Jock looked down at the little man in his path. He was more than half as high again and possibly twice as broad. Either the smaller man had a vastly inflated ego, or there was more to him than met the eye. Or possibly both.

Jock had met a number of small but wiry men in the forces, and quite often they could give a surprisingly good account of themselves. He wasn't about to underestimate any friend of Georgia's, and in any case it looked like they were all on the same team.

He slowed as he approached, and waited for Georgia to make the introductions.

"Yes, he's one of us. Glad to see you, Jock", Mrs. Taylor said and handed him the ticket, "We've still got about ten minutes to the off."

Those boarding could see this was a non-smoking compartment; Taylor hated tobacco.

"I haven't got the money for First Class at the moment", Georgia said as she placed her bags in the luggage rack above the seats and then sat down by the left-side door opposite where they'd boarded, "I'll need it for the mission".

She then pulled a book out of the shopping bag, placing it on her lap face down, so the title wasn't visible.

Once the five of them had taken their seats, she turned to Andrei.

"Close the door please". Once this was done, Taylor looked around them.

"I've received word of a rather amazing and incredible discovery in Germany. This is going to sound frankly preposterous, but you'll need to hear me out."

She paused and opened the book, which was hollow and concealed some photographs and paperwork.

"One of my friends is a woman named Rebekka Winter. She's a mathematician from Germany and as she's a Jewess, she's not exactly popular with Mr. Hitler at the moment. She is trying to emigrate to Palestine or the United States.

What is of more immediate concern is her uncle, Jakob. Jakob is an electrical engineer by trade... and involved in the trade union movement. He was arrested a while back and disappeared into the concentration camp system. Now he's managed to get a message out to his niece."

She pulled out the letter.

"He's telling me that he's been shipped to somewhere near Breslau - that's in Silesia near the Polish and Czecho-Slovak border - where he's working to reverse engineer a death ray found on a crashed flying saucer."

Dixon looks at the No Smoking sign, sighs, and puts away his cigarettes.

He takes out a rather battered flask and sips at it as he listens to Georgia's spiel, offering it to the others. (It's full of gin.)

"Hah! Pull the other one, dearie. It's got bells on," he grins.

Andrei moves aside to allow Jock in the train car, bowing slightly to the man.



Andrei looks uncomfortable.  He wouldn't have been surprised to hear of something supernatural, but he wasn't certain he believed the notion of a flying saucer.

After shaking hands with everyone and settling in the compartment, Charlotte listened to Georgia's tale.

"Death rays? Sounds like something Mr Burroughs would dream up."

She spoke quickly, giving away her excitement.

Jock returned the polite gesture with a nod of his own.

"Sorry ah'm late, caught some sleekit wee jobbie wi' his fingers in a lassie's purse. He'll no be dippin' purses wi his fingers in splints, nor fae some time after, I'll be bound.

"Dougal Tavish. Friends call me Jock." He offered his hand to anyone who would take it.

"Flyin' saucers? Well, that's one step up from rockets. We'll need tae check it oot, whether it's true or nae. We cannae have that Hitler loon gettin' the drop on us wi a death ray."

Daniel cast a sideways glance at Charlotte. She was quite the excitable type. Pretty and excitable. A lethal combination under the right circumstances. He shared Dick's view on the subject but life on the streets had taught him not to judge a book by its cover. He was forming alternate theories as to the origin of the 'death ray' himself.

"Or Wells", he said, adding to Charlotte's literary comment. "But science fiction tends to have a basis in fact. Aint that right, Mrs T? I'm guessin' that even though you've got no evidence of little green men you've got good reason to believe there's some truth in this tale?"

Georgia declined the gin, as she was a teetotaller. She'd seen what alcohol had done to her father. Well, he'd already been a bigot.

"I've got good reason in that there are some sketches of what these death rays supposedly look like."

She pulled out some more paper and passed it around. On it was a reasonably well done drawing of what looked like a dark green small machine gun with a rounded box for a clip, with some unearthly writing on it.

Dixon caps his flask and shoves it down into his valise.

"Ah, well, Georgia luv," he says as he rummages through his bag, "Literary references aside, what is it exactly that you mean us to do?

"Ohoh! Got it!" He brandishes his British passport for the others to see.

"I'm guessing she wants us to steal that gun", said Daniel. He was no stranger to crime, even though he found it distasteful and tried to keep his nose clean. In this case he guessed they would be stealing it from someone bad who wanted to use it for something bad so morally at least he was in the right place.

