word?” She asked. “They don’t like you, and after this they won’t trust you at all.”

“The choice will be between abandoning the war, and Britain, on good terms, or being invaded,” Yamamoto said. He felt fury rising through him; how dare the woman question his decisions. A dull ache within his chest suggested the reason. He knew the odds against them; Yurina was putting his fears into words.

“They won’t submit,” Yurina said. “Why should they? Its not as if you can beat them.”

“We have to win,” Yamamoto said. “What other choice is there?”

“Only the one you never considered,” Yurina snapped. “The choice not to fight at all.”

Singapore Naval Base

Singapore

22^nd September 1940

General Flynn allowed himself a quick smile, before cursing. They could have held Gibraltar, but the fucking politicians had insisted on giving it up, although not without bleeding the Spanish white first. Unfortunately, Singapore was a far harder place to defend, and the air bridge wasn’t as useful as he’d anticipated. He had nine Contemporary divisions and a scratch force of 2015 soldiers to hold Singapore, and his stockpile of weapons was lower than he’d dared fear.

He scowled. The natives operated on a rigid class system, one that refused to admit the value of non-whites, which had nearly led to one riot already when a black infantryman had refused to kowtow in front of a Contemporary businessman. The Europeans didn’t seem inclined to worry about the Japanese threat; their main objection had been to their precious golf course being converted into a temporary landing area for VTOL aircraft. The plans for creating a governing council, one that would allow all of the citizens to vote, had been greeted with united opposition.

Anyone would think that they wanted the Japanese to win, he thought bitterly, examining the map again. Historically, the Japanese had landed in Siam – Thailand – and advanced down; now the Japanese had been moving troops and supplies in for weeks. The SAS detachment, observing the Japanese from long distance, noted that the Japanese were preparing what seemed an overland offensive, discarding the thought of an amphibious invasion.

Bastards, he thought, glowering down at the pictures. His plan, Operation Matador II, had been intended to hit the Japanese as they landed, but Sir Josiah Cosby, the Contemporary British Ambassador in Siam, had warned that the Japanese were nearly completely in control of Siam. Thousands of troops was a potent argument for toeing the Japanese line, and Flynn knew that attacking the Japanese would be futile.

I need more forces, he thought, and studied the map. The decision to concentrate on India and Singapore was a good one – he’d assisted the PJHQ to design the plan – but it depended on holding Singapore. What Contemporary naval forces there were, Royal Navy and Royal Indian Navy, would be unable to save Singapore if the fortress was breached. Unfortunately, he was grimly certain that it would get nasty…

“I trust that you supermen from the future are working on how to save us,” a snide upper-class voice remarked. Flynn hid his scowl, smiling as cheerfully as possible at the speaker, Sir Shenton Whitelegge Thomas, Governor of Singapore.

“It didn’t work the first time around,” Flynn said, scowling. Thomas had been one of the leaders of the campaign against equal rights, which had nearly sparked off a race riot. “Look; who was the dumbass who called this place a fortress?”

“Whitehall,” Thomas said, putting a wealth of disdain into the word. “Can here be defended?”

Flynn scowled. “Look,” he said. “Across the border, the Japanese are building up their forces,” he said. “They’ve clearly thought through some of the consequences of the future knowledge and moved to counter them; we can’t launch our own invasion now.”

“Why not?” Thomas said. “The little yellow men won’t pose a threat…”

“The little yellow men, as you put it, are a superbly trained and determined army,” Flynn snapped. “Their equipment is rubbish, and if I had a handful of proper tanks, I could really clean up. But I don’t; so I have to improvise.”

He waved a hand at the map. “Ideally, I would meet the Japanese in one of the defence lines we’re building, and what a fuss your people made about conscripting everyone without a proper job to build them, but I don’t have the manpower to guarantee holding them.” He scowled. “And as I have only twelve Harriers here, I cannot guarantee that the Japanese won’t manage to land more troops behind our lines.”

“There are the aircraft here,” Thomas objected. “The torpedo-bombers…”

“Scrap,” Flynn snapped, dismissing them with a wave of his hand. “If the Japanese commit a carrier to support the invasion force, the Zeros will make short work of them. In the meantime, the Japanese will secure Malaya and then push down to us, unless the fleet arrives in time.”

