If anyone can get the Germans to deliver something useful, Reinhardt will, thought McKinlay, as the call was being put through. Known throughout the German army as die Lange—or “Lofty,” on account of his great height—soldiering was in Jacobsen’s DNA. His grandfather had parachuted into Crete in 1941 with the Luftwaffe’s elite Ramcke Parachute Brigade and there had never been any question in Jacobsen’s mind that he, too, would be a soldier. A panzer commander to the core, he assured McKinlay that 1st Panzer Division was being mobilized and that Germany had already agreed bilaterally with Poland that it would be reinforced by 10th Polish Armored Cavalry Brigade—all up, around 15,000 men and 150 tanks.

“And David, if you can get the Brits to deploy HQ Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, we’d like to put First Panzer under command of it. That’s an organization which has kept the capability for commanding war-fighting operations and we trust it,” concluded Jacobsen.

The next call was to General Jock Kydd in London.

With the beeps on the Brent secure phone again indicating that speech was secure, Kydd greeted McKinlay as an old friend. “Dave, you bastard. Good to speak. What a fucking shambles. Never mind, we’ll sort it out.”

McKinlay briefed Kydd on the NAC decision to take forward the planning and asked what UK could offer. It was clear that there’d been a change of atmosphere in London with the new leadership after the disaster of HMS Queen Elizabeth. Kydd ran through the proposal; the armed forces had been put on a war footing and reserves had been called up, but would take time to be processed.

Kydd began to fulminate about the idiocy of replacing battle-hardened professionals with theoretical reserves, but McKinlay cut him off. “That horse has long bolted, Jock. Just do what you can with what you’ve got.”

“Sorry, Dave. It’s just that, of all the stupid, fucking, irresponsible gambles, that one takes the shagging biscuit.” And so he moved on to the new Royal Navy task group that was being put together under HMS Ocean and the second amphibious ship, HMS Albion, with a Royal Marine commando embarked to support the American Second Marine Expeditionary Force. Meanwhile, every available RAF aircraft was now fully integrated into allied air operational planning. As for the Army, Kydd had put the British 16th Air Assault Brigade under command of the American 82nd Airborne Division, while the ARRC, Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, headquarters was preparing to deploy to Poland.