"But to me it looks like a well drawn machine gun in tasteful green with some wierd symbols on it. How do you know its a death ray? Even if it belongs to little green men, it could be their version of a water pistol."

Jock shrugged his large shoulders. "We still have tae go, whatever it turns oot to be.

"I'll mention the elephant in the room, too - do we bring the lassie's uncle out wi us? And what aboot his fellow prisoners? Or are we just stealing the gun?"

"No", Georgia said, "She wants them destroyed. The SS who run this place have been testing the weapons on some of their prisoners. It basically turns you into smoking ash, apparently. She doesn't want any nation to get their hands on them, or work out how to make their own copies."

There was a series of whistles, a cry of "All aboard". A few more seconds passed and then there was a further whistle, before the train started to move out of the station.

"We'll try to get as many out as we can, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to sneak over the border into Poland."

Jock seemed surprised, but covered it with a toothy grin. "Destroying things is a lot easier than stealing them, but I'm not sure how patriotic that is. Glad to hear we'll be doing our bit for the prisoners, though."

Daniel went pale at the description of what the weapon could do.

"Definately not a water pistol then", he remarked. "We might also wanna think about looking for any plans they may have drawn up too. Destroy sketches and design notes and reverse engineering stuff. Won't want them trying to build another one after we've destroyed the original."

Andrei passes the sketches of the gun along without doing more than glancing at them.  Engineering wasn't his area of expertise.

"If there is a flying saucer," he says, "then we must destroy it as well.  There may be other devices in it we also do not wish the Nazis to obtain."

"So, Miss Taylor, are we bound for the Romford Aerodrome now and is Poland our intermediate destination? Whereabouts is this camp anyway?

"And how the bloody hell (excuse me, Miss Silk) does one destroy a death ray gun?"

"If you mean Stapleford, not immediately. The next flight isn't until the morning for Paris and with the weather forecast as is, there's a decent chance it will be rained off... if we can even get seats on board their aircraft. Only ten passengers, you see.

I'll give it a go, but we may have to get the train and ferry instead. Train to Harwich, probably Monday morning. Boat across to Flushing. Overnight train to Berlin, then another service from there. I can get us through tickets for that."

She looked through the letter.

"As for the place. It's apparently some factory near Breslau, but he wasn't able to pin it down precisely. We'll have to look around."

The train clattered its way at a decent speed through Coborn Road station, as an express train went past them in the opposite direction on the fast lines to their south.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:17, Sat 06 Apr 2019.

"Explosives, perhaps," Andrei offers.  "Or perhaps acid? I am not a scientist.  Would a research facility have some quantity of either?"

"If we could get to a phone or telegram office I could make some calls to see if I can get us some chemicals or explosives", Daniel offered. "Wouldn't strictly be legal, though", he added.

"I have a telephone in my office", Georgia said, "As for telegrams, the Post Office in Romford handles them all the time."

She looked and then remembered something.

"Of course, it's market day today! There's a stall there that sells black powder and various things like that."

"A big enough hammer can wreck most things." offered Jock. It wasn't immediately obvious whether he was joking.

"Er... Aren't explosives illegal to own? Ten years hard labour, if I remember correctly.

"Hammers are probably better."

"We are infiltrating Germany to destroy possibly alien weapons," Andrei says, "and you are worried about whether it is illegal or not to own explosives?"

He raises his eyebrows just a bit.  "I suspect that before we are finished, that will be the least of our concerns."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:33, Sat 06 Apr 2019.

"Yes, that is true. We've got a few logistics things to take care of first in any event."

There was a brief woosh as a train went past them in the opposite direction on the next track over.

"Firstly, none of us speak German. This is going to be a bit of an issue when it comes to, well, going to Germany. Fortunately, I know a man who does. His name is Leopold Key - Austrian by birth, came over here about ten years ago. Doctor by trade; he works at the Oldchurch County Hospital, mostly dealing with acute cases. TB in particular, but he served as a medic on the Italian Front in the war.

He's Jewish himself, but not obviously so, although he might need some persuasion to go on this trip.

In any event, he's a fan of the greyhounds and I'm going to meet him tonight at Romford dog track. Suggest you all come along and make an evening of it; might be the last real fun we have in a while..."

She looked over some notes, then briefly removed her hat to run her fingers through her hair.

"Anyway, how are you lot with bicycles?"

"Well... You know they say you never forget," Dixon says brightly, "During the War, I became quite competent on a motorbike. Say, what about motorcycles for transport?"

"Look here, hadn't we devise some sort of cover story to explain the presence of such a large group of foreigners?"