“Well, I have confidence in your ability to hold them,” Thomas said. “However, I must protest at the detention of dozens of Japanese citizens, an action that will only provoke Japan into…”

“Those citizens are spies,” Flynn snapped. One of them, a hairdresser, would have starred prominently in the first invasion of Singapore, a universe away. “We don’t let spies run around behind our backs.”

“But a number of prominent citizens are unhappy,” Thomas said. “They say that you and your men are undermining the social structure of Singapore, and convincing chinamen that they are our equals, and worse. You’ve given away India to a bunch of rag-tag fakers and your coolie troops are…”

He broke off; Flynn was holding a knife to his throat. “If I was you, I wouldn’t take it any further,” Flynn said, as casually as he could. “Those… coolies are British citizens, many of whom have lived in Britain longer than you have, Governor. My orders are to defend this place, even though it doesn’t deserve a single life from one of my people. I will carry out my orders or die trying.

“Understand; we don’t care about the Empire,” he snapped. “By the time I was born, in 1975, the Empire was gone! There are many of the former subjects in Britain now, equal citizens. You have the choice between allowing them equality now, here, or having them take it by force later! Do you imagine that the Japanese aren’t stupid enough to use the racial divisions against Singapore?”

“The Japanese won’t incite a colonial revolt,” Thomas said, his mind dimly realising that it was required to comment. “It would blow up in their faces as well…”

“The Japanese have begun cleansing their territories of non-Japanese,” Flynn snapped. “They are more then willing to scream ‘Asia for the Asians’ and use it; you, sir, offer them nothing. My force, which does include some of their descendents, can only operate as an equal to your people.”

Thomas sat down heavily. Flynn felt a flicker of sympathy; his attaché had reported that Thomas was coming under heavy pressure to get rid of the ‘coolie and nigger troops’ before the pressure cooker exploded. The Chinese, Malaysians and Indians had heard about the changes in India – and they wanted in. They wanted equality – and some of them were preparing to fight to get it. A bizarre mixture of Communists, nationalists and Japanese-supporters were preparing trouble, and he knew that his force would be unable to stop them.

“General,” Thomas said, “if the Japanese don’t come quickly, I fear that we will destroy ourselves before they come.”

“That would be bad,” Flynn said. “Might I suggest widening the franchise?”

“You know I can’t,” Thomas said. Flynn shrugged. “They would never allow it.”

Flynn shook his head, dismissing Thomas, and turned back to the map. Siam’s position was nasty; their border with Malaya was long and seriously undefended. Absently, he wished for the Australian divisions, but they had been sent to Australia itself. The building of a modern airport was going slower than he’d feared; some of the builders had gone on strike and the established interests had had fits.

“Give me a week, two weeks, and I’ll hold this place,” he addressed the map. “Before then… well, I can offer nothing.”

Nearly a hundred miles due north, General Tomoyuki Yamashita glared down at the map and scowled. There were only two large roads leading to Singapore, one on each side of the peninsula, and he was certain that both of them would be defended. It was what he would have done. His sudden summoning from China, to take command of nearly sixty thousand Japanese troops – and thousand more Chinese coolies – had been a surprised to him, but the news of the future had been worse.

“We have to force the British out of Malaya,” the Army Minister had ordered, and Yamashita shuddered when he thought of the cost. No wonder a semi-disgraced officer had been offered – given – the command, and one who would win a similar battle in an…

Yamashita shook his head. It hurt whenever he thought of it. There was a fascinating amount of data in the files the Germans had sent, and according to the War Cabinet all that could be checked had proven accurate. Still, he knew that whoever was commanding the British forces, one of the 2015 commanders according to one of the dozens of Japanese spies within the city, would know the history better than he would – and would take steps against a repeat.

The map was as detailed as thousands of Japanese agents could make it, even if the British had suddenly rounded up many of the agents. Already, clashes had been reported between Japanese bicycle scouts and a handful of British units; Yamashita knew that he could not rely on his advance being unobserved. In fact, he had taken care to ensure that some of the bridge and railway engineers – veterans of the China War – would be attached to his advance. He was confident that the British would collapse the bridges; it was what he would have done. The British would see him coming, but would they see the scouts moving through the bad terrain?

