Jack Davies found Thorne as he made his way through the main base a few minutes later, heading for the briefing at the officer’s mess.
“There y’are, boy,” the Texan called out with a characteristic, toothy smile as he drew near. “The whole goddamn base is looking out for you!”
“I’m sure it’s not the whole base,” Thorne countered wryly, “but I take it from your presence that the rest of Hindsight have arrived?” He shrugged, turning his head momentarily back over his shoulder. “I was up at the cemetery,” he explained. “Just wanted to say goodbye and all…”
“I gather Lloyd and Walters are playing with the band at the OR’s mess after the briefing,” Davies changed the subject to more pleasant matters, nodding respectfully in response to what Thorne had said. “Rumour has it you’re sitting in with ‘em tonight too…”
“Yeah… Evan conned me into it… two of the band members shipped out on Warspite…” There was little else to be said about that as Davies grimaced at the news. “So they needed a guitarist and a vocalist. Happy to help out anyway: from what I’ve heard, the boys have made a bit of an impact with the rest of the mess there. Evan’s a bloody good guitarist himself, and I believe Walters can play a mean piano too.”
“Shame about the vocalist… apparently the guy was so damn good he almost made trad jazz worth listening to!”
“Philistine,” Thorne snapped back, ignoring the fact that he was no great fan of traditional jazz either.
“Does this mean you’re gonna be singing as well?” There was a dubious tone in the Texan’s voice that made Thorne feel faintly defensive, as had been the mischievous intention.
“I may not be Placido Domingo, mate, but I can hold a bloody tune if I have to, I’ll have you know,” he shot back indignantly as Davies grinned broadly, “however, in this case I thought it might be better for someone else to take on that job…” Thorne gave his own evil smile as he continued. “I got Evan to sneak into Eileen’s locker and bring across her sheet music…”
“You are one dirty son-of-a-bitch…!” Davies grinned, catching on.
“Hey, if we’re gonna have a show, we might as well have the best, and her singing pisses all over anything I could do,” Thorne replied honestly. “Now run along and tell ‘em I’m on my way… and don’t let her find out what we’re up to either…!”
“No chance of that, buddy! I’m stayin’ right outta this one: Eileen’s still pissed at me for letting Trumbull take off in the Lightning…”
“Well, by the time I’m finished tonight, the heat should well and truly be off you lot and right back on me anyway, so I shouldn’t worry too much about it!” He gave Davies a conspiratorial pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be down shortly…” and with that, the Texan nodded and headed off ahead as Thorne slowly continued his silent walk of solitude back toward the main base area.
The briefing at the OR’s mess wasn’t overly long, but the information it provided had gained everyone’s attention. A movie screen had been set up on a metal stand against the far wall, between the bar and the small stage, and a projection unit connected to a laptop PC sat on a small table several metres away. The whole of the Hindsight unit were gathered there in groups around the nearest tables, all watching expectantly as their CO prepared to speak while holding an infra-red remote unit in one hand to control the images on the presentation.
“Some of what we’re about to go over here will already be known to some of you, but we’re going to go over everything anyway. These images have been picked up from a variety of intelligence sources all over Britain, including footage taken by myself, and by Squadron Leader Trumbull… including the following pictures…” He keyed the remote, and the first of the photographs he’d taken flashed up onto the screen.
“As you can all see,” he continued, noting the expected ripple of recognition through most of those present, “the enemy has been hard at work in this era. These P-1 Weisel tanks are clearly almost direct copies of the British FV107 Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle, including the thirty millimetre calibre of the main gun… although we believe the Weisel is armed with a variant of the powerful, fast-firing MK-101 aircraft gun, rather than a hand-loaded weapon similar to the Scimitar’s RARDEN cannon. Like the Scimitar, the Weisel is lightly armoured with aluminium alloy, which isn’t much chop against anything better than small arms fire or maybe standard fifty-cal rounds, but that does also mean it’s bloody light — less than ten tonnes — and that makes it air-droppable… something the Krauts have made bloody good use of in securing airfields and forward supply points in the first hours of the invasion this morning. The MK-101 cannon also packs a powerful punch, and with tungsten-cored ammo it can punch through around three inches of armour… enough to take care of most of its likely opposition on a good day.” He changed images to that of another pair of armoured vehicles: the larger P-2D Luchs and P-3C Fuchs tanks.
“The ‘Lynx’ light tank here — what they call a ‘P-2’ — is nothing like the Panzer Two we knew in Realtime, and also appears to be a very close copy of another design, this time the American M24 Chaffee. The seventy-five millimetre cannon it’s armed with is a medium-velocity weapon that we believe to be identical to the Chaffee’s lightweight M6 gun, and although it’s nowhere near the power of the German’s ‘eighty-eight’, it’s certainly proven to be a huge improvement in hitting power over the thirty-seven mil weapons or ‘short’ seventy-fives their Realtime medium tanks carried. The Fuchs P-3C in the same picture is the first evidence of developmental originality we became aware of, and appears to be an enlarged version of the P-2 rather than a copy of another design. Both have already proven their effectiveness in Poland and France, and have also been making their presence felt during the invasion…” he paused, before adding “…although, they’ve been somewhat upstaged by a new ‘kid on the block’ that made its combat debut today… something we’ve previously been completely unaware of…” He changed to the next image.
“This shot is of an unidentified model of main battle tank.” A ripple of recognition again made its way through the group. “Unidentified to the allies, that is, however we at Hindsight recognise it as a close copy of the Realtime Soviet T-55 medium tank. The only major variance on the copied design appears to be the mounting of a Flak-36 eighty-eight millimetre main gun, rather than the larger calibre weapon one would’ve expected fitted to a T-55…” He allowed himself a wry smile. “It would appear our interception of that last transport carrying their heavy armaments research and data had an impact after all, now we’ve seen what those 105mm main guns were intended for.” There was some faint laughter as he changed pictures once more. The next view was a montage of three pictures — one each of vehicles the Wehrmacht classified as a P-6A Marder infantry fighting vehicle, a P-9B Nashorn self-propelled assault gun, and a P-11A Wirbelwind mobile flak.