It was a pity, Yamashita decided, that the Japanese navy would only launch an invasion towards the end of the campaign. A carrier had been allocated to the fleet; a battleship, a handful of cruisers and a small fleet of transports, which would support the Air Force in supporting the army. Still, even without the navy, the Japanese army was invincible.

Darkness was falling and Yamashita issued his final orders. The main advance began tomorrow, so the scouts had to go back into the jungle. The British had to be swept from the path of the advance.

“Nippy little bastards, aren’t they,” Captain Dwynn muttered. His subvocalised comment was broadcast to the other members of the small force; the Japanese had never deployed any communication interception equipment, even if they had suspected their presence they couldn’t even hope to detect the signals.

“Now what would our esteemed primitive cousins think?” Corporal Chang subvocalised back. A fourth-generation Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong, his position within the troop had been challenged in a major bar fight in Singapore. “You know; this is the time of Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips. We have to set a good example.”

“And we’ll set it by killing Japs,” Sergeant Vash muttered. The big burly officer, almost too large to be an SAS man, checked the night-vision scope. All of the SAS team wore basic vision helmets, which allowed them near-perfect night vision, and needed no light. Nor did the Japanese scouts; five of them, showing up perfectly in infrared, moved carefully along the road, weapons extended.

“Keep it down,” Dwynn subvocalised. He didn’t mind chatter – an SAS team was too small for a strict chain of command – but they were in the field. Admittedly, the Japanese field craft was lousy, even by 2015 standards, but their weapons could still kill. “Chang, transmit the contact report to Singapore.”

“Want to bet they ignore it?” Chang asked, but he did as he was ordered. “Bastards only want their own pleasures, nothing to do with us.”

“But think of some of the pleasures,” Vash subvocalised. “Who would have thought that Indian women worked as whores?”

“You’re not allowed to talk anymore,” Dwynn subvocalised back. The team had been astonished by the hypocrisy of the racial chain on Singapore; it wasn’t cricket to marry a Chinese woman, but it was permitted – and winked at – for a man to visit a Chinese brothel, or an Indian brothel, or a Russian one, every woman there an escaped princess. “I’m sure those women had something unpleasant.”

“AIDS isn’t due for years,” Chang said. The brothels, at least, had been happy to take his money. “Anything else; the medics can take care of with ease.”

“You’re all nuts,” Corporal Plummer subvocalised. “The odds are that AIDS started here. You should suffer for your excesses; that’s how you know they’re excesses.”

“Shut up,” Dwynn snapped. His orders were starting to print out on his helmet screen; a subvocalised command shared the compressed file with the rest of the team. The orders were clear; sneak closer and try to determine if the Japanese were moving up tanks and lorries, or if it was just a probe, like the Contemporary scouts had beaten off from time to time over the last week. “Everyone understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Vash subvocalised, after everyone had muttered agreement.

“Then move out,” Dwynn said. “Plummer, take point; Chang, hold your weapon ready and stand by, but only fire on my command.”

The darkness seemed to grow more oppressive as the SAS team moved closer to the Japanese position. The Japanese light-discipline was better than Dwynn expected; there were only hints of lights through the jungle. Audio-discrimination programs built into their helmets identified the noises of vehicles revving up, preparing for action.

“I think that this is it,” Plummer subvocalised, as they came over a ridge and looked down. A handful of Japanese tanks stood on the road, preparing to move forward. Chinese coolies worked hard, whipped whenever they slowed, to load trucks; a small group were being chained to the front of lorries.

“What the hell is the point of that?” Vash asked. Even his attitude had grown darker as the sight unfolded itself in front of them. “What are they doing? Pulling the lorry along?”

“I think they’re mine detectors,” Chang said. His professionalism slipped slightly. “They walk over a mine… boom!”

“Bastards,” Vash muttered. “Sir, I recommend attacking them.”

“What, on our own?” Dwynn asked. He checked his helmet; it was transmitting a report of their sighting to Singapore. “No, Chang; our task is to watch and wait.”